Ho Chi Minh City travel guide — what to see, how to get around

Destinations › Asia › Ho Chi Minh City

Vietnam's largest city ran almost entirely on motorbikes until December 2024, when Metro Line 1 finally opened between Ben Thanh and Suoi Tien Terminal — fourteen stations covering exactly one corridor, and almost none of the places you'll actually want to walk to. The tourist core is compact enough to cover on foot between the War Remnants Museum, Independence Palace and the old French-built blocks around Dong Khoi, then you ride-hail out to Cho Lon once the heat wins.

Getting there

How to reach Ho Chi Minh City

There is no nonstop from Toronto to Vietnam. Vietnam Airlines doesn't serve Canada at all — its only North American route is San Francisco — so every itinerary is at least one stop. The clean one-stops all use an existing YYZ nonstop to an Asian hub and then a short hop south: EVA Air via Taipei Taoyuan, Cathay Pacific via Hong Kong, Korean Air or Air Canada via Seoul Incheon, Air Canada via Tokyo (Narita or Haneda), or Philippine Airlines via Manila. You land at Tan Son Nhat International Airport (SGN), Terminal 2 — T1 and the newer T3, which opened in April 2025, both handle domestic flights, and a free shuttle links all three terminals. There is no airport rail link and Metro Line 1 does not reach the airport; the lines planned to serve it, Line 4 and Line 6, are not built. The named public options are city bus route 152 and express bus route 109, both of which run from the airport into the city centre. Otherwise: Grab, Xanh SM (also branded Green SM) or Be from the ride-hail pickup area, or a metered Vinasun or Mai Linh from the official rank.

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Getting around

Once you're there

Metro Line 1 (Ben Thanh – Suoi Tien Terminal) is the only line running: 14 stations, three of them underground at Ben Thanh, Opera House and Ba Son, the rest elevated out along the eastern corridor. Ticketing is a reloadable NFC smart card (Sony FeliCa-based) or a single-journey card, both bought at the stations, and fares are distance-based rather than flat. Feeder buses connect metro stations to the wider city bus network. For everything the metro doesn't cover — which is most of it — the apps are Grab, Xanh SM (the all-electric VinFast fleet, branded Green SM outside Vietnam) and Be; Grab and Be run motorbike taxis as well as cars and quote a fixed fare up front. If you want a street-hailed metered taxi, restrict yourself to Vinasun and Mai Linh; the lookalike fleets with near-identical liveries are the ones that cause trouble.

Don't miss

The best of Ho Chi Minh City

War Remnants Museum

28 Vo Van Tan, in what everyone still calls District 3. Captured US aircraft and armour in the courtyard — a Huey, an F-5A, an A-1 Skyraider, an M48 tank — then upstairs the war photojournalism, the Agent Orange and chemical-defoliant rooms, the My Lai material, and a reconstruction of the Con Dao tiger cages. It is unapologetically one-sided and it is also the most affecting thing in the city. Go first thing in the morning and don't schedule anything cheerful straight afterwards.

Independence Palace

The Reunification Palace, left more or less as it was when a North Vietnamese tank came through the main gate on 30 April 1975 — period furnishings upstairs, the war room in the basement, a T-54 parked in the gardens. Ngo Viet Thu's modernist design, built through the 1960s, is the underrated half of the visit and stands up on its own.

Cu Chi tunnels

Northwest of the centre, and there are two separate sites. Ben Dinh is closer in, with reconstructed sections deliberately widened for visitors; Ben Duoc is further out, much quieter, and preserves part of the original network. Both have the booby-trap displays and the restored underground conference rooms where the Tet Offensive was planned. Both also have a live firing range attached, which plenty of people find grim — you can skip it.

Cho Lon

The old Chinese quarter west of the centre, and by area the largest Chinatown in the world: Binh Tay Market, the hanging incense coils of Thien Hau Temple, herb shops, and assembly halls — On Lang, Nghia An and others — still run by Cantonese, Teochew and Fujianese congregations. Very few short-trip visitors bother, which is precisely why it still reads as a working neighbourhood rather than an attraction.

Ho Chi Minh City in pictures

Ho Chi Minh City

Where to base yourself

Neighbourhoods of Ho Chi Minh City

District 1 — now reorganised into wards, one of them named Sai Gon

The colonial-grid core: Dong Khoi, Nguyen Hue walking street, Le Loi, Ben Thanh Market, and the three underground metro stations. Base here if it's a first visit, a short trip, or you're travelling with parents who need everything within a short taxi hop. Note the July 2025 administrative reform abolished Vietnam's district tier nationwide and replaced it with wards, so newer paperwork and signage use ward names where hotels, maps and every local you meet still say 'District 1'. Don't base yourself on or beside Bui Vien — the backpacker street runs loud until the small hours.

District 3, around Ban Co and the Vo Thi Sau area

Leafy, low-rise, villas behind walls, and a proper neighbourhood market. Fifteen minutes on foot to the War Remnants Museum and the Reunification Palace, so you're not cut off, but the noise level at night drops by half and the eating is better and cheaper than anything in the tourist blocks. This is where to stay on a second visit, or with kids who need to sleep. Not for you if you want to walk to the river.

Cho Lon — the old District 5 and 6

The Chinese quarter, and the oldest-feeling part of the city: Binh Tay Market's restored market hall, Thien Hau Temple under its coils of hanging incense, and Hai Thuong Lan Ong, the traditional-medicine street that smells of dried herbs for three blocks. Go, absolutely. Don't sleep here on a short trip — it's a long, hot, traffic-clogged ride from everything else and the metro doesn't reach it.

Thao Dien and An Phu, in Thu Duc

Riverside, treed, low-rise, full of international schools, pools and imported groceries — the place people mean when they say 'the expat area'. Genuinely good with young children, and Metro Line 1 runs through Thu Duc. The trade-off is that you commute into the centre for every sight, and the Hanoi Highway at rush hour will test anyone's patience.

What to eat

Eating in Ho Chi Minh City

Com tam

Broken rice — the fractured grains that used to be the cheap leftover — under a charcoal-grilled pork chop, with shredded pork skin, a wedge of steamed egg-and-pork loaf, pickles and a bowl of sweetened fish sauce you pour over the lot. This is the southern plate, eaten at breakfast and lunch, and the plastic-stool shops that do it well are thickest in the residential lanes off Nguyen Dinh Chieu and around Ban Co Market in District 3.

Banh mi, the Saigon version

Different from what you get on Spadina or in Toronto's east-end Vietnamese strips: the southern build is pate and cold cuts, a lot of pickled carrot and daikon, coriander, chilli and a slick of Maggi, in a baguette with a shatter-thin crust and almost no crumb. Carts cluster near markets and office blocks through the early morning and then vanish. The alley behind Ben Thanh and the streets around Tan Dinh Market are reliable hunting.

Oc — snails and shellfish, after dark

An entire genre rather than a dish: sea snails, clams, scallops, razor clams and blood cockles cooked to order with tamarind, coconut, chilli salt, lemongrass or garlic butter, eaten with a toothpick and a lot of beer over several hours. Vinh Khanh Street in District 4 is the address the whole city gives you, and it is a short ride over the bridge from District 1.

Ca phe sua da, bac xiu, and where to drink them

Vietnamese coffee is robusta — darker, more bitter and far stronger than what you're used to — dripped through a phin filter onto condensed milk and poured over ice. Bac xiu is the milk-heavy Cholon-Chinese variant. The proper version is drunk on a low stool on the pavement. For something more sheltered, the Cafe Apartment on Nguyen Hue is a 1960s block of flats whose balconies are now dozens of tiny independent cafés stacked up the building — the building is the landmark, and whichever tenants are in it that month will do.

If you only have 48 hours

Two days in Ho Chi Minh City

1

Day 1, morning

War Remnants Museum first, before the heat and the tour buses — it is a hard hour and worth it. Then walk about ten minutes east to the Reunification Palace and go through the 1960s interiors and the basement command bunker. From the palace gates, walk down Le Duan to the Central Post Office and Notre-Dame Basilica, which face each other across the same small square; Book Street runs beside the post office and is a shaded place to sit. All of this is on foot within a fifteen-minute radius. The basilica has been under restoration since 2017, so expect scaffolding and assume you are seeing it from outside.

2

Day 1, afternoon

Walk south down Dong Khoi past the Opera House to Nguyen Hue, the pedestrianised boulevard that runs from the People's Committee building to the Saigon River. Do the Cafe Apartment here, out of the sun. Carry on to Bach Dang Wharf on the river and take the breeze. This is the one genuinely walkable stretch of the city — flat, wide and mostly free of parked motorbikes.

3

Day 1, evening

Grab across the Khanh Hoi bridge into District 4 for oc on Vinh Khanh Street, or stay central for the night market that sets up around Ben Thanh once the day market shuts. Either way it's a short ride back; do not attempt to walk it in the dark along the kerb.

4

Day 2, morning

Grab out to Cho Lon — allow twenty-five to thirty-five minutes, more at rush hour. Start at Binh Tay Market for the building and the wholesale chaos, walk to Thien Hau Temple, then Cha Tam Church, then along Hai Thuong Lan Ong through the herb shops. These are all within about a fifteen-minute walk of each other, which is the only part of the day you'll be on foot.

5

Day 2, afternoon

Back to Ben Thanh and onto Metro Line 1, open since December 2024 and running out to Suoi Tien in Thu Duc. The three underground stations — Ben Thanh, Opera House and Ba Son — are the ones that matter to a visitor and put you back in the centre in minutes; ride east if you have children who'd rather see a train than a temple. Ticketing is cashless at the gate, so have a contactless card or the transit app set up before you arrive.

6

Day 2, evening

Ho Thi Ky, a longish walk or a short ride from Ben Thanh: a wholesale flower market by day that turns into a dense Vietnamese-Cambodian food alley at night. This is the best eating in central Saigon and almost nobody in your hotel will have mentioned it.

Worth a day

Day trips from Ho Chi Minh City

Cu Chi Tunnels

The Viet Cong tunnel network northwest of the city, and the single best half-day out of Saigon. Two visitor sites: Ben Dinh is closer and its tunnels have been widened for tourists, Ben Duoc is further, quieter and includes original sections. Getting there: by road it's roughly an hour and a half to two hours each way up National Highway 22 — a hired car or a minibus tour is the sane option. The better version is the speedboat that runs up the Saigon River from Bach Dang Wharf in District 1, which turns a dull highway slog into the trip itself. Public buses do run via Cu Chi bus station with a local connection, but they eat the whole day.

My Tho and Ben Tre, the near Mekong Delta

The closest place you can actually get on the water among the coconut palms: about an hour and a half to two hours southwest on the Trung Luong expressway, then a wooden boat out to the islands in the river and a smaller sampan down a palm-shaded creek. Ben Tre is the quieter, less bus-parked side. Be warned about the alternative: Can Tho's Cai Rang floating market is the famous one, but it only functions at dawn and Can Tho is three to four hours away, so anyone selling you it as a day trip is selling you a bus ride. That one needs an overnight.

Vung Tau

Since the 2025 provincial merger — Ba Ria–Vung Tau and Binh Duong were absorbed into Ho Chi Minh City — this beach city is technically part of HCMC, which is a nice bit of trivia and irrelevant to the two hours it takes to get there by road. Go for the sea air, the seafood, the lighthouse and the Christ of Vung Tau statue on the headland — though that last one is a long flight of steps and then a spiral staircase inside the statue, so judge accordingly. The high-speed catamaran ferry from Bach Dang Wharf in District 1 skips the expressway traffic entirely and is the reason this works as a day trip at all.

Travelling with family

Bringing parents, or kids

Start with the thing nobody tells you: the pavements are motorbike parking. Not occasionally — structurally. Add plastic stools, cooking fires and delivery bikes, and the practical effect is that pedestrians walk in the road. If you are pushing a stroller or a wheelchair you will be in the traffic lane for most of every block, with high uneven kerbs and no dropped edges. This is the defining accessibility fact about Ho Chi Minh City and it does not have a workaround. Crossing the road is the second shock. There are no gaps. You step off the kerb and walk at a slow, absolutely constant pace and the motorbikes part around you; the fatal instinct is to stop or jump back. With a parent who is unsteady or a child, take their arm, walk on the upstream side so you meet the bikes first, and use the signalised crossings on Nguyen Hue, Le Loi and Le Duan where they exist. Global Affairs Canada warns that road safety is poor throughout Vietnam and that fatal accidents are frequent, and it is not being dramatic. What genuinely works: Grab and Xanh SM. The fare is fixed in the app before you get in, so there's no negotiation in front of your mother-in-law, you can request a seven-seater, and you never have to pronounce the destination. Budget on using them for almost everything. Metro Line 1 is the pleasant surprise — it opened in December 2024, it's air-conditioned, and the stations are new-build with lifts and escalators, which makes it far easier going than the streets above. Don't assume every lift is in service on the day; check at the station if someone in your group cannot manage stairs. It also only runs one direction, out east through Thu Duc, so it solves a corridor rather than the city. Heat is constant. There is no cool season here, unlike Hanoi: the dry months from December to April sit in the low-to-mid thirties, and the wet season from May to November adds humidity plus a violent hour-long downpour most afternoons. Build the day around it — sights until late morning, an air-conditioned mall or a long lunch through the worst of it, back out in the late afternoon. The shopping centres in District 1 are the reliable network of clean toilets, cold air and seating; squat toilets are still common everywhere else. On the sights themselves: the War Remnants Museum and the Reunification Palace are both multi-storey and both have lifts, but ask at the entrance rather than assuming which one is running. The Palace's grounds are flat and easy. Ben Thanh Market is narrow, packed, unairconditioned and impossible with a stroller — send one person in and let the rest sit outside. Cho Lon is flat but the temple thresholds are high, deliberately so. The Cu Chi tunnels involve crawling; anyone can skip that and still enjoy the site above ground, and the river boat gets you there without two hours in a van. Finally, the journey. There is no nonstop from Pearson, so you're looking at twenty to twenty-four hours with one connection through Asia, then immigration at Tan Son Nhat, which can be slow. Print the e-visa. If you're travelling with an elderly parent, pay for the connection with the longer layover rather than the tight one.

Before you go

Practical basics

Currency and cards

Vietnamese dong, and the notes have a lot of zeros — check them twice, because two of the higher denominations are near-identical shades of blue and mixing them up is the classic tired-traveller mistake. Cards work in hotels, malls, chain cafés and mid-range restaurants upward. Everything else — markets, street stalls, xe om, most family-run shops — is cash or a domestic QR scan you can't use as a visitor, so plan on carrying dong. Use ATMs attached to bank branches rather than standalone machines; Global Affairs Canada says credit, debit and ATM fraud occurs frequently in Vietnam. There is also a customs threshold on how much cash you can bring in or take out without declaring it, which matters if you're carrying money to family — check the current figure before you fly.

Tipping

Not a Vietnamese custom, and no one will chase you for it. At a pho shop, a street stall or in a metered taxi you round up and that's the whole ritual. Where tipping has become normal is tourist-facing work: hotel porters, spa staff, and above all a guide and driver who have given you a full private day. Hotel restaurants and smarter places often add a service charge already — look at the bill before you add anything on top.

Plugs and power

Vietnam runs at 220 volts, 50 hertz — some references round it to 230, but either way it is roughly double Canada's 120 volts. Sockets take Type A, the two flat parallel pins identical to a Canadian ungrounded plug, and Type C, two round pins; most modern outlets are the hybrid kind that accept either. So your charger physically fits — but the voltage is the part that kills appliances. Only plug in things whose label reads 100–240V, 50/60Hz. Phone and laptop chargers all say this. A hair dryer, curling iron, electric razor or CPAP humidifier bought in Canada may not, and a grounded Canadian three-pin plug may not fit. Bring a slim power bar so one adapter serves the whole family.

Tap water

Do not drink it. Bottled water is everywhere, cheap and supplied by every hotel; if you have a sensitive stomach, use it for brushing too. Ice is less of a problem than the internet suggests — the cylindrical ice with a hole through the middle is generally factory-made from treated water and is what established shops use — but with young children or elderly parents in tow, stick to bottled and skip ice from roadside carts. Traveller's diarrhoea is far and away the most common thing that goes wrong on this trip; hand sanitiser before every meal does more good than avoiding street food.

Language and English

Vietnamese, and it's tonal, which means a word you think you're saying correctly may be a completely different word. English is widely and confidently spoken by younger people in District 1, in hotels and across the tourist trade; it drops off fast in Cho Lon, in the markets and with older drivers. Grab removes most of the problem because you type the address instead of saying it. Download the offline Vietnamese pack in Google Translate before you go and use the camera mode on menus — it works well on printed text.

The scam and safety note that matters

Bag and phone snatching is the real risk here, not violent crime. Global Affairs Canada warns that criminals may try to grab your bag and other valuables while passing on a motorbike, or slash your bag in crowded streets and markets. Carry a bag on the building side of the pavement or across your body under your arm, and never walk along the kerb with a phone in your hand — phones get taken from hands at red lights. At Tan Son Nhat, ignore anyone who approaches you inside the terminal offering a car; walk to the marked ride-hail bay or the official taxi rank. And if a friendly stranger strikes up a conversation that leads to a card game with their cousin, walk away — Global Affairs Canada flags gambling scams in both Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi, with victims losing thousands of dollars.

When to go

Timing your trip

The south has two seasons and nothing in between. Dry season is December to April; rainy season is May to November, and September and October are the wettest months by a clear margin — if you have a free choice, those are the ones to avoid. The crucial thing is the character of the rain: wet-season downpours are usually a violent burst in the afternoon or early evening rather than all-day grey, so a June or July trip is genuinely workable if you front-load your day and keep something indoor in reserve for late afternoon. What does ruin days is street flooding when a heavy burst coincides with a high tide in the low-lying areas. March and April are the hottest run of the year, right before the rains break. The annual average sits around 27–28C with very little variation between the coolest and warmest months and high humidity throughout, so there is no cool season to wait for. Tet, the Lunar New Year, lands in late January or February and shuts a large share of restaurants and family businesses for the better part of a week — check the date against your trip before you book anything.

Do it on a budget

Smart-money tips

Metro Line 1 sells a reloadable NFC smart card and single-journey cards at the stations, and fares are distance-based rather than flat, so a short hop costs less than the full run out to Suoi Tien. Whether a foreign contactless bank card or phone wallet can be tapped straight at the gate is not something to count on — buy a card at the station and you are covered either way.
Vietnam has no visa waiver for Canadians. You apply for the e-visa yourself on the government portal at evisa.gov.vn before you fly — single or multiple entry, valid up to 90 days, and usable at the Tan Son Nhat immigration counters. Any site charging you to 'process' or 'expedite' it is a middleman sitting on top of the government form.
There is no combined city sightseeing pass in Ho Chi Minh City. The War Remnants Museum and Independence Palace each sell their own admission at their own gate, and the things that genuinely fill a day — the Cho Lon temples, the Nguyen Hue walking street in the evening, Binh Tay Market — carry no entry charge at all.

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FAQ

Ho Chi Minh City — common questions

How do I get to Ho Chi Minh City?

There is no nonstop from Toronto to Vietnam. Vietnam Airlines doesn't serve Canada at all — its only North American route is San Francisco — so every itinerary is at least one stop. The clean one-stops all use an existing YYZ nonstop to an Asian hub and then a short hop south: EVA Air via Taipei Taoyuan, Cathay Pacific via Hong Kong, Korean Air or Air Canada via Seoul Incheon, Air Canada via Tokyo (Narita or Haneda), or Philippine Airlines via Manila. You land at Tan Son Nhat International Airport (SGN), Terminal 2 — T1 and the newer T3, which opened in April 2025, both handle domestic flights, and a free shuttle links all three terminals. There is no airport rail link and Metro Line 1 does not reach the airport; the lines planned to serve it, Line 4 and Line 6, are not built. The named public options are city bus route 152 and express bus route 109, both of which run from the airport into the city centre. Otherwise: Grab, Xanh SM (also branded Green SM) or Be from the ride-hail pickup area, or a metered Vinasun or Mai Linh from the official rank.

How do I get around Ho Chi Minh City?

Metro Line 1 (Ben Thanh – Suoi Tien Terminal) is the only line running: 14 stations, three of them underground at Ben Thanh, Opera House and Ba Son, the rest elevated out along the eastern corridor. Ticketing is a reloadable NFC smart card (Sony FeliCa-based) or a single-journey card, both bought at the stations, and fares are distance-based rather than flat. Feeder buses connect metro stations to the wider city bus network. For everything the metro doesn't cover — which is most of it — the apps are Grab, Xanh SM (the all-electric VinFast fleet, branded Green SM outside Vietnam) and Be; Grab and Be run motorbike taxis as well as cars and quote a fixed fare up front. If you want a street-hailed metered taxi, restrict yourself to Vinasun and Mai Linh; the lookalike fleets with near-identical liveries are the ones that cause trouble.

When is the best time to visit Ho Chi Minh City?

The south has two seasons and nothing in between. Dry season is December to April; rainy season is May to November, and September and October are the wettest months by a clear margin — if you have a free choice, those are the ones to avoid. The crucial thing is the character of the rain: wet-season downpours are usually a violent burst in the afternoon or early evening rather than all-day grey, so a June or July trip is genuinely workable if you front-load your day and keep something indoor in reserve for late afternoon. What does ruin days is street flooding when a heavy burst coincides with a high tide in the low-lying areas. March and April are the hottest run of the year, right before the rains break. The annual average sits around 27–28C with very little variation between the coolest and warmest months and high humidity throughout, so there is no cool season to wait for. Tet, the Lunar New Year, lands in late January or February and shuts a large share of restaurants and family businesses for the better part of a week — check the date against your trip before you book anything.