Vietnam is becoming an increasingly popular alternative to Thailand among single men from all over the world who seek cheaper prices and a culturally more authentic experience. It’s a known fact that prices for pretty much everything are on the rise in the land of smiles with the ever increasing tourist arrivals: hotels, restaurants, bars – and girls.
Especially the girls aspect is critically here – while there are more and more tourists coming to Thailand every year, the number of “open-minded” ladies (no matter whether that’s sex workers or just regular girls with good English skills) is actually decreasing instead of increasing – it’s no secret that the birth rate in Thailand has been declining for more than two decades, no change in sight.
That’s why so many guys who are not willing to pay 2,000 Baht for a short time with a Thai girl (similar price like in the west) are planning their first sex holiday to Vietnam.
And it’s really true – you won’t be spending as much money here compared to Thailand. In this guide I will give you a complete breakdown of all typical costs during a sex vacation in Vietnam, as well as other important things to know:
- Cost of a Sex Holiday in Vietnam
- Where to Meet Girls on Your Sex Holiday?
- Best Place for a Sex Holiday in Vietnam?
- Choosing a Hotel for Your Sex Holiday
- Final Words
Cost of a Sex Holiday in Vietnam
So let’s assume you want to go to Vietnam for 2 weeks. That gives you enough time to visit the “Big 3” (see part 3 of this guide) while not having to rush through everything – you’ll have 4-5 days in each place, so you can acclimate yourself to the culture and take your time with orientation and finding your favorite spots to eat and go out at night.
Sure, you can also take it easy and just visit only two places, or just one week all in Saigon. That’s perfectly fine. What I do is I show you the typical costs per day, so you can calculate your total budget depending on the length of your trip.
The local currency in Vietnam is Dong, you can find the current exchange rate on XE.com. I’ll quote some prices here in “k”, so 250k would mean 250,000 VND – around 10 USD.
- Hotels: You can get a modern 3 star hotel with breakfast for around 50 USD per night pretty much anywhere in Vietnam. That’s usually the price range with the best value for money. Sure, you can also get 20-30 USD deals, but these hotels usually have at least one very annoying feature: old and noisy aircon that hasn’t been cleaned for ages, a worn out (or stone hard) mattress, thin walls so you can’t sleep well because of noise, or a rather basic breakfast with Nescafe and milk powder instead of filter coffee and cow milk.
- Food & Drinks: Make sure that your hotel includes breakfast, so your first daily expense in this category will be lunch – if you eat in a local Vietnamese restaurant you can get a plate of chicken, rice, vegetables and soup for as little as 50k Dong, around 2 USD, but if it’s a somewhat nicer place with aircon you can expect to pay around 4-5 USD, which is still more than reasonable. A meal in a western restaurant will cost you around 10-15 USD, plus another 1-3 USD for drinks.
Let’s say you alternate between local and foreign cuisine, so that will make about 20 USD per day for your lunch and dinner. - Transport: If you are like me and most other guys I know, you probably try to avoid the local taxi drivers as much as possible. Fortunately there’s Grab, the Uber of Asia if you want, a hugely popular app that lets you book private car and motorbike taxis. I personally love the motorbikes as they are not just faster in the dense traffic, but also extremely cheap – a ride from Bui Vien Street in Saigon (the tourist area) to Benny (the blow job salon) 8km further up north will cost you like 25-30k – around 1 USD.
So assuming you stay in a hotel in good location (and yes, the 50 USD deals will be in good locations) so you can walk to most “points of interest”, but still take one Grab car and bike each per day further out to places like the zoo or a certain massage parlor, that would be about 7 USD per day for your transport costs. - Nightlife: You probably don’t want to spend your evenings watching TV in your hotel room, but going out to the bars, drinking and having a good time. Good news is that the local Vietnamese beer tastes not bad at all (especially Saigon Green) and it’s also incredibly cheap: You barely pay more than 50k for a bottle, many bars even have happy hours until 7pm with “Buy 1 Get 1 Free”. Tiger is also very popular and similarly cheap, probably because they have a big factory near Hanoi. Spirits and cocktails are also very reasonably priced – around 100k per drink. If you go to a night club, there’s often a small entrance fee, but that usually includes your first drink.
That said, you should easily get by with 15 USD per day (on average) for nightlife expenses. - Sex: I’ve already written a detailed overview of the sex prices in Vietnam, but to quickly sum it up here: A freelancer from the club should cost about 1,000k or maximum 1.5 million for long time (whole night) if she is really young and attractive. A great deal offer the massage parlors where you can get a one hour massage that finishes with a hand job for around 700k including tip. A blow job in a hot toc in Saigon costs 400k (no joke, check out the link above), a street hooker will usually spend the night with you for 700-1,000k and if you put in a little effort, you can also meet attractive Vietnamese girls for free by using the dating site.
So if you alternate between paid sex with hookers and free sex with dating site girls, you can calculate with about 500k, or 20 USD per day in this category.
That’s it for the daily variable costs. Of course you also have to consider the one time fix costs like for your flight, but of course I don’t know if you are flying over from Thailand or coming straight from the United States, Europe or Australia, so just add that expense to the total figure down below, as well as other potential expenses like travel health insurance, domestic flights / bus journeys or trips to the Mekong Delta or Halong Bay.
Let’s sum up the different daily expenses: 50 USD (hotel) + 20 USD (food & drinks) + 7 USD (transport) + 15 USD (nightlife) + 20 USD (sex) = 112 USD per day, or about 1,600 USD for 2 weeks.
Not bad at all, and of course you can also reduce this number by staying in a hotel which costs 40 USD instead of 50 USD or have more sex with regular girls instead of prostitutes – which brings me to the next topic:
Where to Meet Girls on Your Sex Holiday?
I always recommend my friends who are traveling to Vietnam to check out the dating site, where you’ll find more than half a million women from all over the country, and of course the Saigon and Hanoi sections are especially big.
It’s so easy to start a conversation with these ladies, what I usually do is I ask for their Facebook or WhatsApp contact so you can chat with them more conveniently on your phone. Arrange a coffee or dinner date with them and take it from there.
The alternative is obviously to try to flirt with girls in every day life situations like in the restaurants or night markets, but keep in mind that most Vietnamese girls are conservative and rather shy, so that can be quite time consuming.
And then there is of course the paid option – hookers. You’ll meet them in the night clubs, massage parlors, hot tocs, on certain streets and parks and escorts online. For specific info on the exact places in each city check out the links in the next section.
Best Place for a Sex Holiday in Vietnam?
If you have only enough time to visit one place, I’d definitely recommend Saigon (officially called Ho Chi Minh City). It’s by far the nicest, most modern, developed and exciting place in all of Vietnam. And most importantly: It’s the only city in the country with red light districts and has overall the biggest selection of paid sex – no matter whether that’s girls in bars and clubs, street hookers, blow job salons or foreigner-friendly ladies on the dating site (see above).
Da Nang is an amazing city as well, it’s a lot more laid back than Saigon, has a beautiful beach and river, just not as many options in terms of sex workers, but still more than enough bars with not only friendly ladies but also easy going expats you can talk to.
And Hanoi, well, it’s obviously the capital city of Vietnam and if you are planning a trip to Halong Bay or Sapa, you will probably spend one or two nights up here. Even though it’s the most hectic and chaotic city in the whole country (narrow streets), you’ll surely have a memorable time here as well if you know the right places to go:
Choosing a Hotel for Your Sex Holiday
The most important criteria when choosing a hotel (besides the location) should be the “guest-friendly” aspect. Don’t take it for granted that you can walk through the lobby and up the elevator to your room with a hot Vietnamese lady while the guy at the reception just looks the other way.
Hotel staff in Vietnam know very well if a particular girl you invite is a “normal” girl or a prostitute. And so not every hotel allows prostitutes in their rooms, it’s as simple as that. So even if you are planning on meeting a girl in the night club and inviting her to your room – make sure you are actually allowed to do that.
More info here:
Final Words
Thailand has long been the first Asian country most people ever visit, because of its (relatively) modern infrastructure, cleanliness, safety and amazing value for everything from hotels to women. But it’s no secret that prices in Thailand have reached western standards in many regards, and it’s also no secret that Vietnam has caught up in a lot of general tourism categories – while still offering authentic girls and prices comparable to Thailand 10 years ago.
So it’s not a big surprise really that more and more (single) guys are choosing Vietnam over Thailand for their first (sex) trip in Asia. I hope you have a good overview of the prices and types of girls you can meet here, make sure you also check out my other guides I’ve linked to throughout this guide for more info on each city.
