17 things I wish I knew BEFORE visiting VIETNAM in 2025 🇻🇳

In this video I'm going to give you 17 things you need to know before coming to Vietnam. It is a crazy country and I was lucky enough to spend a month here and I absolutely loved it but there's definitely things I wish I knew before I set foot in the country of Vietnam. Now let's start with number one and this is a good thing but also a bad thing about Vietnam is the overnight transport. The sleeper buses are the most common thing and cheaper and there are two types you can get a sleeper bus or a VIP bus. The VIP buses are much nicer and I do recommend getting them. The sleeper buses I tend to not sleep that well. Now one of the downfalls of taking these sleeper buses is that sometimes you arrive at the most ridiculous hours. I'm talking 3am you're rocking up at your next destination when you just want to be asleep. What you have to do is contact your hostel or your hotel or guest house and tell them I'm arriving at 3am please let me in and book for the night before. Just spend that bit of money so you don't ruin your next day. I often found in Vietnam it was actually cheaper to book online than in person. I don't know whether the travel agencies are taking massive commissions or you need to bargain more but I just found it cheaper to book online and then you know exactly what you're getting. I personally use bookaway.com and it's really good you get exactly what you see from the photos. I've got a link down in the description if you want to use bookaway.com. Now number two is about sim cards in Vietnam. Data is super cheap in Vietnam so you're going to get very good value for your money but I highly recommend getting a Viettel sim card. It is only slightly more expensive like a dollar two dollars more and you get so much better coverage than the other phone providers. I had a friend when we were doing the Hà Giang loop and I had connection the entire time we were right in the north and my friend didn't have connection once for four days. So get Viettel it's much better coverage and you'll thank me later. Now number three is one of the best things I've done anywhere in Southeast Asia and that is the Hà Giang loop. This is a big motorbike loop which takes three or four days in the very extreme north of Vietnam. You ride along the border with China you see the most insane landscapes and you will regret it if you don't do it. It's like the big thing to do here in Vietnam. No freaking way we just turned the corner and the mountains are twice as tall. There's a couple of different ways you can do the Hà Giang loop. Some people use an easy rider which is when you like jump on the back of a bike and someone takes you around in groups or you can do it yourself and drive yourself. I personally did it myself. It's traditionally known for being you know not that safe. Obviously this doesn't really have barriers they've fallen off. I wonder if there was an accident here but it was safer than I thought. I do have a big Hà Giang loop video so if you want to go check it out it will answer all your questions if you're doing the Hà Giang loop. It's just for you. Now number four is something a lot of people agreed with me and that is the north is better than the south. So if you do have an option I would recommend starting in the south and head up north and then stuff is just going to get better and better. Now number five is a big bucket list thing to do and that is the Halong Bay cruises. Now if you have the money, if you've got the budgets, I highly recommend doing one of these luxury cruises. I'll leave a link in the description and it was brilliant. If that's not in your budget then there are other budget options. You can do day trips to Halong Bay or you can do cheaper cruises. I even saw one for just $85 for one night which is a very good deal for a cruise. I would recommend booking online if you can because if you book in person in Hanoi you don't really know what you're getting but on online you can see the photos, you know where you're going to stay and know that it's going to be a good one. Number six, something very different to other parts of Southeast Asia is that you actually need permission to park places. In places like Thailand you can literally park anywhere and people are like yeah, park here and no one cares. But in Vietnam I parked out this shop once and this lady came out and was like you can't park there, get out, get out. I was like sorry, I didn't know, I'm not from here. But anyway, just don't park anywhere. You need to either pay a fee or ask permission. The next thing you should know is about ATM withdrawal fees. Every different bank in Vietnam charges you a different amount. Some are like 2% or 3% or just charge you like 100,000 for one withdrawal. The best bank to use is Agribank and it charges you just 22,000 dong which is like 74p for one withdrawal and I think you can take a maximum out of 3 million. Other banks though can charge you up to like five pounds so you're going to save a lot of money by using Agribank and they are pretty common in most cities. Now number eight, something very different is that in northern Vietnam beers aren't served cold but they come with like a bucket of ice and so if you want a cold beer you have to put the ice in the beer and then you get like watered down beer but I mean it's okay, it's just different. Number nine is that English is not as frequently spoken as other countries like Thailand or Cambodia so you're going to need to use Google Translate and the great thing is the Vietnamese are so quick to just pull it out themselves and translate it on Google Translate so make sure you've got it downloaded. Download the Vietnamese offline if you don't have data and you're going to be sweet. If you've come this far you need to know something very important and that's hit subscribe. You need to do it right now because if you don't when you get to Vietnam things are going to go wrong for you so hit it right now. Now number 10, when you go outside the touristy areas you're going to struggle to know what to eat and some of the things you can always find are pho which is noodle soup. It's found very commonly and it's a really good breakfast as well. Another of my favourite dishes in Vietnam is bun cha and it's like this pork sweet and sour dish and with noodles it's so good, just try it, it's brilliant. If you didn't know then the French actually colonised Vietnam for some time and so they actually have bánh mì which is like baguettes and they're really good and they're really good for journeys if you're not sure if you're going to eat like on those overnight buses and stuff so highly recommend eating bánh mì and they're super cheap if you're on a budget too. Now number 11 is something I was actually a little bit disappointed about and that is the Hoi An Lantern Festival. I actually extended my time in Hoi An so I was there for the Lantern Festival and in all honesty it's no different, very slightly different from any other night. Don't change your trip to be there in the Lantern Festival, they release lanterns on the water every night, don't worry about it, you'll see it in Hoi An whenever you're there. Now number 12 is something you definitely need to know before even setting foot in Vietnam and that is do you need a visa? Now there's actually 24 countries in the world which are exempt from getting a visa for Vietnam but these lengths vary so some are 14 days some go up to 90 days and if your country is not part of those 24 or you wish to stay longer than the permitted amount then you need to get a visa. You can do this online with the e-visa website which I'll link down below, make sure you apply for the e-visa at least 14 days in advance, give yourself plenty of time, if not you can actually go to a Vietnamese embassy and try and get it that way as well. The cost of the visa is about 25 US dollars. Now if you are traveling to Vietnam and you want more help on where to go, different places then I've got a whole series of vlogs and travel videos down below so go click them, go enjoy them and have a good time, see you there. What time of the year should you come to Vietnam? I'll be honest Vietnam is a country where you can come any time of the year, there's loads of different climates and it's like a really long thin country. When you go up north it is cold, now it is getting freezing especially in January, February so if you're going up there bring warm clothes but right down in the south in Ho Chi Minh and Phu Quoc the island it's super tropical, it's hot all year round and they've got the standard dry season, wet season. I think one of the best times to travel Vietnam is between January and April, April is on the hotter side so if you are struggling with the heat it's going to be hot but it's a very dry part of the year as well. If you're looking for those green rice fields up in the northern area then you need to visit between September and early October and that's just before they cut the rice and it looks beautiful, that is next on my bucket list for Vietnam because it looks beautiful. Now number 14 is something which can be quite surprising when setting foot in Vietnam is that the big cities are super developed, Hanoi is less so but Ho Chi Minh, Da Nang, these are big cities with super big skyscrapers and it can be quite a surprise compared to like the little northern regions is what you think typically of Vietnam but that's not the case anymore, it is becoming a big superpower in Southeast Asia and so there's lots of money being pumped into the economy. Number 15 for my backpacker friends, Vietnam is a super friendly backpacker destination. I honestly think $25 a day and you're going to be pretty good, obviously you've got to stay in hostels, you've got to eat the street food but if you don't then still you get so much value for money. If you're on more of a budget $40, $50 a day and you're going to have so much room to do loads of different activities, eat lots of good food so yeah whatever your budget is, Vietnam is a great place to come to. The hostels in Vietnam are brilliant and they cost just three, four, five dollars a night which is just insane value for money and if you want a beer it's not going to cost you much more than a single US dollar which is just insane and can be quite dangerous if you're a big beer drinker. Watch out guys! Now number 16, something very different to other countries is that you really need to bargain in Vietnam and they're very good at it too. In Thailand I found that you don't really need to bargain much of the time and it's more of a set price. Vietnam in the markets, totally different. I was looking to buy a coat and the first price was 1.2 million and I managed to get it for 500,000 dong and then in the next city I sold it without any bargaining for just 200,000 dong, exact same coat as well. 500k for this bad boy kept me warm Highly recommend buying one in Vietnam, save your money and save your space and then just give it to someone else. Just be warned, you need to bargain. Before we go to the last point, one thing I do want to mention is that dog meat is a thing in Vietnam. It is legal to buy and eat dog meat and sometimes they do serve it in restaurants, especially in northern areas this is fairly common and you will see it. Now number 17, the last thing you need to know is all about the tailors in Hoi An. This is the cheapest place to get a tailor-made suit on planet earth, so a lot of people go there specifically to do this. One thing you need to know is that the tailors actually give you a discount if you give them a good review on google maps. I got 3% off for leaving a good review, I then deleted it but just keep that in mind that the reviews a little bit, you know, they might not always be super honest. I personally went with Beelie tailors and they were very good, it cost me $130. You can get suits for as cheap as $90 all the way up to like hundreds of dollars, you know, lots of money depending on what shop you go to, how much you bargain, what materials you use, so just keep that in mind. Swimwear like dresses, t-shirts, shirt, anything. So guys that is the end of the video, I hope you enjoyed it, I hope you found it useful. If you did, you need to subscribe and you need to like the button so other people can get help before they go to Vietnam to make sure they have the best time possible. Thank you so much for watching, if you did find this useful leave a comment, give advice to other travellers going to Vietnam and I'll see you in the next video where we're going somewhere very special, somewhere new. I'll see you there!