Three days in Saigon at walking pace: District 1's museum, palace and market with a banh mi between, Cholon's temples and a snail dinner on Vinh Khanh, then the Cu Chi tunnels and a sunset from the 81st floor. Grab or the metro for the longer hops.
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Checked October 10, 2026. That’s the day we last confirmed the hours, prices and closed days.
December to March is the dry season and the time to come: 77 to 91°F (25 to 33°C), little rain, cooler evenings in December and January. April is the hottest month at 95°F (35°C) and more. May to November is the wet season; it rains most afternoons for an hour or two, usually between 3 and 6 p.m., hard enough to flood a few streets, and then stops. September and October are the wettest. Avoid Tet (late January or February), when the city empties and most places shut for a week, though the flower street on Nguyen Hue is worth seeing if you are here.
District 1 between Dong Khoi and Nguyen Hue puts the Opera House, the river and the metro's Ben Thanh and Opera House stations within ten minutes on foot; it is the quietest central base and the priciest. Pham Ngu Lao and Bui Vien, west of Ben Thanh, are the backpacker streets: cheap, loud until late, and the departure point for the Cu Chi and Mekong buses. District 3 around Turtle Lake has villas, cafés and quiet nights, a 15-minute walk from the palace. Thao Dien is leafy, expat and on metro line 1, but a ride from everything on this plan.
Walk within District 1; the museum, the palace, the cathedral and the market are all within two kilometers. For anything further use Grab: a GrabBike across the center is around ₫15,000 to ₫30,000 and a GrabCar ₫40,000 to ₫100,000, the price fixed in the app before you get in, helmet provided. Metro line 1 opened in December 2024 and runs from Ben Thanh under Le Loi to the Opera House and Ba Son, then over the river to Thao Dien and on to Suoi Tien: ₫7,000 to ₫20,000 a ride in cash, a little less tapping a bank card, ₫40,000 for a day pass, trains from 5 a.m. to 10 p.m. and to 11 p.m. from Friday to Sunday. City buses are a few thousand dong and fine for the airport, slow elsewhere.
District 3 · 105 min
Be at the gate for the 7:30 a.m. opening, because by 9 a.m. the tour groups fill the rooms. The Requiem floor of photographs by war photographers who died working is the one to give time to; the Agent Orange rooms are hard.
₫40,000
District 1 · 90 min
Ten minutes on foot to the 1966 palace of the South Vietnamese presidents, left as it was when the tanks came through the gate on April 30, 1975. See the war rooms and radios in the basement and the helicopter on the roof.
₫80,000
District 1 · 45 min
The red-brick cathedral has been in scaffolding since 2017, with restoration due to finish in 2027, so you see it from the square. Cross the road to the 1891 post office, still working, with painted maps of old Saigon on the walls; post a card from the counter.
District 1 · 30 min
The pedestrian lane beside the post office, lined with bookshops and café tables under the trees. Good for a cold ca phe sua da and the shade before the walk to lunch.
District 1 · 60 min
A 15-minute walk west for a baguette packed with pâté, cold cuts, pickles and chili, around ₫70,000 and enough for a whole lunch; expect a line, and eat it in the park across Le Lai. For com tam instead, the broken-rice shops on Nguyen Trai grill pork chops for ₫50,000 to ₫70,000 a plate.
₫70,000
District 1 · 45 min
Walk back east along Le Loi to the 1900 opera house on Lam Son Square, with the Continental and Caravelle hotels of Graham Greene's Saigon on either side. The A O Show, bamboo acrobatics, plays most evenings.
District 1 · 75 min
A 1960s apartment block on the pedestrian boulevard where every flat has become a café, shop or tiny restaurant across nine floors. Pay the elevator attendant a few thousand dong or climb, and pick a balcony on a high floor facing the street.
District 1 · 75 min
The covered market's clothing, coffee and lacquer stalls pack up between 6 and 7 p.m., so come for the last hour when sellers deal: offer half and settle around two thirds. Then the night market sets up on the streets either side, and the food stalls at the back do a decent bun thit nuong.
District 1 · 90 min
Up five flights of a scruffy stairwell to a rooftop strung with lanterns, serving home-style Vietnamese cooking such as caramelized pork in a clay pot, around ₫150,000 to ₫250,000 a head. Book a day ahead for the terrace; walk-ins eat inside.
District 1 · 90 min
The hotel bar where the war correspondents drank, on the tenth floor above Lam Son Square, with a live band and the Bitexco tower lit up across the roofs. Cocktails run ₫250,000 to ₫350,000; Chill Skybar on the 26th floor of the AB Tower is louder and higher.
Cholon, District 6 · 60 min
A 20-minute Grab west to Chinatown's wholesale market, a 1928 courtyard building with a clock tower. It is liveliest before 9 a.m., when dried shrimp, spices and fabric move by the sack; have breakfast at the courtyard food stalls.
Cholon, District 5 · 45 min
Fifteen minutes on foot along Hau Giang and Nguyen Trai to the Cantonese temple to the sea goddess, 1760, with coils of incense hanging from the roof. Free, and Cha Tam church around the corner is where President Diem was arrested in 1963.
Cholon, District 5 · 90 min
Hai Thuong Lan Ong for the traditional medicine shops, with drawers of roots and dried seahorses, Trieu Quang Phuc for lanterns, and Quan Am Pagoda on Lao Tu for the quieter courtyard. Walk slowly and look up at the shophouse facades.
Cholon, District 5 · 60 min
A Chinese noodle house that has served mi vit tiem for decades: a leg of duck braised in star anise and five spice over springy egg noodles, under ₫100,000. The hoanh thanh (wonton) noodles are the lighter order.
Da Kao, District 1 · 45 min
A 20-minute Grab back toward the center to a 1909 Cantonese temple dark with incense smoke, with the Hall of the Ten Hells and its carved punishments. Free, with shoulders and knees covered; the turtle pond outside is where locals release them for merit.
District 3 · 30 min
Fifteen minutes on foot to the pink church, 1876, painted its present color in 1957. The inside opens only around mass, so the outside is usually the visit, and the fabric market opposite is calm and untouristed.
District 3 · 30 min
Walk south down Pham Ngoc Thach past the French villas and embassies to Ho Con Rua, a 1960s concrete fountain on a roundabout where students sit with snacks from the carts. Not a lake and no turtle, but the center of the district.
District 3 · 15 min
The corner of Nguyen Dinh Chieu and Cach Mang Thang Tam, where the monk burned himself in June 1963 in protest at the Diem government. A small park with a bronze statue; ten minutes is right.
District 3 · 60 min
Down an alley five minutes away, an old café open since 1938 and still run by the founder's daughters. The coffee is ca phe vot, brewed through a cloth sock over charcoal; sit on the low stools and wait out any wet-season rain here.
District 4 · 120 min
A 15-minute Grab to the snail street in District 4, where a kilometer of sidewalk restaurants grills shellfish from 5 p.m.. Point at the tanks for oc huong with salt and chili, scallops with spring onion oil or clams with lemongrass, ₫150,000 to ₫250,000 a head with beer; go early, as the tables fill by 7 p.m..
District 1 · 90 min
Back across the bridge to the taproom that helped start the city's craft beer scene: a jasmine IPA, a passionfruit wheat beer, or a flight of six. For the opposite experience, Bui Vien walking street is ten minutes west and loud until the small hours.
Cu Chi · 330 min
Ben Dinh is the nearer site, 50 km and about 90 minutes north-west; a GrabCar there and back is around ₫1,000,000 and lets you leave at 7 a.m. to beat the groups, while a half-day bus tour from Pham Ngu Lao costs a few hundred thousand dong. Entry is around ₫110,000 in cash for the film, the guide and a crawl through a widened 100-meter stretch, and you will be back in the city by about 12:30 p.m..
₫110,000
Thao Dien · 75 min
Metro line 1 from Ben Thanh reaches Thao Dien station in about 15 minutes, then it is a short GrabBike ride or a 20-minute walk. Vietnamese cooking in a garden villa, around ₫200,000 a head, such as grilled eggplant with scallion oil and soft-shell crab.
Thao Dien · 90 min
The expat quarter on a bend of the river: cafés and galleries along Xuan Thuy and Thao Dien street, then the riverside walk at the end of Nguyen U Di. Shaded, flat and the calmest hour of the three days.
Binh Thanh · 90 min
Take two metro stops to Tan Cang and walk 15 minutes through Vinhomes Central Park. The observation deck fills floors 79 to 81, with tickets from around ₫300,000 (cheaper before 4 p.m.), and sunset is around 5:45 p.m. all year, so arrive an hour before it.
₫300,000
District 3 · 60 min
A 15-minute Grab back to District 3 for Phnom Penh-style hu tieu: clear pork broth over thin rice noodles with pork, prawn, liver and a quail egg, under ₫100,000. Order it kho, dry with the broth in a separate bowl, the way regulars do.
District 1 · 60 min
Walk the boulevard one last time while the families are out, the children on toy cars and the dancers by City Hall, down to Bach Dang wharf. A coconut from a cart on the way is ₫20,000 to ₫30,000.
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Tan Son Nhat (SGN) is only 7 km north-west of District 1, so the ride is short and the traffic is the variable: 25 to 45 minutes. A GrabCar to Ben Thanh or Dong Khoi is ₫120,000 to ₫250,000 depending on the hour; follow the Grab signs to the pick-up point rather than taking the first offer in the hall. Bus 109 runs from outside arrivals to 23 Thang 9 Park by Ben Thanh for ₫15,000 to ₫20,000 (more with big luggage), roughly 5:30 a.m. to 10:40 p.m. every 15 to 25 minutes, and takes 45 to 60 minutes. The metro does not yet reach the airport. Terminal 3 opened in 2025 for domestic flights; international arrivals use Terminal 2.
About ₫500,000 to ₫1,000,000 a day per person for meals, tickets and rides. Street meals are ₫50,000 to ₫100,000, the museum and palace ₫40,000 and ₫80,000, the metro ₫7,000 to ₫20,000 a ride and a GrabBike ₫15,000 to ₫30,000. Day 3 is the expensive one: Cu Chi transport, the Landmark 81 ticket and a rooftop cocktail push it toward ₫1,500,000.
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Enough for District 1, Cholon and District 3, and one morning out at the tunnels, at a walking pace. A fourth day buys an overnight in the Mekong Delta with Can Tho's Cai Rang floating market at dawn; a fifth, Vung Tau and the beach.
Day 1: the War Remnants Museum and the palace are indoors, the café apartment and the post office are covered, and Ben Thanh has a roof. A Waystop rain plan for this day moves Cholon's walk and the river to a drier morning.
Most passports need an e-visa from the government's own site, evisa.gov.vn: US$25 single entry or US$50 multiple, up to 90 days, usually issued in three working days. Lookalike agency sites charge double or more, and some European passports get 45 days visa-free.
Yes, with one specific risk: phone and bag snatches from passing motorbikes, especially in District 1 at night and around Bui Vien. Carry your phone on the building side of the sidewalk, use a cross-body bag, and do not hold a phone up in the road for photos. The traffic is the other danger; cross as the tip says.
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