Best Hotels in Ho Chi Minh City | District 1 or District 3
Saigon numbers its districts instead of naming them, which sounds bureaucratic and turns out to be the clearest addressing system in South East Asia. Once you know what the numbers mean, the hotel decision takes a minute.
The numbers are a gift
Saigon numbers its districts instead of naming them. Australians find that faintly bureaucratic and then discover it is the clearest addressing system in South East Asia.
Once you know what the numbers mean, the hotel decision takes about a minute.
District 1 is the centre. District 3 is next door. District 5 is Cholon, the old Chinese quarter. Districts 2 and 7 are where a lot of expatriates live.
That is genuinely all you need, and our Ho Chi Minh City travel guide covers the rest. Ask us about Vietnam.
District 1 or District 3
The whole choice, honestly.
District 1 is the centre and the first-visit answer. The old French civic buildings, the big hotels, the museum, the palace, the walking street, most of the sights, and the overwhelming majority of visitors.
It is convenient and walkable, and it has the least interesting food in the city. That is the honest trade.
District 3 is next door and it is where a growing number of people who know what they are doing stay: quieter streets, older apartment buildings, better restaurants, and a five-minute ride to everything in District 1.
Our recommendation: District 1 if it is your first trip. District 3 if it is your second.
And regardless of where you sleep: eat in District 3 or Cholon. Cholon, District 5, is the old Chinese quarter and it is a genuinely different city, temples thick with hanging incense coils, herbalists, a wholesale market, and a rhythm that has nothing to do with the tourist centre. It is the best half-day in Saigon and almost nobody bothers.
The rooftops are not a tax
An unusual recommendation, because in most cities we would tell you a rooftop bar is a view with a markup.
Saigon's rooftops are the thing this city does better than anywhere else in Vietnam. The city from above at dusk, with the motorbike rivers moving in the streets below, is a legitimate experience rather than a photograph opportunity.
Which means a hotel with a good roof is worth paying a little more for here, and that is not a sentence we write often.
A business city, which helps you
Saigon is a commercial centre rather than a tourist one, and that shapes the hotel market in your favour.
There is a deep hotel market built for business travellers, which means competent, well-run properties at competitive rates, and it means rates frequently soften at weekends rather than hardening. That is the opposite of a leisure destination and it is worth knowing if your dates are flexible.
The value at the boutique end is also genuinely good: small, well-run properties in restored buildings at a fraction of what comparable costs at home.
Where not to bother
The airport. It is close to the city by the standards of this region and a District 1 or District 3 hotel is a manageable ride. Traffic is the variable rather than distance, so allow more time than the map suggests for an early departure, and that is a taxi decision rather than a hotel one.
Districts 2 and 7. Pleasant, where expatriates live, and largely pointless for a visitor.
The far side of anything. Saigon's traffic is real and a hotel that is "only" three kilometres out is a genuine journey at the wrong hour.
Three to four nights
Two nights for the city, plus a day for the Cu Chi tunnels, plus one or two for the Mekong Delta if you do it properly.
Which brings up the thing our Ho Chi Minh City guide is blunt about: the Delta day trip is the weakest thing most people book in Vietnam. Three hours of bus each way for a coconut-candy workshop and a crowded boat. The Delta is worth two days and a homestay, or it is worth skipping. There is very little in between and the middle option is the one every desk will sell you.
So if you are doing the Delta properly, you need the hotel to hold or store your bag for a night, which is standard practice and worth asking about.
Saigon is a smaller sightseeing proposition than Hanoi and a bigger eating and drinking one. Plan accordingly.
The war, and what an Australian should expect
Worth a note on a hotels page, because it affects how you plan the days.
Australia fought in Vietnam, and almost sixty thousand Australians served. The War Remnants Museum is confronting and deliberately one-sided, and the photography on the upper floors is genuinely distressing. The Cu Chi tunnels are a couple of hours out and worth the day. The Reunification Palace is the quiet one.
None of that is a cheerful morning. Do not schedule anything demanding for the rest of that day, which is a reason to be staying somewhere you would not mind sitting still in for an afternoon.
The seasons
December to March is the dry season and the peak. Pleasant, and rates reflect it.
May to October is the wet season, which in practice means a serious downpour in the afternoon most days and sunshine either side of it. Entirely liveable if you plan the middle of the day indoors, and the rates are considerably better.
The south is warm all year and never cold, which is the opposite of Hanoi and one more reason the two ends of Vietnam need different packing.
Tet, the lunar new year, is its own event: rates rise, the city empties of workers and a great deal closes for several days. The dates move with the lunar calendar.
And the visa, before anything
Not a hotel matter and the most important thing on any Vietnam page.
Australians generally need a visa arranged before you fly, most commonly the e-visa online. Vietnam does not wave us through on arrival the way much of the region does, and the airline checks it at Sydney check-in. You do not board without it.
Our Sydney to Ho Chi Minh City page leads with this for a reason.
Rates are good value on a business calendar and soften at weekends. Get a free Vietnam quote and a consultant will reply within 2 business hours with the flights priced, the open jaw into Hanoi and home from Saigon costed alongside the return, and your visa requirement checked first.
Booking notes
Prices shown by our partner are live and quoted in Australian dollars from our links, which spares you counting zeroes in dong, and free cancellation windows are stated on each listing. Our current hotel partner is Agoda, whose Vietnamese inventory reaches deep into the small District 1 and District 3 hotels that never appear on the global platforms, with scores out of 10 from completed stays only.