Tips for cheap tours to Vietnam

The world financial crisis has badly affected the Vietnam tourism, the number of travellers have fallen in recent years, especially visitors of high end standard, travellers tend to choose mid range services for their trips, and the local tour companies as well as travel service providers are trying to put down the tour cost in order to attract more tourists. It is not an easy task to keep the cost down while retaining quality of a trip, however if you plan your trip wisely you can still have a memorable trip at low budget. Vietnam is an attractive destination in Asia, one of the most worth visiting places in the world where travellers can find everything from beaufitul sceneries, history, cuisine, diversified culture...

Planning a trip 2 months in advance is recommended, as Vietnam suffers one of the worst inflations in Asia and prices change more often than not. There are something you need to keep in mind such as visas, you can obtain visas on arrival, this service can be arranged through the local travel companies, it will save you a lot of time and money, because if you arrange the visas yourself you need to contact Vietnam embassy or consulate in the city you live, it takes time and costs you more than the travel companies in Vietnam, it would be much better to take the help from a local visa company, all you need to do is provide them your names in full, passport numbers, date of births, gender and nationality, it takes about 3-4 working days to get "Visa letter approval", it will be sent to you by email along with a Visa Application form, you just need to fill out all information, stick your photos on it and pay 25 usd/person when you arrive at Vietnam's airports to get the official visas, this kind of visas will allow you to stay in Vietnam in 1 month, you can easily extend your visa through a local travel agent when you are in Vietnam.

Cheap tours to Vietnam can be planned by yourself if you considers some tips and guide and thus save some money for the trip. Lonely Planet, Rough Guides and Trip Advisor are useful sources of travel information however not everything is correct and updated. You can ask for assistance from a local travel agent, most travel companies will give you correct and useful information, in the main cities like Hanoi or Sai Gon, most travel agencies are focused in a certain area, that's the Old Quarter in Hanoi and Pham Ngu Lao - De Tham area in Sai Gon, you can also take the help from online tour companies, which are booming in recent years, it is recommended to contact them directly for information rather than what is available on their websites and the info may have been outdated. Once you are in Vietnam you can also get information about taxi fares, entrance fees or transports to destinations from the hotel travel desks, most hotels have a travel division to help their guests, and one tip when you want to go out is to arrange your taxi through the hotel or the restaurant, it may be risky if you catch yourself as taxi drivers may take you to longer way for more charge. In this way you can make your trip to Vietnam cheaper and safer, and to avoid the troubles as much as possible.

Most tourist sites in Vietnam charge visitors some small fees to get in, normally it cost 1-2 usd for each place such as museums and historical buildings, in some famous spots which are declared as the world heritage sites such as Hue, Hoi An, Phong Nha cave, My Son holyland entrance fees are higher, from 4-5 usd/person, in Halong Bay visitors have to pay 7 usd for day cruise and 13 usd or more for overnight cruises, however this fee is usually included as part of the package

Travellers can also use public transports to get to destinations, the public bus system covers all the tourist destinations in the country, it costs just 1 usd for short distances within the city and about 5 usd for longer trip to other cities, public buses are clean and rather good however it is slow as the buses stop many times during the trip to pick up and drop passengers. Open tourist bus is also a good choice for budget travellers, however there is little choice as this service is only available in the main tourist cities such as Nha Trang, Dalat, Muine, Hoi An and Hue, most tourist open buses depart in the early morning and return in the afternoon of the same day.