Ho Chi Minh City and Phu Quoc, six days
Two nights in Ho Chi Minh City, a morning in the Cu Chi tunnels, then a one-hour flight to Phu Quoc for three nights on the coast. It is the standard shape of a one-week trip to southern Vietnam, built so that neither half is an afterthought.
At a glance
- Duration
- 6 days, 5 nights
- Party size
- 2 to 8, private
- Starts
- Ho Chi Minh City, Tan Son Nhat airport
- Ends
- Phu Quoc, PQC airport
- Effort
- Easy — about 6 km of city walking on the hardest day
- From
- USD 1,490 per person
Who this is for
Most people who come to southern Vietnam for a week want two things that do not sit in the same place: a city with some weight to it, and a beach. This route gives the city two full days and the island three nights, which is the split that works. Reverse it and you arrive jet-lagged on an island and spend your best days lying down, then hit a city of nine million on the way out.
Ho Chi Minh City is not a pretty town and it does not pretend to be. It is loud, it is hot, the traffic is a system you have to learn to cross, and it holds the two hardest sites in the south: the War Remnants Museum and the tunnels at Cu Chi. Both are worth the time and neither is comfortable. Phu Quoc afterwards is not a reward so much as a change of gear, and three nights is the least that makes the flight worth taking.
If you have five days rather than six and would rather stay on the mainland, Saigon, Cu Chi and the Mekong covers the delta instead of the coast. If the island is the whole point and the city is not, go straight there with the five-day Phu Quoc trip.
Day by day
Arrive in Ho Chi Minh City
We meet you inside the arrivals hall at Tan Son Nhat, which is roughly 7 km from District 1 and takes 30 to 45 minutes depending on the hour. Rooms are held from midday. If you land at six in the morning, say so and we will book the previous night so that the room is genuinely yours on arrival rather than in theory.
The afternoon is deliberately light. A short walk takes in the old Post Office, the cathedral, which has been under restoration for years and may still be scaffolded, and the streets between them. At about 17:30 the motorbike traffic reaches its peak and it is worth twenty minutes on a corner watching how it resolves itself. Dinner is your own; we send three suggestions at three price levels and book if you want.
The city: the museum, the palace, and Cho Lon
We start at 08:00 at the War Remnants Museum, which opens at 07:30 and is a great deal quieter in the first hour. It is a hard building: the photojournalism floor and the section on chemical defoliants are unsparing, and we tell people that in advance rather than watching them find out. Ninety minutes is enough. Your guide is there to give the context in both directions, not to deliver a script.
The Reunification Palace afterwards is the opposite kind of building — a 1960s presidential residence left more or less as it was in April 1975, down to the telephones in the basement command rooms. In the afternoon we cross to Cho Lon, the Chinese quarter, for the Thien Hau temple with its coils of incense burning overhead, the wholesale aisles of Binh Tay market, and the herb shops on the streets around it. This is the part of the day people remember, and almost nobody puts it first.
Cu Chi in the morning, the island by evening
We leave at 07:30 for Cu Chi, 70 km and about an hour and a half north-west. We use Ben Duoc rather than Ben Dinh: it is further out, it takes a fraction of the traffic, and the tunnel sections there feel less like a set. The system ran to hundreds of kilometres of hand-dug passage on three levels. The stretch open to visitors has been widened, and even widened it defeats a lot of people after ten metres, which is worth knowing before you go down. There is a shooting range on site; it is loud, we do not include it, and you can hear it from most of the visit.
We are back in the city around 13:00 for lunch, then to the airport for the afternoon flight to Phu Quoc, one hour in the air. You land in the late afternoon and are at the hotel 20 to 40 minutes later. Phu Quoc has been part of An Giang province since the July 2025 merger rather than Kien Giang, which explains the province name on your registration card if you notice it.
The southern islets by boat
The boat leaves An Thoi at 08:30 and works the archipelago off the southern tip — about fifteen islets, three anchorages, two of them for snorkelling over shallow coral and one off a beach you can land on. Equipment is aboard and a crew member stays in the water with anyone who wants company. Visibility in the dry season is usually four to eight metres.
On the way back we ride the cable car from An Thoi to Hon Thom and straight back: just under eight kilometres over open water, roughly fifteen minutes each way, crossing the An Thoi fishing fleet at anchor. The cable car is part of the heavy development of the island’s southern tip, which is the one stretch of Phu Quoc we otherwise stay away from. We think the crossing earns its place anyway, and we say plainly what it is rather than selling it as something older than it is.
Sao beach early, Ham Ninh, and the fish sauce
Out at 07:15 for Bai Sao, about 25 km away on the south-east coast, because between 07:30 and 09:30 the beach is quiet and after eleven it is not. Then Ham Ninh on the east coast, a working fishing village on a long jetty over shallow water, where lunch is crab off the boats that went out the night before.
The afternoon is a fish-sauce works in Duong Dong — anchovies and salt in wooden vats for about twelve months, a product that carries a protected geographical indication in the European Union, and a smell that arrives before you do. Twenty minutes is the right visit. The rest of the afternoon is free, and on the last full day most people want it that way.
Fly out from Phu Quoc
Check-out is midday and the beach is open until then. PQC airport is 20 to 40 minutes from most hotels on the island. Flights to Ho Chi Minh City run through the day and take an hour.
If you are connecting to an international flight the same day, allow at least three hours in Ho Chi Minh City between the domestic arrival and the international departure, because they are separate terminals and the bags do not always transfer. We check the specific pair of flights before you book and tell you if the connection is too tight to trust.
What it costs
| Party size | Comfortable | Excellent | Exceptional |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 travellers | USD 1,940 | USD 2,480 | USD 2,810 |
| 3 – 4 | USD 1,760 | USD 2,250 | USD 2,550 |
| 5 – 6 | USD 1,590 | USD 2,040 | USD 2,310 |
| 7 – 8 | USD 1,490 | USD 1,910 | USD 2,160 |
The three columns change the hotel in the city and the resort on the island. They do not change the guide, the driver, the vehicle, the Cu Chi morning or the boat day. In Ho Chi Minh City the gap between columns is smaller than most people expect, because a good four-star in District 1 is a genuinely good hotel; on the island the gap is larger, because that is where beachfront and a private pool start to cost real money.
Party size is the other lever, and it is a blunt one: two people carry a whole vehicle, a whole guide and two internal flights between them, while six carry the same vehicle and the same guide. The difference between the top and bottom rows is around 30 per cent. What a Vietnam trip costs breaks down where each dollar goes, and how to book sets out the deposit and the cancellation terms before you commit to anything.
Included and not included
What the price includes
- Five nights: two in Ho Chi Minh City, three on Phu Quoc, in the class you choose
- The Ho Chi Minh City to Phu Quoc flight, one hour, ticketed in your names
- Private air-conditioned vehicle and driver on every day of the trip
- A private English-speaking guide on Days 2, 3, 4 and 5
- All meals shown day by day: 5 breakfasts, 4 lunches
- Entries: War Remnants Museum, Reunification Palace, Cu Chi at Ben Duoc, the island boat day, the Hon Thom cable car and the fish-sauce works
- Airport meet inside arrivals at Tan Son Nhat, with a name board
- Drinking water in the vehicle and a 24-hour number answered by a person in Vietnam
What it does not include
- International flights — we will quote them at cost if you ask
- Vietnam e-visa, USD 25 single entry, applied for at evisa.gov.vn
- Travel insurance, which we require you to hold and will ask to see
- All dinners, and drinks with meals
- The shooting range at Cu Chi and the theme park at Hon Thom, neither of which we book on your behalf
- Tips for guide, driver and boat crew — customary, never included, never invoiced
The south is dry from December to April and wet from May to November. In Ho Chi Minh City the wet season is an afternoon downpour of an hour or two that clears; it costs you very little. On Phu Quoc it also means swell, and swell suspends the island-hopping boats on some days between June and September. When that happens we rebuild Day 4 on land and refund the difference. It is the single reason we push people towards December to April for this route rather than the shoulder months.
Pictures from this route
Who this trip is not for
Six days means two moves, one flight and two hard sites. Some people should take a different trip, and here is who.
- Anyone who wants to skip the war material. The museum and the tunnels are the spine of the city half, and without them Days 2 and 3 are a shopping trip. If that is what you want, go straight to Phu Quoc for five days.
- Travellers who cannot manage a crouch. The visitor tunnel sections at Ben Duoc are widened but still low and dark, and the way out is forward. Everyone else waits above ground; nobody is made to go in, but the day is thinner if you do not.
- Parties travelling June to September who need the boat day guaranteed. Swell closes the An Thoi sailings on some days in those months and no operator can promise around the weather.
- People who want the Mekong Delta as well. Adding it properly needs a night in the delta, not a day trip. Six days does not hold both — take the delta route or add days.
- Anyone booking a same-day international connection out of Ho Chi Minh City with less than three hours. Domestic and international are separate terminals and we will not pretend a 90-minute transfer is safe.
How the two halves connect
The flight, and the two hours around it
Ho Chi Minh City to Phu Quoc is an hour in the air and about three hours door to door. That is why it lands on the Cu Chi day: the morning is already an early one, so the afternoon transfer costs you nothing extra.
Both hard mornings start early
The museum opens at 07:30 and Cu Chi is quiet before ten. We use those hours and take the heat of the afternoon somewhere shaded, which is what people who live here do.
The island half is not a bolt-on
Three nights gives you a boat day, a beach day and a spare. Two nights gives you the airport twice and one usable day, which is why we do not sell it that way.
One week in southern Vietnam, and dates in mind?
Tell us the month, the party size and whether the city or the island matters more. You will get a routed quotation with real hotels named by class, usually inside a working day.
Questions travellers ask most
Is two days enough for Ho Chi Minh City?
For a first visit, yes, if the days are used properly. Two full days cover the War Remnants Museum, the Reunification Palace, Cho Lon and the Cu Chi tunnels, which is the material that makes the city worth the stop.
What two days does not cover is the eating, the markets in the outer districts and the coffee culture, all of which reward a third day. If you want that, we add a night in the city rather than taking one from the island — see the four-day city trip.
Why Ben Duoc and not Ben Dinh at Cu Chi?
Ben Dinh is closer to the city and takes most of the coach traffic. Ben Duoc is about twenty minutes further out, sees a fraction of the visitors, and its tunnel sections and displays feel less arranged for a camera.
Both are reconstructions to a degree, and both have widened the passages so that visitors can pass through them. We prefer to be straight about that than to claim you are crawling through something untouched since 1968.
Could we do the island first and the city last?
We can build it that way and sometimes do, usually when an international flight home leaves late at night from Ho Chi Minh City. It has one real drawback: you spend the jet-lagged days on the beach, where they are wasted, and then face a hot city and two demanding museums at the end of the week when your patience is thinner.
The other drawback is weather risk. Putting the boat day early gives us the rest of the week to move it into if the sea closes the sailings. Island last removes that margin.
Is Phu Quoc still worth going to now that it is so developed?
The southern tip around An Thoi has been built out hard, and the north-west carries a large resort complex. That much is simply true and we do not argue with it.
The rest of the island is not that. A national park covers roughly half of it, the east coast still lands fish for a living at Ham Ninh, and the islets offshore are reached by boat rather than by road. This trip spends its days in those places and uses the developed south for exactly one thing, the cable car ride, because there is nothing else like the view down onto that fleet.
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Tell us about the trip you have in mind
Dates, party size and the places you care about are enough to start. You get a draft route and an indicative price, not a brochure.