Beyond HCMC: 4 Real Day Trips
Ho Chi Minh City runs out of city in about three days: the War Remnants Museum, Ben Thanh Market, a coffee crawl through District 1, done (our full city guide covers that trip). What justifies staying longer is everything outside the city limits. Four real day trips earn a spot on this list: the Cu Chi Tunnels, Tay Ninh’s Cao Dai Great Temple, the Mekong Delta, and Vung Tau’s beach. Can Tho’s Cai Rang floating market almost made a fifth, but it only earns its keep as an overnight, so it gets an honest warning instead of a slot. None of it needs a rental car; Grab, a tour desk, or a getyourguide/viator booking covers all four.
The essentials: 4 real day trips from Ho Chi Minh City
| Day trip | Distance from HCMC | Travel time | What it costs |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cu Chi Tunnels (Ben Duoc) | ~70km | 1.5-2h | 110,000-125,000 VND entry (~$4-5) |
| Tay Ninh, Cao Dai Great Temple | ~90km | 2-2.5h | Free entry; built around the noon ceremony |
| Mekong Delta, My Tho and Ben Tre | ~70-90km | 1.5-2h | Day tour roughly $25-70pp shared |
| Vung Tau beach | ~90-100km | 1.5-2h by hydrofoil, 2-3.5h by road | Hydrofoil |
| Mekong Delta, Can Tho and Cai Rang (overnight only) | ~170km | 3-3.5h one way | Overnight tour roughly $60-120pp |
Cu Chi Tunnels: go to Ben Duoc, not Ben Dinh
Both sites sell the same story, an underground tunnel network the Viet Cong used during the war, but they are not the same visit. Ben Dinh, the closer of the two at roughly 50km, gets the tour-bus crowds and a shooting range that turns the whole site into something closer to a theme park, complete with the crack of rifles over the crawl-through tunnels. Ben Duoc sits about 20km further out, closer to 70km and 1.5-2 hours from District 1, and rewards the extra half hour with a more original-scale site, a genuine memorial area, and noticeably fewer buses. Entry runs 110,000-125,000 VND (roughly $4-5) at either site, verified for 2026, covering an introductory film and a stretch of tunnel crawl. One honest note before you book: the crawl-through sections have been deliberately widened from the original wartime dimensions of about 0.8m by 0.8m, so nobody is getting the authentic claustrophobic experience, whatever a tour brochure implies. Book a shared or private tour through Cao Dai Temple and Cu Chi Tunnels on Viator , or check the official Cu Chi relics site for the raw ticket details.
Tay Ninh’s Cao Dai Great Temple: the noon ceremony is the whole point
Cao Dai is a home-grown Vietnamese religion, founded in 1926, that folds Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, and Christian imagery under one all-seeing “Divine Eye” symbol, and the Holy See at Tay Ninh, about 90km and 2-2.5 hours from HCMC, holds ceremonies four times a day. The noon service, at 12:00, is the one worth building a day around; arrive by 11:15-11:30am and watch from the upstairs visitor gallery. Entry is free. The Tay Ninh destination page has the practical basics if you want them straight from a tourism board rather than a tour operator’s sales page.
Can you do Cu Chi and Tay Ninh in one day?
Yes, and it is the efficient way to see both rather than burning two separate days on similar drives northwest of the city. A combined trip runs 8-10 hours door to door: an early departure for the noon Cao Dai ceremony, then Cu Chi Tunnels on the way back into the city, since Cu Chi sits between Tay Ninh and HCMC on the return route. Book both in one shared or private tour rather than trying to arrange the timing yourself.
The Mekong Delta: My Tho and Ben Tre, done honestly in a day
My Tho and Ben Tre sit 70-90km southwest of the city, 1.5-2 hours by road, close enough for a genuine single, unhurried day: a sampan ride through coconut-palm canals, a coconut-candy workshop, a stop at Vinh Trang Pagoda. Shared day tours run roughly $25-70 per person, private options for two from about $67-112. Book through Mekong Delta: My Tho and Ben Tre on GetYourGuide , and see the Vietnam Tourism day-trip guide for the wider region.
Can Tho and Cai Rang floating market: skip the rushed version
Can Tho and its Cai Rang floating market sit much further out, roughly 170km and 3-3.5 hours each way, and the real wholesale boat trade at Cai Rang runs about 5-8:30am, largely thinned out by the time a same-day coach from HCMC could plausibly arrive. Selling a one-day round trip here as delivering the same spectacle as an overnight stay is not honest; it is a real but meaningfully diminished version. The right way to do Cai Rang is an overnight in Can Tho, with a dawn boat trip the next morning before heading back. Two-day, one-night tours run from roughly $60-120 per person and are worth booking through Mekong Delta and Cai Rang Floating Market 2-Day Tour on GetYourGuide rather than a rushed single-day option. The Vietnam Tourism overnight Mekong guide covers the longer version well.
Vung Tau: a real beach day, not a bucket-list beach
Vung Tau sits on its own peninsula roughly 90-100km from HCMC, fastest by the Greenlines hydrofoil down the Saigon River (1.5-2 hours, roughly $10-15 or 250,000-375,000 VND one way, more departures on weekends, book ahead for a Friday or Saturday sailing) or 2-3.5 hours by bus or car. This is Saigon’s own weekend beach-escape valve, not a spectacular coastline by the standard of Da Nang or Phu Quoc; the sand and water are serviceable rather than stunning. Go for a beach-and-seafood day out of the city, the 32-metre Jesus Christ statue on the headland, and 800-plus steps for the view; skip it if “a great beach” alone is the goal and time is limited. The essential Vung Tau guide from Vietnam Tourism covers the two main beaches in more depth.
Do you need a car for any of these?
No, and renting one yourself is a genuinely bad idea in Vietnam given the motorbike density and unfamiliar road rules. Every one of these four day trips is normally handled by an organised shared or private tour with hotel pickup, or by hiring a Grab car with a driver for the day; nobody self-drives out of HCMC the way they might rent a car in Las Vegas or Los Angeles.
Which day trip should you pick with only one day?
Cu Chi Tunnels combined with Tay Ninh’s noon ceremony wins on substance per hour spent: real wartime history plus a genuinely unusual religious ceremony in one long day. My Tho and Ben Tre is the better pick if a slower, greener day matters more than history, and Vung Tau is the right call only if a beach afternoon is specifically what’s missing from the trip so far.
Is Phu Quoc or Da Nang a Ho Chi Minh City day trip?
No. Both require a flight, not a drive, and are proper multi-day destinations in their own right rather than anything that fits into a single day out of HCMC. Treat them as separate trips; none of the four day trips on this list involve boarding a plane.
Where to stay in Ho Chi Minh City
Base yourself in District 1 regardless of which day trips you’re doing; every organised tour on this page picks up from District 1 hotels, and it keeps the airport run short on arrival and departure. Check District 1 hotels on Agoda before you commit, and see our 2-day itinerary if you only have time for one of these four trips.
When to go
December through April is the dry season and the best window for all four day trips, cooler and less humid from December to February, hotter and drier by March and April. May through November brings short, heavy afternoon downpours, usually 30-60 minutes, rarely enough to cancel a tour outright but worth checking forecasts for a hydrofoil crossing to Vung Tau. Tet, Vietnam’s Lunar New Year, fell on February 17, 2026 this year; it’s a moveable lunar date, and many family-run coconut-candy workshops and market stalls along the Mekong close for the better part of a week around it, so check the calendar before booking a Mekong-heavy day trip near it.
Book the Cu Chi and Tay Ninh combo tour and the Mekong Delta day tour before you land if your dates are fixed; both routinely sell out the popular morning departure slots during the December-April high season, and a walk-in booking the night before often means the slower afternoon option instead.