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Vietnam cost summary – 35 days with road trips!

by Vietnam

Here are some videos of some of the fun times I had during my time in Vietnam: 

I wanted to take the slow travel approach when I planned this trip. 

Slow travel is a deliberate, unhurried approach to exploring destinations, emphasizing meaningful experiences, and cultural immersion. Here are some benefits of slow travel using my experience to date:

– I learned more about Vietnam and its culture other than just the tourist traps. ✅

 

– Slow travel can help you save money on accommodations as I rented monthly and took local transportation. ✅

 

– It allowed me to relish my surroundings, build a routine, and live like a local. ✅

 

– Slow travel reduces stress levels as you are not always on the go (I took too many road trips). ❌

 

– It promotes me visiting local restaurants and engaging in local cultural events (TET – Chinese New Year). ✅

 

– It is the polar opposite of an all-inclusive vacation resort vacation as you’re living like a local. This is a strategy that I need to prioritize now that I am taking a run at full-time travel!

 

 

I did well on the Vietnam leg of my trip but there is always room for improvement. I took too many road trips which brought the cost up. I knew I could do that as it happens the first time, I visit a new country.

Here is a summary of the approximate costs to see how they stack up against my USD $2K monthly budget.

~ USD 600 for accommodations ($420 for Homebase and $180 for road trip Airbnb’s)

~ USD 750 for credit card. (broken down below).

~$800 cash ($200 a week cash for incidentals).

~$2150+ (I would assume this is a bit higher, but this is a summary).

 

 

Here are my Airbnb accommodations:

(I rented the first one for the whole time and the others were road trips)

 

I stayed at some of these places for a few nights, but this gives you an idea of what you get for a very low nightly price.  I will use an average price of $15 a night for the 12 days I was on road trips away from home base HCMC.

 

I used my credit card, when possible, to track my spending after the fact:

This allows me to see where some of my money was spent.

Credit card charges: ~$750

Since I spent a lot of money on my road trips, it skews the actual cost of living in Vietnam.  I can tell you without a doubt in my mind that I could live like a king for $2K a month in any of the cities in Vietnam I visited.

Here is the order of cities I would choose when returning to Vietnam:

1. Phu Quoc Island (one of the most beautiful Islands I have ever visited).

2. Da Nang (there was a huge EXPAT community making it feel domestic)

3. Nah Trang (there was also a huge EXPAT community making it feel domestic)

I would choose one of these for one month each the next time I return to Asia.

One month in The Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia, and, Thailand.  I would just need to decide which cities in the other three Countries to keep my costs down with monthly rent. 

Since I have visited all of these Countries, here are my current choices as of today:

– Thailand (Koh Samui – it is also an easy ferry ride to Koh Phagan and Koh Tao as they were all my favorite islands).

– Philippines (Siquijor Island – it was also my favorite place I visited).

– Vietnam (Phu Quoc Island)

– Cambodia (Phnom Penh – it is the only place I have visited but it is very nice and inexpensive). 

The key is to pick a place that also can access other places for inexpensive road trips. This keeps things from getting boring being stuck in the same spot for the whole time.

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Phu Quoc, Vietnam – This place is amazing!

by Vietnam

I arrived in Vietnam on January 14th, 2025, and left on February 18th; five weeks or exactly 35 days!

It has been an up-and-down experience but mission accomplished. I found the areas I would and could live for under $2K. Right off the bat, I know I could live almost anywhere in Vietnam comfortably on my budget. It is now up to me to weigh the pros and cons of each city when I decide to come back.

I will write a separate blog with my budget for each city along with the probability of me returning.

Today, I want to focus on my last stop, the amazing Island of Phu Quoc, Vietnam. The hotel and Phem Beach are one of the nicest beaches I have experienced in the world. It has everything you would want on a long-term stay. I am unsure if it fits the vacation criteria as it is too hard to get here for a week or two weeks from North America on a budget. Anything can be done by Daddy Warbucks so do it if you can!  

Here is my $15 a night Airbnb/hotel with a four-minute walk to beach beers:

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53 times around the sun – Addicted to full time travel! 🌎

by Vietnam

We all love to travel and find good deals, right? 

I started this website to share my love for saving money while traveling. It may not have the best grammar, editing, or whatever you can judge me for, but it has been fun. People have reached out asking about some of the deals and how I can help which is my goal. If you want ideas, you can reach me via WhatsApp or email from the homepage.

I also understand that this website is not for everyone as we are different. It’s ok, I hope you take a look anyway!

Birthdays have never been my favorite, but I appreciate the handful of awesome people who reached out. I might not remember birthdays, but I think of all of you, but it may not be on your birthday. 

I have come a long way, kinda! I still like cake and had the same amount of people at this year’s birthday. LOL

I spent my 53rd birthday doing what I love, traveling and eating cake! (I actually had Pho and a beer)!

After getting laid off in February 2024, I spent the last 12 months traveling so I welcomed 53, I planned to wait until 55.

Mexico-Guatemala-Costa Rica-Peru-Chile-Argentina- Uruguay-Arizona-Philippines and now Vietnam. I am traveling trying to understand which Countries I can live in for my $2K USD budget and all of those passed the test.  How confusing!!

We never know where our future will take us but having the time freedom and financial freedom to travel has been amazing.

    

Cambodia, Thailand, Laos, Europe, Scotland, and Ireland are on my radar for this trip but my mind changes daily.

So far, I have a $244 USD flight booked to Athens, Greece on March 22nd.  

I also have a ~$200 USD flight home to Phoenix, AZ on April 30th from Dublin, Ireland.  

I have also looked at flights to go home early from Rome, Italy for $238 USD which are really cheap.  I would not mind eating the other WestJet flight and headed home early.

The best part is that I can do whatever feels right!  Keep on trucking or head home and reload for the next adventure!!

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Goodbye HCMC – Hello Phu Quoc paradise!

by Vietnam

I finished the first 28 days of my Vietnam adventures on February 11th, 2025.

I visited much of Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC/Saigon) and the surrounding central and southern cities:

After two days of plane, bus, and ferry travel, I made it to my next destination, the island of Phu Quoc

Here is the walk from my hotel and my current situation. 

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Nah Trang, Vietnam – You’re going the wrong way!

by Vietnam

I am always the first to say that traveling is awesome!

You get to visit amazing new places and meet fellow travelers worldwide. I love it 90% of the time but, you need to take the bad with the good.

It still beats going to work, I think!

Well, in the last few days, I experienced the good and the bad!  The good always outweighs the bad long term but, this was some short-term suck for sure.  It started with a self-inflicted 17-hour train ride up the coast from HCMC to Da Nang, Vietnam.  I planned to go all the way North in one day and work my way back South slowly.

Great plan in theory!

I made it through the hellish train ride and had a great first day in beautiful Da Nang as I blogged here.  The dragon bridge was neat to see too but it was just a bridge as blogged about here.

On day two, I woke up with a train hangover and sore throat and my body just hurt.  The good news is that a massage can be had for about $12, I was able to fix my body with a couple of massages.  The bad, my sore throat turned into a full-on chest cold, and I was coughing up nasties.  This chest cold was different as I was coughing up the air pollution as well. Awesome!!

I was able to fight my way through it and made my way to Hoi, An as I blogged here.

It was a beautiful place to visit but, I was just not feeling well enough to enjoy it. After a couple of days, I planned my get-a-way to my next destination, Nah Trang.  It would be another nasty 12-hour train ride South which was more than halfway home to HCMC.  

Well, that turned to dog shit in a hurry!!  

I took a 45-minute shuttle from Hoi An to the Da Nang train station to find out that the tickets were sold out.  I begged the agent to help me as I was sickly, and she did her best.  She put me on two different trains to get me to Da Nang and the train was scheduled to leave in an hour but delayed 45 minutes.  Math tells me that is 1:45 minutes, right? RIGHT!!

The train pulls into the station and the waiting room heads to the platform; I hand my ticket to the train operator and settle in for the long ride.  I ordered a few beers and a sandwich and enjoyed the ocean view on the EAST side of the train. 

Most people would realize that they are headed north, nope, not this guy but look at that view!!

After a few hours of relaxing, we arrived at our first stop, and someone woke me up by asking if I was getting off in Hue.  I was half asleep and three beers deep and, told him I was going to Nah Trang. 

Well, suddenly the whole train knew English!

This train is going NORTH several people yelled while I frantically looked for my ticket.  These trains only stop for five minutes so since I knew I fucked up: I got off the train without my phone charger and favorite hat.

FUCK!!

It took me a good 30 minutes to calm down and put a recovery plan in place. 

First, I had to find a charger so I could use my phone which was easy, I bought one for five bucks.  OK, so I had internet and started realizing my messy situation.  

Second, I sheepishly went to the ticket counter to tell them what had happened which didn’t matter as they could not speak a lick of English. I google translated my story to blame the Railways for taking my ticket and allowing my dumbass to get on the wrong train. They were not buying my sad story, and they wanted the full $70 train fare again.  

They ended up allowing me to use my original ticket, which was a small win, but I needed to be on a train for a total of 21 hours.  I was fucking delusional most of the ride as I had zero sleep.

I like to think that I always win in the end when traveling, and this was no different and just another crazy story. 

I am currently writing this blog drinking a $2 lemongrass peach bubble tea with an ocean view listing to the Oilers pregame show.

I am also staying in an amazing Airbnb for $15 a night to rest my old bones and feel better.

There are also many good-looking Russians and Ukrainians here fleeing the war. They walk on the beach, and you can tell by their language and good looks. 

I also found a $75 flight to get back to HCMC to avoid another 10-hour train ride: 

NAD for the bounce-back win in extra time!! 🤓

 

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Hoi An, Vietnam – This river is incredible!

by Vietnam

After spending a few days in Da Nang, it was time to shuttle down the road to Hoi An.

It was a $6, 45-minute shuttle from Airbnb to Airbnb which is pretty cool that both amazing cities are that close together. They are totally different vibes too which is great if you get tired of the melting pot of Dang or the more touristy Hoi An. As of now, I will call it a tie as it is really laid back here in Hoi An.

Just the dragon bridge in Dan, Nang the go to place in Hoi An is the river. I have never seen anything quite like it except on YouTube. There were hundreds of boats and floating lanterns everywhere. Here are a few videos to give you an idea of how unreal a sight it is to see.

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Da Nang, Vietnam – I could live here too!

by Vietnam

After a 17-hour train ride, I blogged about here and YouTube videos here, I made it to Da Nang, Vietnam!  

I planned to do voiceovers with the YouTube videos, but I have not grasped the challenge, yet.

Maybe if I start getting more views, I will step up my game! HINT!!  LOL

I have 259 videos, and almost 10K views in the first month of my channel and my website:

Let me make this easy for you sitting on the fence.  Here are the links you just need to CLICK:

www.NorthAmericanDarrell.com to bookmark and YouTube link to subscribe or here to buy me a beer!

I never thought anyone would buy me a beer let alone watch my videos, but it’s been a lot of fun:

YouTube pays for the advertising clicks, not the actual site visits so it is impossible to make money without millions and millions of views.  Plus, YouTube pays you for the amount of ad views your video gets. If your video has a million views but no advertising on it, you won’t be making any money. If your video has a million views but only 10,000 ad views, you’ll be making money only on the 10,000 ad views.

OK – selfless plug complete and back to the regularly programmed blog on Da Nang, Vietnam:

There is a very North American feel to Da Nang. It is a hot spot for a lot of Europeans leaving the cold wanting a cheaper way of life in paradise from what I am told.

This was a microbrewery on the beach and the second one visited already with $5 pints of goodness.  I had a $7 burger and fries with coffee and carrot cake for dessert for USD 23. It is not super cheap but for a beach. 🤑

One of the biggest things when traveling is the walkability of the area. Most nice beaches have a boardwalk or Malecon as they call it in Mexico.  Da Nag is no different, but it just seems much more inviting.

Besides the countless inexpensive coffee/tea shops, street food, and restaurants there is hiking on the mountain in the bay. The hiking can take you to other remote areas on the beach along with a large statue of Lady Buddha on the oceanfront which looks spectacular from the boardwalk.  

I have not visited there yet so here are pictures from the internet and the supporting blog:

“From the East coast, visitors can see an enormous white statue with a mountain backdrop, that is the Lady Buddha Da Nang. Located on the ground of Linh Ung Pagoda, she was sculpted by artisans in a Non-Nuoc marble village. Thanks to its huge size and importance in local belief, hundreds of visitors come to this statue daily. That makes it one of the top tourist attractions in the city. So why did people place it there? What does it mean? Or why Lady Buddha? are frequently asked questions. Now, all secrets are opened, to help visitors to know better about the monument and everything around it.”

 

 

My best travel days always start by hitting my 10K steps followed by a local coffee. This place is perfect for me as there are so many options for my morning walk/hike and coffee.  Day one was absolutely perfect, but I replaced the coffee with two micro-brewery which is a great substitute for a couple of days a week!

The last video started with a roofie or in this case a 7% IPA! Look at that amazing view with the mountain in the background. Also, If you drive the opposite way, the amazing city of Hoi An is about a 30-minute drive making it a two-for-one destination. 

Vietnam railways – HCMC to Da Nang, Vietnam

by Vietnam

Vietnam Railways – HCMC to Da Nang was a 17-hour trip!

We started at the downtown station at 6 AM and worked our way South traversing the Oceanside and rice fields arriving in Da Nang at 11 PM.  It was neat to see the Countryside through a window most of the trip. 

It would have been about the same price to fly with an advanced ticket, but I’m glad I did this trip once. It also gave me a pretty good idea of what it will be like using my Europass.  

I put together the below trip but thinking about it for 17 hours may change the aggressive but inexpensive plan:

If I do stick with the plan, I will definitely make shorter trips. I initially thought I would see the countryside via train which still may be the case in Switzerland and colder countries in the Northern part of the map.  I have ten legs for 60 days available to use so trying to get the biggest bang for the buck was going far but that thought process will not work for me again.

Here are some more videos from the train trip:

There were plenty of rice farms.  It was amazing to see how each farmer had their own land setup.  There were water sources and flags indicating the readiness or each separate patch of land. 

A lot of the trip was along the Oceanside which was neat to see.  Most locals were out there fishing.

I was in car three of over twenty cars on the train.  Being it was the New Year’s holiday; the train was relatively full.  We probably made 10-12 stops along the way picking up and dropping off passengers as well but it appears most of us were there for the full 17-hour trip. I also booked a one-way trip as I was unsure how long I was going to stay in Da Nang and then Na Trang on the way home.

I just checked the tickets and there is an 80% surcharge on the tickets due to the holiday!

How about that BS?  The actual train ticket is 16% or $8.39 of the entire $52.42 cost of the ticket without fees.  That is only my halfway point home too so another $50+ to get back which is more expensive than flying!

The overall shitty experience gave me no hesitation to cancel my Euro-rail pass this morning:

I knew there was a chance I would need to cancel so I bought the $8 cancellation insurance. I am sad that I will not see that part of the world via train but thankfully it was the only money lost.  Ultimately, it sounded like a great idea and the price was phenomenal price for a ten-day pass.  

I can still hit some of the cities with my Wizz airlines all-you-can-fly pass as detailed in this blog.

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HCMC–>Vung Tau, Vietnam – Ferry roadtrip!!

by Vietnam

I have been itching to get out of the big city of Saigon for a few days. The problem is that it is New Year’s week and everything is super busy and crowded. 

No problem, I found a way as always seem to when traveling and took a fun two-hour ferry ride.

I booked a ferry ride from the main terminal in HCMC down the Saigon River and then east to Vung Tau:

I am not sure what to expect so I booked a one-way ferry to see if I like the new location.

 

My original Airbnb in HCMC is booked until February 11th, so I packed a light bag and, off I went on January 26th, 2025. The beach looks great and there are tons of “white tourists” here so I might be on to something.

I found an inexpensive Airbnb with a rooftop pool for $17 a night:

I noticed a lot of Lunar New Year displays in HCMC, but Vung Tao goes all in as it was incredible to see.  I have attached a hyper-ink and summary below:

“Chinese New Year 2025 is also called Spring Festival or Chinese Lunar New Year. In Mandarin, it’s called Guonian or Chunjie. 2025 is the Year of the Snake.

Chunjie starts on Wednesday, January 29th, and goes on until the Lantern Festival on February 12th. It’s also the first Spring Festival after it was successfully added to the cultural heritage list. People in China get an 8-day holiday for the Chinese New Year 2025.

During this holiday, they gather with their families and watch the wonderful Spring Festival Gala while enjoying a delicious reunion dinner. A series of celebrations will continue until the 15th day of the lunar calendar, the Lantern Festival”.

I hope the below pictures and video do it justice as a lot of hard work and passion goes into all of these displays.

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A massage a day, everyday! HCMC, Vietnam!!

by HCMC / Saigon

Health is a major driver in the Asian lifestyle! Anytime I head to the gym anywhere in North America, I see Asians in the sauna and hot tub taking care of their bodies. Their habits are a very good reason they tend to live a longer life as shown in the below graph of the longest-living by Country:

They are top three while the life expectancy is ahead of North Americans by five years:

Each time I have visited Asia (Taiwan, Thailand, Philippines, and now Vietnam) there are many spas. Since the cost is pennies on the dollar, I treat myself to a treatment a few times a week, minimum.

My first week:

USD $12 full body massage,

USD $20 45-minute shoulder massage, mineral bath, sauna, and cold plunge.

USD $35 shoulder massage with fish footbath, one-hour facial, and 30-minute eye treatment for baggy eyes.

USD $12 for a haircut, hot shave, and ten-minute relaxing shampoo and loved his TIP!

USD $5 for a hot shave every few days with the same crew too!

Each experience has been fantastic and well worth the money each time. Most are down an alley with someone advertising at the entrance with the prices and promotions:

Imagine, a lifestyle where you can afford to get hundreds of dollars of massages a week for pennies on the dollar!  If you went with a basic $12 massage, you could even get one every day of the week for $84.

That is the price of one massage in North America unless you’re the guy below traveling the world living his dreams! 🤓