I’ll start with this: 5 days is honestly a lot for Saigon. A lot of people don’t think so. They think more days means you need more sights, more day trips, more boxes ticked. That’s the wrong way to plan it. 3 days does the city highlights. 5 days gives you room to actually live in the place for a bit, which is a completely different kind of trip and I’d argue, a better one.

This guide is part of a cluster around the broader Ho Chi Minh City itinerary planning post, which is the parent sub-hub for all my itinerary content. If you have less time, check out my 2-day Ho Chi Minh City itinerary or the 3-day version in the main guide. This one is for travelers who have the luxury of 5 days and want to know how to use them well.

Quick Answer: 5 days in Ho Chi Minh City is the perfect amount of time to see the city highlights without rushing, plus take two proper day trips. Spend days 1-3 exploring the central monuments, Chinatown, and Cu Chi Tunnels. Use days 4 and 5 for the Mekong Delta and slowing down in local neighborhoods.
The Big Picture:
- Days 1 to 3 cover the essential first-timer checklist (the history, Cu Chi Tunnels, and Cho Lon).
- Day 4 is dedicated to getting out of the city for the Mekong Delta.
- Day 5 is for going deeper into the city, taking a Vespa food tour, and actually slowing down.
Day 1: Arrival & The Colonial Core
- Grab a street coffee, then walk the Notre-Dame Cathedral and Central Post Office area.
- Visit the Reunification Palace before lunch (the ticket office shuts early).
- Spend the afternoon at the War Remnants Museum, then keep the evening easy around District 1.
Day 2: Cu Chi Tunnels & The River
- Take a half-day morning tour to the Cu Chi Tunnels.
- Get back to Saigon by mid-afternoon to rest, then head to a rooftop bar for sunset and grab dinner by the river.
Day 3: Street Food & Chinatown
- Skip the hotel buffet for street-side Phở.
- Take a quick walk through Ben Thanh Market, then grab a GrabCar out to Chinatown (Cho Lon) for lunch and to see the Thien Hau Temple.
- Hide from the midday heat in an alleyway specialty cafe.
Day 4: Mekong Delta Day Trip
- Book a small group tour (don’t book the cheap 50-person bus tours) to My Tho or Ben Tre.
- Take a sampan boat ride through the canals and get back to the city by late afternoon.
Day 5: Deep Dive & Slower Pacing
- Sleep in and grab brunch in a different neighborhood (like the expat-heavy Thao Dien or the very local District 3).
- Book a massage or a cooking class in the afternoon.
- Take a vintage Vespa food tour at night (this will be the highlight of your trip).
Budget & Logistics:
- Expect to spend about $70 to $100 USD per day for a mid-range pace (hotel, food, Grabs).
- Add roughly $130 to $180 on top of that to cover your two day trips and the Vespa night tour.

Short Videos

Why 5 Days Is Actually a Great Length

If you’ve read my Ho Chi Minh City guide, you’ll know I think 3 days is the sweet spot for a first visit. But 5 days unlocks something different.

3 days is busy. You’re moving every day, you’re seeing things, you’re crossing stuff off a list. Even when you go slow, you’re still in checklist mode because there’s only so much time.

5 days lets you breathe. You can do all the standard stuff and still have two days where you’re just… around. Living there. Going back to the cafe you liked. Trying a third bowl of pho at a different spot. Doing nothing on a balcony for an hour because that’s what holidays are supposed to feel like.

I think this is honestly the trip Saigon rewards most. The first 3 days you’re learning the city. Days 4 and 5 you’re enjoying it.

That said, 5 days isn’t for everyone. If you’re on a fast Vietnam tour where you also need to do Hanoi, Hoi An, Ha Long Bay, Sapa, then 5 days in Saigon is too much. 3 days is probably right for that kind of trip. But if Saigon is one of your main bases, or if you’re a slower traveler, or if you just want to actually rest on holiday, 5 days is brilliant.

Also worth saying: a lot of travelers come to Saigon and only see District 1. That’s fine, District 1 is great, but it’s a tiny slice of the city. With 5 days you can actually see other parts. Thao Dien, District 3, District 4, Phu Nhuan. These are the parts where most actual Vietnamese people live and where the food is better than in the polished center. You’d never have time for them on a 3-day trip.

The Shape of 5 Days

Before I get into each day, here’s the logic I’m building this around.

The first 3 days are the standard first-timer plan. I’m not going to re-explain them in detail here because that would just be repeating my main Ho Chi Minh City itinerary and my 2-day guide. I’ll summarize them quickly so you know what should happen, then link out to the detailed versions.

Days 4 and 5 are where this 5-day Ho Chi Minh City itinerary becomes its own thing. Day 4 is your big second day trip (Mekong Delta). Day 5 is for going deeper into the city itself, eating better, seeing parts most visitors skip.

The thing I always tell people is: don’t try to use day 5 to “see more attractions.” If you’ve done the War Remnants Museum, the Palace, Cu Chi, and Chinatown, you’ve seen the headline stuff. Adding the Fine Arts Museum on day 5 isn’t going to be a highlight. What WILL be a highlight is something experiential, like a food tour or a cooking class or just a really good long afternoon somewhere local.

Days 1 to 3: The Standard Plan

Quick version, since the detail lives elsewhere.

Day 1 is your arrival and orientation day. Vietnamese coffee in the morning, walk the colonial core (Notre-Dame is scaffolded, Central Post Office is the better visit right now). Late morning visit Reunification Palace (40,000 VND entry, ticket office closes around 3:30pm so do not save this for the afternoon). Lunch in District 1. Afternoon at the War Remnants Museum at 28 Vo Van Tan in District 3 (also 40,000 VND, gives 1.5 to 2 hours). Easy evening, maybe a stroll down Nguyen Hue Walking Street after dark.

Day 2 is your Cu Chi day. Book a half-day morning tour to the Cu Chi Tunnels (Ben Dinh or Ben Duoc, around $20 to $30 per person on a small group, less if you go solo with just the entrance fee at 110,000 to 130,000 VND). Back in Saigon by 2 or 3pm. Use the afternoon for a sunset rooftop, dinner along the river. Full Cu Chi details are in my Cu Chi Tunnels day trip guide.

Day 3 is your food and Chinatown day. Street breakfast (Phở Hòa Pasteur at 260C Pasteur is the famous one, around 60,000 VND), a brief walk through Ben Thanh Market (don’t shop, just experience), then Grab over to Cho Lon for lunch. Visit Thien Hau Temple at 710 Nguyen Trai Street, walk through Binh Tay Market. Slow afternoon at a specialty cafe back in District 1.

Notre Dame Cathedral of Saigon 2 scaled Vietadvisor

Saigon Central Post Office scaled Vietadvisor

If any of this is unclear or you want more detail, the main itinerary article walks through all of this with prices and timings. For day 3 food specifically, my Saigon food guide has the deeper breakdown.

Right, now onto the actual new content. Days 4 and 5.

Day 4: Mekong Delta Day Trip

The Mekong Delta is the river system south of Saigon, and a day trip there is one of those things you can absolutely skip on a shorter visit but really shouldn’t skip on a 5-day trip.

It’s a completely different landscape from the city. Water, palm trees, fruit gardens, sleepy villages, sampan boats through narrow canals.

Picking the right tour

There’s a big spread of Mekong Delta tour quality, and this matters more than people think.

The cheap mass-market ones (you’ll see them advertised for $15 to $22 USD per person) go in big buses, dump 40 to 50 tourists on the same coconut candy workshop and the same honey tea stand at the same time, and feel like a conveyor belt. I’ve done one of these.

The small-group tours are the move. They cost more (around $33 to $70 USD per person depending on the company), keep you in groups of 8 to 15, and actually let you see something. Vietnam Adventure does a small-group one I’ve heard good things about, and they have an “Authentic Mekong Delta” version that goes to Ben Tre & My Tho. TNK Travel runs daily small group tours from $33. Whichever you book, look for “small group” or “max 12” in the listing.

The standard 1-day trip leaves around 7:30am, drives 1.5 to 2 hours south to My Tho in Tien Giang province, and the day looks roughly like this:

Stop at Vinh Trang Pagoda (early 19th century Buddhist temple, unusual mix of Vietnamese, Chinese, Khmer and French architecture)
Boat cruise on the Mekong River out to one of the islands (Unicorn, Dragon, Phoenix or Tortoise)
Visit a coconut candy workshop or a honey farm
Sampan ride through the small canals (this is the bit everyone remembers, palm trees overhead, narrow waterways, hand-rowed boats)
Lunch at a garden restaurant on the island
Bike or walk through a village
Drive back to Saigon, arrive around 5 to 6pm

It’s a long day. You’ll be tired when you get back. Plan for an easy dinner near your hotel, not a big night out.

Authentic Mekong Delta scaled Vietadvisor

Authentic Mekong Delta 2 scaled Vietadvisor

Worth the time?

Honestly, yes. I know it gets called touristy, and parts of it are, but the landscape itself is genuinely something different and worth seeing once. The sampan ride through the small canals is the highlight, the coconut workshop stuff is whatever, and the people you meet on a small group tour usually make the day.

A couple of tips:

Book a day or two ahead, not the morning of. The good small groups sell out.
Sunscreen and a hat. You’ll be in and out of sun all day.
Long pants are actually useful for the pagoda visit (knees covered).
Bring small VND notes for tipping the sampan rowers and for buying random fruit at the stops.

See availability for a boat

If you’re more adventurous and you have flexibility, there’s also a 2-day Mekong overnight option that takes you further south to Can Tho for the Cai Rang floating market.

Most of the day-trip versions of the floating market are now pretty quiet because the market itself has shrunk a lot in recent years, but if you stay overnight you can be on the river at 5:30am when there’s still some action. Worth knowing about. Not for a 5-day Saigon trip though, that’s a 6+ day plan.

Day 5: Go Deeper, Eat Better, Slow Down

Day 5 is the day most “5 days in Ho Chi Minh City” itineraries online get really lazy about. They just stuff in random attractions you skipped, like the Fine Arts Museum or the HCMC Museum, and call it a 5-day plan.

That’s not a 5-day plan. That’s a 3-day plan with two days of filler.

Here’s what I’d actually do.

Morning: brunch and a different neighborhood

Sleep in. You earned it. The Mekong trip yesterday was a long one.

Get up around 9 or 10 and head somewhere outside District 1 for brunch. Two good options:

Thao Dien (District 2, across the river). This is the expat neighborhood, leafy and quieter than District 1, lots of brunch spots with good coffee, smoothie bowls, full English breakfasts if you’re into that. It’s a 15 to 20 minute Grab from the center, around 80,000 to 120,000 VND. The vibe is more Bali than Vietnam in some ways, which sounds like a critique but is actually nice for a slow morning. Try The Workshop Coffee, L’Usine Thao Dien, or any of the cafes along Xuan Thuy or Thao Dien Street.

District 3 is a much more local feel and closer to where you probably are. It’s where I usually stay when I’m down. The cafes are smaller, more Vietnamese-style, and the food is excellent. Try Cheo Leo Cafe at 33 Nguyen Thien Thuat for a traditional cloth-filter coffee (they’ve been doing this since 1938), then walk over to one of the bun thit nuong places in the area for an early lunch.

Either choice gives you that “I’m actually living here” feeling rather than “I’m a tourist ticking boxes.”

Thao Dien District 2 The Foreign Bubble 3 Vietadvisor

Thao Dien District 2 The Foreign Bubble 5 scaled Vietadvisor

Afternoon: pick your slow

This is where you split based on what kind of traveler you are.

If you want to learn something, book a cooking class. There are tons in Saigon, prices range from $25 to $60 per person, and you typically spend 3 to 4 hours doing a market tour with the chef then cooking 3 or 4 Vietnamese dishes you actually get to eat. The Provincial Table is the well-known one. There are smaller ones run out of people’s homes too if you prefer that. Either way, book a day or two ahead.

If you want to rest, find a spa. Saigon has some great mid-range spas, around 300,000 to 600,000 VND for a 90-minute massage ($12 to $25). A lot of the nicer hotels have spas you can book even if you’re not staying there. Yuri Therapy Spa and Shinrin Spa are both popular. I’ve had really good massages at both, and weirdly, also some bad ones, so it’s a bit luck of the draw.

If you want to walk, pick a neighborhood you haven’t seen and just wander. District 4 (across the small bridge south of District 1) is fascinating, lots of food alleys, lots of dai (street food joints), basically zero foreigners. Walk down Vinh Khanh street for evening street seafood later, but in the afternoon just drift around. District 3 around Tan Dinh ward has the pink Tan Dinh Church (Instagram famous, surprisingly nice in person too) and the fabric market.

The Provincial Table cooking class 3 scaled Vietadvisor

The Provincial Table cooking class 2 scaled Vietadvisor

Evening: Vespa food tour

If you only do one tour on this 5-day Ho Chi Minh City itinerary that isn’t the Mekong, make it a Vespa night food tour. I keep recommending this and people keep telling me afterward it was their favorite thing they did in the city.

The deal: someone picks you up at your hotel on a vintage Vespa scooter around 5:30 or 6pm. You ride pillion (passenger) while they take you through Saigon traffic, which honestly is part of the experience, to 7 to 10 different local food spots over about 3 to 4 hours.

You get to try things you’d never find on your own, plus get a guided ride through parts of the city you wouldn’t otherwise see. Most tours include a rooftop bar stop and end at a local music bar.

Companies I’ve heard consistently good things about:

Saigon Adventure (cheaper food tour by motorbike, not Vespa specifically) – around $35 per person, less premium feel but still very good
Vespa A Go Go (Eat Saigon tour) – Australian-owned, around $65 per person, similar deal, female riders option available
Vespa Adventures (Saigon After Dark tour) – the original, premium price around $79 per person, vintage Vespas, includes drinks and food at all stops

If the Vespa thing feels too touristy for you, there’s also a tour by motorbike run by local university students, much cheaper (around $35 per person), where you ride on the back of regular scooters with students who use the tips for tuition.

I’ve done this one. It’s great. Less polished, more authentic, you actually learn things from the guides.

Book any of these a day or two ahead, not last minute. The good ones sell out, especially on weekends.

Either way, this is the evening that’ll stick with you most from your whole trip. You see Saigon at its best (lit up, moving, chaotic, alive), you eat things you’d never order alone, and you finish the night somewhere you wouldn’t have found otherwise.

Vespa food tour Saigon 7 scaled Vietadvisor

Vespa food tour Saigon 6 scaled Vietadvisor

Late night: optional last drink

If you’ve still got energy after the Vespa tour (which ends around 9:30 or 10pm), have one last drink somewhere nice. Saigon Saigon Rooftop Bar at the Caravelle Hotel is the colonial-era classic, war correspondents drank here during the war. Or just go back to one of the cafes you’ve liked during the trip and order something with a view.

That’s your 5 days done. The plane home will feel a bit sad, that’s normal.

Saigon Saigon Rooftop Bar 2 scaled Vietadvisor

Saigon Saigon Rooftop Bar scaled Vietadvisor

What to Still Skip on a 5-Day Trip

Even with 5 days, you can’t do everything and you shouldn’t try.

I’d still skip these:

The Bitexco Sky Deck (the rooftop bars give you the same view plus a drink)
The Fine Arts Museum (interesting building, fine collection, not essential)
The HCMC Museum and Ho Chi Minh Museum (covered better elsewhere if you want history)
Saigon Zoo (this is a sad one, not a recommendation)
Suoi Tien theme park (just no)
The Mekong Delta floating market on a day trip (the market is barely a market anymore, save this for an overnight Mekong trip if you really care)
Cooking classes if you’re not actually a cook (some people love them, some find them really long)

If you have specific interests (architecture, art, military history) some of these become worth it. For a standard 5-day visit, I’d let them go.

Common Mistakes on a 5-Day Trip

A few patterns I see:

Treating days 4 and 5 as bonus sight days. Don’t. They’re for depth, not for adding the Fine Arts Museum. Spend them experiencing the city, not seeing more of it.
Booking two day trips back to back. People sometimes do Cu Chi on day 2 and Mekong on day 3, which means you spend the back half of the trip wrecked. Spread them out, leave a day in between.
Staying only in District 1. I know I keep saying stay in District 1 for short trips. For 5 days, it’s still fine to base there, but actually venture out for at least one full day. Thao Dien, Cho Lon, District 4, District 3, whatever. Just don’t only see the polished center.
Not booking the Vespa tour. It sells out, especially on weekends. Book it by day 2 or 3 of your trip if you want a weekend slot.
Trying to also visit Phu Quoc, Mui Ne, or Da Lat. These are all great but they’re 4 to 6 hour bus rides or flights and they’re for a longer Vietnam trip. Not a 5-day Saigon trip.

FAQ

Is 5 days in Ho Chi Minh City too much?

For most travelers, no, but it depends. If Saigon is your main base for the trip, 5 days is great. If you’re combining Saigon with multiple other Vietnam destinations (Hanoi, Hoi An, Da Nang), 3 days is probably enough and 5 might feel like too much. Read my main itinerary guide for the shorter version.

Should I do both Cu Chi Tunnels and Mekong Delta on a 5-day trip?

Yes, this is when both fit comfortably. Cu Chi on day 2, Mekong on day 4. Don’t combine them into one day, the combo tours feel rushed and you miss the best parts of each.

Where should I stay for 5 days in Ho Chi Minh City?

Still District 1 for most travelers, central and walkable. If you’ve been to Saigon before or you specifically want a slower vibe, Thao Dien in District 2 is nice but requires more Grab rides into the center. Full breakdown in my where to stay in Ho Chi Minh City guide. I generally book through Booking.com for Vietnam because the cancellation terms work for me.

What’s the budget for 5 days in Ho Chi Minh City?

Mid-range, around $70 to $100 USD per person per day, including hotel, food, transport and small extras. Plus around $130 to $180 for two day trips and one Vespa tour. So roughly $500 to $700 per person for the 5 days, not including flights.

Can I do a 5-day Saigon trip in the rainy season (May to November)?

Yes, easily. The rain usually comes in one heavy afternoon downpour and then it’s done. You just have to plan around it (outdoor stuff in the morning, indoor stuff in the afternoon). It’s also cheaper and quieter in rainy season. I cover the seasonal stuff in the Ho Chi Minh City travel guide.

Is the Vespa food tour worth the money?

Honestly yes, if you have the budget. It’s pricier than just eating street food on your own ($30 to $60 vs $10 to $20 of self-guided), but the value isn’t really the food, it’s the access to places you’d never find, the ride through the city, and the conversation with the guides. I think it’s the single best 4 hours you can spend in Saigon if you have the cash.

Last Thoughts

The biggest thing I want to leave you with is this: 5 days in Ho Chi Minh City should feel like a real holiday, not a sprint. The standard first-timer plan does the headlines in 3 days. Your job in the extra two days isn’t to add more headlines, it’s to slow down enough that the city becomes a place you’ve actually been, not just a place you’ve seen.

That means going to neighborhoods most visitors skip. Eating somewhere you don’t speak the language. Taking a Vespa through the back streets at night. Spending an afternoon doing absolutely nothing in a good cafe. Reading a book by the river instead of going to one more museum.

You’ll fly home with a real sense of the city. Not a complete one, nobody gets a complete sense of Saigon in 5 days, but a real one. The kind that makes you want to come back.

For more on the rest of your trip, check out the Ho Chi Minh City itinerary main guide for shape and pacing, the Saigon food and drink guide for everything you should eat, and the where to stay in Ho Chi Minh City guide for hotel picks by neighborhood. And if you want to keep going beyond Saigon, my Vietnam guides cover Hanoi, Hoi An, and the rest of the country.

Drop a comment with any questions about your 5-day plan. I read everything and try to reply to all of them, especially the ones I haven’t answered yet in the post.

From the field

Best way to spend 5 days in Ho Chi Minh City for travelers

Why 5 Days Is Actually a Great Length

The Shape of 5 Days

Days 1 to 3: The Standard Plan