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There are some cities where you arrive, drop your bag in the hotel and immediately feel as though you have made a terrible mistake. Ho Chi Minh City wasn’t quite like that. It was more a case of wondering whether I had accidentally wandered onto the set of a very complicated computer game, where nobody had bothered to explain the rules.
I was travelling alone and, being over 50, I have reached the stage of life where I appreciate a city that gives me plenty to see without demanding that I behave like a contestant on The Amazing Race. Ho Chi Minh City suited me rather well. The city, formerly known as Saigon, is Vietnam’s largest urban centre and is a fascinating mixture of old and new. French-colonial buildings sit alongside modern towers, tiny cafes occupy gaps between shops, street food is everywhere, and motorbikes appear to have achieved a level of population growth normally associated with rabbits. For a solo traveller, particularly one who prefers exploring at his own pace, there is plenty to like.
If you are still deciding whether Vietnam is the right country for a first solo trip, Ho Chi Minh City is one place that tends to answer the question fairly quickly.
History Around Every Corner
One of the things I enjoyed most was the city’s history. The War Remnants Museum is not exactly what you would call a cheerful morning out, but it is an important place to visit. Vietnam’s history is complicated, painful and still relatively recent, and the museum provides a sobering insight into the Vietnam War and its consequences. It is open daily, 7.30am-12pm and 1.30pm-5pm, and entry costs a token 15,000 dong (around £0.40), which tells you something about priorities here. This is not a museum built to profit from the past.
Then there is the Reunification Palace, formerly the presidential palace of South Vietnam. Standing inside, I found myself thinking about how strange history can be. Places that were once at the centre of enormous political events can eventually become tourist attractions where people wander around taking photographs. I suppose that is one of travel’s odd little tricks. Yesterday’s history becomes today’s entrance ticket, in this case 40,000 dong (around £1.15), open 7.30am-11.30am and 1pm-5pm.
The Cu Chi Tunnels, outside the city, offer another glimpse into the country’s wartime history. The tunnels formed an extensive underground network used by Viet Cong forces during the conflict. I crawled through a section of them and discovered that I am considerably less suited to underground warfare than I had previously imagined. At my age, I require more space, better lighting and preferably a chair. The tunnels sit around 55-70 kilometres northwest of the centre, roughly 90 minutes by road, and entry runs 90,000-125,000 dong (around £2.55-£3.55) with an optional English-speaking guide for another 90,000 dong. Independent travel is possible but fiddly. I would rather book a straightforward half-day Cu Chi Tunnels tour and let someone else deal with the logistics, particularly on a first visit.
The Food Is Almost Unfair
Vietnamese food is one of the great pleasures of travelling here, and Ho Chi Minh City makes it almost impossible to remain hungry. There is pho, of course. There is banh mi. There are noodles, rice dishes, seafood and an almost endless selection of things being cooked on pavements, in tiny kitchens and on street corners. A banh mi from a street stall can be an astonishingly good meal for very little money.
And this is one of the things I particularly enjoy about travelling alone. I do not need to negotiate with anyone about where to eat. If I see something that smells wonderful, I eat it. If I see something that looks questionable, I eat it slightly more cautiously. Nobody is standing beside me saying, ’are you sure that’s hygienic?’ This is one of the many advantages of being over 50 and travelling alone. You become sufficiently experienced to understand that sometimes ignorance is not only bliss, but lunch.
Coffee Is Practically a Way of Life
Vietnamese coffee deserves its own paragraph. Actually, it probably deserves several. The cafe culture in Ho Chi Minh City is brilliant, particularly if you are travelling alone. You can sit quietly with a Vietnamese iced coffee and watch the city go about its business. Nobody cares that you are alone. Nobody appears to be wondering why you have not got a companion.
And then there is egg coffee. I approached it with the sort of caution normally reserved for unusual medical procedures. It turned out to be delicious. For an introvert, cafes are also rather wonderful places to exist without having to interact with anyone. You can sit in the corner, drink something caffeinated enough to power a small generator, and observe the world. Which, frankly, is my preferred form of socialising.
Getting Around, and That Traffic
Crossing a road in Ho Chi Minh City is an experience that deserves its own entry in the traveller’s handbook. When I first arrived, I stood at the side of the road watching hundreds of motorbikes flowing past. I waited. Then I waited some more. Eventually I realised that nobody was going to stop and invite me across.
The trick is to walk slowly and steadily. Do not suddenly sprint. Do not stop halfway. And, above all, do not panic when a motorbike appears to be heading directly towards you. It probably is not. Probably. The riders seem to possess an almost supernatural ability to weave around pedestrians. You simply have to trust the system and keep moving. It is one of those travel experiences where you discover that your survival instinct is surprisingly loud.
Beyond the road-crossing initiation ceremony, getting around is straightforward. Grab, the regional ride-hailing app, works exactly as you would expect and is by far the easiest option for a solo traveller who would rather not haggle with taxi drivers. Download it before you arrive, connect a card, and you can book a car or motorbike taxi from your phone with the fare agreed in advance. Walking is entirely viable within District 1 if the heat is not at its worst, and the city’s few metro lines are gradually becoming useful, though most visitors still rely on Grab or their own two feet.
Knowing When to Escape
Ho Chi Minh City can also be exhausting. The noise, heat, traffic and sheer volume of activity can become a little overwhelming, particularly if you are an introvert. I learned fairly quickly that there was nothing wrong with disappearing back to the hotel during the hottest part of the afternoon. There is no prize for being the tourist who collapses beside a souvenir stall because he was determined to see absolutely everything before lunch.
I much prefer wandering in the morning, finding somewhere for coffee, exploring a little more, and then retreating somewhere cool when the city starts behaving like a hairdryer. That is one of the advantages of travelling independently. Nobody gets to complain that you are ruining the itinerary. There is not an itinerary. There is merely me, a vague idea of where I am going, and an increasingly strong desire for air conditioning.
Where to Stay, and Avoiding Bui Vien
If you are looking for peace and quiet, it is worth being careful about where you stay. Bui Vien Walking Street is famous for its nightlife and backpacker atmosphere. It can be loud, busy and thoroughly chaotic. Some people will love it. I would rather have my toenails removed with a rusty spoon.
Fortunately, Ho Chi Minh City is enormous, and staying in a quieter part of District 1 or District 3 gives you much easier access to the city’s attractions without having to sleep next to a nightclub. For a mature solo traveller, that distinction matters. There is nothing wrong with enjoying nightlife. I simply prefer the sort where I can hear myself think.
For checking rates and availability, I generally start with Agoda or Trip.com, both of which cover the quieter District 1 and District 3 hotels well. If you want a specific neighbourhood recommendation with named hotels, that is on my list to add once I have stayed in a wider spread of them myself, rather than guessing on your behalf.
Getting There and Visa Requirements
British passport holders currently get 45 days visa-free in Vietnam under a waiver running from March 2025 to March 2028, which covers most trips comfortably. The one exception is BNO passport holders, who are not included in that waiver and need to apply for an e-visa in advance. If you want to stay longer than 45 days, or want the paperwork sorted before you fly regardless, the e-visa costs $25 for a single entry or $50 for multiple entries, is valid for up to 90 days, and typically takes 3-5 working days to process. It is worth double-checking the current rules on the official Vietnam e-visa portal before you book anything, since entry rules for the region change more often than anyone would like.
Most international flights land at Tan Son Nhat Airport, a short Grab ride from central District 1. If you are already travelling in the region, Trip.com is generally my first stop for comparing flight options, and 12Go Asia is worth checking for onward train, bus or boat connections if Ho Chi Minh City is one stop on a longer Vietnam route.
Connectivity
An eSIM makes the Grab-app-and-getting-lost approach to city exploring considerably less stressful. I use Airalo’s Vietnam eSIM, which installs before you leave home and means you land already connected, rather than hunting for a SIM card counter with a suitcase and a headache.
Best Time to Visit
December through February is the most comfortable window, with cooler temperatures, lower humidity and the least rain. The trade-off is Tet, the Lunar New Year, when much of the city closes for family celebrations and travel gets busy. March and April stay largely dry but turn properly hot. From May through November the city sits in its rainy season, though the showers here tend to be brief and heavy rather than the all-day washouts you get further north, so it is more of an inconvenience than a reason to avoid the city altogether.
What Things Cost
At the time of writing, £1 buys you roughly 35,300 dong, though it is worth checking the current rate before you travel, since it moves. Museum and palace entry fees are genuinely low, a few pence to little more than a pound each, and a proper street food meal rarely costs more than the price of a coffee back home. The bigger costs are accommodation and any organised tours, such as the Cu Chi Tunnels trip, so budgeting for those two things properly and treating the rest as pocket change is a reasonable approach.
One thing I never travel without, wherever the destination, is proper cover. I use and recommend AllClear Travel Insurance, not because I am paid to say so, but because they have been genuinely helpful whenever I have needed to ask them something. If insurance is not already sorted for a trip like this, my guide to travel insurance for solo travellers over 50 is worth a read first.
Would I Recommend Ho Chi Minh City?
Absolutely. Ho Chi Minh City is busy, noisy, fascinating, occasionally overwhelming and completely addictive. It has history, extraordinary food, beautiful French-colonial architecture, fascinating cafes and enough street life to keep even the most enthusiastic people-watcher occupied for days.
For solo travellers over 50, I think it works particularly well because you can choose your own rhythm. You can spend the morning exploring a museum, have lunch at a tiny street stall, sit in a cafe for an hour doing absolutely nothing, wander through the city in the afternoon, and then retreat to your hotel before the evening madness begins. And nobody minds.
That is the beauty of travelling alone. You do not have to keep up with anybody else. You do not have to compromise. And if you decide that today’s cultural experience consists of sitting beneath an air conditioner drinking Vietnamese coffee and watching motorbikes nearly miss one another, that is entirely your business.
Ho Chi Minh City does not demand that you rush. It simply gives you an enormous amount to look at while you decide whether you want to. And occasionally, it gives you a road to cross.
For more on planning a Vietnam trip around this one, I have written about what to pack for Vietnam, the country’s best street food cities, and the quieter pace of Da Nang if Ho Chi Minh City turns out to be more city than you fancied on this trip. And if you are weighing up whether solo travel over 50 is for you at all, that is where this whole thing started.
Plenty of travellers use Ho Chi Minh City as the jumping-off point for a few final days somewhere slower, and Phu Quoc is the obvious choice if a proper beach finish to a Vietnam trip appeals.
A note on how I write: Every trip starts with a journal, filled in wherever I happen to be; on a bus, plane, train, or in a backstreet cafe that has clearly seen better days. It’s not tidy, and it’s not always legible even to me. When I get the time, I use AI to help turn those notes into something readable, organising drafts and occasionally rescuing a sentence that has wandered off without me. The experiences, the perspective, the humour and every editorial decision remain entirely mine. As for the photos, I’m not remotely fond of having my picture taken, family portraits included, so I also use AI to help visualise the places and moments I write about.
