Vietnam – How to Reserve ? Hotels, Flights, Trains, Buses

On this page :
beach party thai island

  1. Hotels in Vietnam
  2. Trains in Vietnam +region
  3. Buses in Vietnam + region
  4. Flights inside Vietnam + region
  5. Travel Insurance (International Health Insurance)
  6. Flights to Vietnam (International)

1. The Hotel

Related pages, on this site :

Where to Stay in…
Click on a city to see, the potential zones to Stay, advantages and disadvantages of each neighborhood  :

To find an hotel in Vietnam, I highly recommend to use Booking.com.
I’m using Booking because :

  1. It has a very good user interface, letting me decide which hotel is the best for me (I will explain).
  2. It has authentic reviews of travellers (only guests who booked and stayed in the hotel, are allowed to write a review).
  3. It is a serious company with the best prices and you can also cancel a reservation (or change the dates) in many cases.

Here is the best way to use Booking.com in order to find an hotel :

The Map :

beach party thai islandAfter you fill the dates and your destination, you will see a Map of the area (look for the Map icon, scroll down the page if needed). On the Map you will see points representing the Hotels and if you zoom, you will see the price of each hotel and the score it received in the comments. Click on the mark to arrive to the hotel page. The Map feature is good, in order to get fast information about the available options.

The Filters :

beach party thai islandAfter you fill the dates and your destination, On the left side, you will see Filters that serve to filter the results according to some criteria. The most useful filter is the price range.

Another filter is the area you want.

Sort by (Important !!) :

beach party thai islandWhen you get a list of the proposed hotels (after filling the dates and destination) you can sort the result in the order you want (with the bar on the top). Use the sort by “Review Score” and it will order the hotels by how the guests scored them. Read also the content of some comments in order to feel the place. Give a priority to the ones who received many (good) comments (hundreds), it is more reliable than an hotel commented by just two persons.
Technical Note : Do the “sort by” as a last step (to make sure it was taken into account).

Note :

beach party thai islandAt the top, you can choose the language and the currency.

Here you can search Hotels with Booking.com :



Booking.com


2. Trains in Vietnam (and neighboring countries)

Related pages, on this site :

How to Arrive to…
Click on a city to see, How to Arrive and where are located the Stations in Town.

As you can see from the following Map, there is a main railway that goes vertically in Vietnam. It’s called the “reunification line”.
Click to enlarge the Map :

It’s possible to reach with the train all the touristic towns mentioned in the Visit page (except Dalat, Can Tho, Phu Quoc and Vung-Tau). In most cases the train station is in town, but for some destinations it is 30 or 50 km away and then you need to complete the journey with a short ride in taxi or a bus (it is the case of Hoi-An).
The trains in Vietnam are fun and comfortable and they have sleeping wagons because a trip from Saigon to Hanoi takes one day and a half. There are no bullet trains like in Japan or China, yet.
The trains are not expensive. Travelling from Hanoi to Saigon in a sleeping coach is about 50 dollars.

You can buy train tickets in :

  • The train stations.
  • Travel agencies in Vietnam.
  • You can book Flights, Trains and Buses inside Vietnam with the site Baolau or  12Go Asia.  Choose the Origin city and Destination city and it will show you All the available Transports to destination. You usually receive an e-Ticket via email and you don’t need to collect it from anywhere.

Note :

  • Yes, in peak season, some night trains may be full, so it’s better to buy the ticket in advance.
For Train Tickets with 12go Asia, fill the date and destination :

Powered by 12Go Asia system
For Train Tickets with Baolau, fill the date and destination :

You can see more information about the trains in Vietnam, in the
excellent site Seat61.

3. Buses in Vietnam (and neighboring countries)

Related pages, on this site :

How to Arrive to…
Click on a city to see, How to Arrive and where are located the Stations in Town.

Two main categories :

  1. Public buses (regular lines) that travel between central bus stations in the towns.
  2. Private bus companies that collect and drop passengers in tourist areas and even pick up from the hotels.

The open bus “Hop-on /Hop-off ” tickets of the private bus companies :

The open ticket goes like this : You pay in advance for a long trajectory, let’s say from Saigon to Hanoi. You don’t travel all the trajectory at once but spread it on time. For example : you first travel from Saigon to Mui-Ne, you stay in place for 3 days, later travel from Mui-Ne to Nha-Trang and so on.  Each time that you want to use the buses, you need to contact the company and reserve your place in advance (but not pay).
Of course that you can also purchase individual travels with these companies (not an open ticket).
For journeys at night, there are usually beds inside the bus (the beds are not like at the hotel…).

You can buy Bus tickets in :

  • The bus central stations.
  • Travel agencies in Vietnam.
  • You can book Flights, Trains and Buses inside Vietnam with the site Baolau or  12Go Asia.  Choose the Origin city and Destination city and it will show you All the available Transports to destination. You usually receive an e-Ticket via email and you don’t need to collect it from anywhere.
For Bus Tickets with Baolau, fill the date and destination :

For Bus Tickets with 12go Asia, fill the date and destination :

Powered by 12Go Asia system

4. Flights inside Vietnam (and neighboring countries)

Related pages, on this site :

How to Arrive to…
Click on a city to see, How to Arrive and where are located the Stations and Airport in Town.

As you can see from the following map, the main attractions are grouped in 3 zones, so you may decide to fly between them in order to gain time (or comfort). The 3 main airports are in Hanoi, Saigon and Da-Nang (International airports). There are domestic airports near most places, except Sapa which is in the mountains.
There are many internal flights in Vietnam and they are not expensive.

  • You can book Flights, Trains and Buses inside Vietnam with the site Aolau or  12Go Asia.  Choose the Origin city and Destination city and it will show you All the available Transports to destination. You usually receive an e-Ticket via email and you don’t need to collect it from anywhere.
For Flight Tickets with 12go Asia, fill the date and destination :

Powered by 12Go Asia system
For Flight Tickets with Baolau, fill the date and destination :

Alternatively, you can search a flight in the region with the site you use for international flights, as mentioned in paragraph 6.

5. Travel Insurance (International Health Insurance)

Travel insurance is very important. It guarantees medical assistance in case of accident or medical problem.
See what I wrote about this topic in the page :  How to find a Travel (Health) Insurance for Vietnam and Asia.

6. Flights to Vietnam (International flights)

Related pages, on this site :

To find International flights, I recommend to use Skyscanner. It has an excellent user interface and good prices. Especially useful is the option to see the cheapest price within a month (If you are flexible with the dates).
Here is how to use Skyscanner :

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    1. Choose your preferred language and currency, on the top right part of the page.
    2. Fill your destination and dates (check “one way” if you want), then click the “Search Flights” button.

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  1. You will see the search results. If you are flexible with the dates, then click the “show whole month” link on the left top side of the page. It will show you a calendar (and a chart) with the cheapest price available for each day.

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When you choose a flight, consider also :

  • The landing time (at night, it may require a Taxi instead of public transportation)
  • The connection wait time (if you need to change airplanes)
  • The airports location (some airlines are not landing at the main airports)

Notes :

  • Skyscanner is a search engine. It doesn’t sell you the tickets. It points you to companies who do sell tickets (like a specific airline).
  • The price you see on a search engine, is not always the final one (although they try hard to be accurate). Sometimes there will be extra fees like for suitcases or taxes. So in order to know the final price, you must advance in the reservation process.

Advanced options, if you are energetic :

  • Search engines like Skyscanner are good and they give you a good picture of the available options, but sometimes, for many reasons, they don’t show you all the available flights (a minority may escape). So try to look also at individual sites of the companies you know that are flying to your destination. In order to know the airlines who are flying to your destination, you can try to look at the “departure and landing real time information” of the airports sites.
  • Other search engines for flights that have a great user interface : Google flights and Momondo.

When is the best time to buy a flight ticket ?

Usually, the sooner, the better (something like 2 months in advance).
It is especially true with the “low cost” companies (these ones are almost always flying at full capacity). There are also deals of the “last minute” but you cannot really count on it if your destination and schedule is not flexible.
Thankfully, air travel as become very competitive and you can usually find good prices to your destination, at any time, if you are willing to make a non direct flight.

More on Vietnam :

  On Thailand :

Other Stuff :

If you find incorrect data on this page, like a restaurant that has closed or a big river that has moved or you want to tell me something, please write me to contact.

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