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If the goal of your next trip will be Vietnam, then perhaps one of the issues that you need to decide will be: go to Vietnam on your own or on a tourist ticket.
The answer to this question is not as simple and unambiguous as it may seem. You can not just say right away, for example, that going to Vietnam on vacation on your own will be cheaper than on a tourist ticket, because this is not always the case. Depending on the length of stay, the city of departure in Russia and the place of stay in Vietnam, just the opposite, it may turn out that the ticket may even be cheaper. But, on the other hand, when traveling independently, you will have more freedom of choice, both along the route of travel and in time. In general, about everything in more detail…
To begin with, it is worth saying that you should not be afraid to travel around Vietnam on your own. Even ignorance of the language (which is the most frequent "excuse" from independent travel) is not a hindrance at all. Vietnam is a very developed country in terms of Tourism. There are hotels everywhere, travel agencies, well-developed tourist and public transport. Moreover, today many people in Vietnam are happy to learn Russian in connection with the "invasion" of Russian tourists. So, being afraid of getting lost here or getting into trouble is not worth it. You just need to be vigilant and prepare well for the trip. You can get into all sorts of minor troubles like divorce and speculation in Vietnam at every turn, regardless of whether you came on a ticket or yourself. To be prepared, read the security in Vietnam section.
Now, as for the cost of the trip. As already mentioned, to say that an independent trip is definitely cheaper is not at all honest. So it could be said a few years ago, when this direction from Russia was considered rare and exotic, and tours to Vietnam cost at least $ 2,000 per person. Today, for this price, it is quite realistic to fly together. The simplest search for tours to Vietnam from popular tour operators results in a tour from Moscow for 14 days for two for 66,000 rubles (price at the time of writing in August 2013). If you plan such a trip yourself, then for a flight for two you will have to spend about 50,000 rubles, and the remaining 16,000 will just go to hotel accommodation, transfers from the airport and back, insurance and so on. If the benefit will be, then minimal. Of course, a completely different alignment is obtained if you plan a complex route from visiting several resorts in Vietnam or a long stay. In this case, an independent trip will be much more profitable.
As for the "interest" of the trip, then, of course, an independent trip to Vietnam will be much more interesting. If you want to at least slightly expand the variety of your trip and move away from the beaten resorts and routes offered by tour operators, then an independent trip is your choice. Vietnam can offer you a lot of things outside of popular tourist routes, where Russian tourists are brought by "wagons". The already almost "Russified" extremely popular resorts of Nha Trang, Phan Thiet (Mui Ne), and now the town of Hoi An almost do not create such a feeling of an exotic country as before. Russian is everywhere on the street, signs of restaurants and shops in Russian and even road signs duplicated in Russian are gradually blurring the line between exoticism and resorts at home. But it is only necessary to leave these resorts not far, as you can find yourself in sparsely populated places with Russian-speaking tourists. These are, for example, Sapa, Da Nang, Hue, Dalat, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Fanrang and others. Russian tourists, if they meet there, are mainly only in the form of excursion groups, which are brought from the popular Nha Trang or Phan Thiet.
As a result, we draw this conclusion:
You should not be afraid of an independent trip to Vietnam. But, if you are ready to be content with standard routes in the form of a stay at a popular "Russified" resort, you should definitely strive to refuse a trip to Vietnam in favor of a trip by a savage, since it is unlikely to save money. However, if you are no longer satisfied with a vacation with our fellow citizens in a popular resort, diluted with a couple of trips on excursions, you should make your own route, for which you can use the information about Vietnam and its resorts on our website.