Ho Chi Minh City — still Saigon to almost everyone who lives there — is not a city you ease into. The motorbikes arrive in waves, the pho broth is on by dawn, and each district seems to be running a completely different day from the one next to it. That energy is the point, but it punishes a bad plan: the big sights sit in different corners, the midday heat is serious, and the two essential day trips pull in opposite directions.
Never forget a thing before you fly. My free 8-page Travel Planning Checklist walks you through the whole trip — 6 planning timelines, 36 checks, from booking windows to travel-day basics. One email, no spam, unsubscribe anytime.
This 3-day itinerary fixes the sequencing for you. Day 1 walks the compact colonial and wartime heart of District 1. Day 2 goes underground at the Cu Chi Tunnels in the morning, then slows down in the cafe streets of District 3 and the lantern-lit lanes of Cholon. Day 3 leaves the city entirely for the rivers and canals of the Mekong Delta. If you have not booked your base yet, start with my guide to where to stay in Ho Chi Minh City — District 1 makes everything below walkable.
Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. If you book through one of these links, I may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.
Before You Start: Getting Around and Timing
Most of District 1 is walkable in the cooler morning and evening hours, and that is exactly when this itinerary walks it. For everything else, use the Grab app for cheap, fixed-price car and motorbike rides — it removes the haggling and the heat in one move. The city’s first metro line now runs from Ben Thanh station out toward Suoi Tien with 14 stations, which is handy for crossing town quickly in the middle of the day.
On timing: the dry season runs roughly December to April, while May to November brings heavy afternoon downpours that rarely last all day. Either way, front-load your sightseeing before 11am, hide in a museum or cafe through the worst heat, and come back out when the city lights up — Ho Chi Minh City is at its best after dark.
Day 1: District 1 — Palaces, Museums and Colonial Saigon
Morning: Independence Palace and the War Remnants Museum. Start at the Independence Palace (also called the Reunification Palace) at 135 Nam Ky Khoi Nghia, open daily from 7:00am to 6:00pm. The 1960s palace is preserved almost exactly as it was on the day in April 1975 when tanks came through its gates — grand reception rooms and a period-piece president’s office above, a command bunker below. A combined ticket for the palace and its history exhibition costs 80,000 VND, or 40,000 VND for the palace alone. Go at opening: the grounds are quiet, the light is kind, and you will be done before the tour groups arrive.
From the palace it is about a ten-minute walk to the War Remnants Museum at 28 Vo Van Tan (open daily 7:30am to 5:30pm, last tickets at 5:00pm, 40,000 VND). Give it a full 90 minutes and be ready for it — the photography galleries documenting the war and its aftermath are powerful and, in places, harrowing. Doing these two in one morning is the right order: the palace shows you where the war ended, and the museum shows you what it cost.
Afternoon: Notre-Dame, the Post Office and Dong Khoi. After lunch and a strong ca phe sua da (iced coffee with condensed milk), walk to Paris Square. The red-brick Notre-Dame Cathedral Basilica of Saigon and the vaulted Saigon Central Post Office — designed in the Gustave Eiffel era — face each other across the square, and the post office is still a working one, so send a postcard from its counters. Then stroll Dong Khoi Street past the Opera House toward the river: this was the Rue Catinat of Graham Greene’s Saigon, and it is still the city’s grandest shopping street.
Evening: Nguyen Hue and the river. End the day on Nguyen Hue Walking Square, the broad pedestrian boulevard running from City Hall down to Bach Dang Wharf on the Saigon River. It fills up after sunset with families, street performers and food carts — the city socialising in public. Dinner is wherever the plastic stools look busiest; order com tam (broken rice with a grilled pork chop) at least once while you are in town.
Day 2: Cu Chi Tunnels, Then the City Slows Down
Morning: the Cu Chi Tunnels. The tunnel network at Cu Chi, roughly 70 kilometres northwest of the centre, is the one day trip nobody should skip. At its peak the system ran for some 250 kilometres of underground passages — kitchens, bunkers, hospitals and living quarters stacked on three levels — and the Ben Dinh site preserves a section you can walk and, if you are feeling brave, crawl through. The drive takes about 90 minutes each way, so an early start matters. The easiest way to do it is the small-group Cu Chi Tunnels half-day tour (about 5 hours, hotel pickup in Districts 1, 3 and 4, entrance included), which has you back in the city by early afternoon with the history properly explained rather than guessed at.
Afternoon: District 3 and Cholon. Back in town, slow the pace down. District 3 is leafy, local and full of cafes — walk past the pink Tan Dinh Church, then find a hidden apartment-block cafe of the kind Saigon does so well. Later, ride over to Cholon, the historic Chinatown in District 5, for the incense-heavy Thien Hau Temple and the wholesale bustle of Binh Tay Market. It is a completely different Saigon from District 1’s boulevards, and in three days it is the closest you will get to how the city actually lives.
Evening: eat your way across four districts. Tonight, do not sit down in one restaurant — get on the back of a motorbike instead. The Saigon night street food tour by scooter threads you through markets, boulevards and backstreets for banh xeo (crisp turmeric pancakes), crab noodle soup, Vietnamese barbecue and dessert, with hotel pickup and all food and drinks included. It is the single most fun evening in the city — and yes, the traffic looks worse than it feels.
Day 3: The Mekong Delta
Full day on the river. Your last day swaps traffic for water. The Mekong Delta trips from Ho Chi Minh City run to My Tho, the gateway town about two hours south, then onto the Tien River and its islands — Unicorn Island (Thoi Son) is the classic stop for honey tea, tropical fruit and traditional folk music. The rhythm of the day is boats: a motorboat across the broad river, then a hand-rowed sampan through narrow canals shaded by water coconut palms, with a coconut-candy workshop and a tuk-tuk ride through the village lanes in between. It is unhurried, green and a world away from yesterday’s tunnels — which is exactly why it belongs at the end of the trip, when a slow day sounds perfect.
Short on time? If you only have two full days, one combined option covers both of this itinerary’s day trips in a single long day: the Cu Chi Tunnels and Mekong Delta combined tour (about 11 hours, lunch included, free cancellation up to 24 hours ahead). It is a marathon rather than a stroll, but travellers rate it highly, and it means neither sight gets cut.
Last evening: Ben Thanh and a farewell bowl. Back in the city by early evening, finish where you started. Ben Thanh Market, District 1’s landmark market hall, is the place for last-minute coffee beans, lacquerware and snacks to take home — bargain cheerfully and expect to settle around half the first price. Then find a steaming bowl of pho for the road. You will have earned it.
Practical Tips for These 3 Days
Cash and costs. The sights in this itinerary are remarkably cheap — 40,000 to 80,000 VND at the palace and museum — but both are easiest paid in cash dong. Cards work in malls and hotels; street food, markets and small cafes are cash territory, so keep small notes handy.
Crossing the street. Every first-timer needs this once: pick a gap, walk at a steady, predictable pace, and let the motorbikes flow around you. Do not stop suddenly and do not run — the traffic is chaotic but it is watching you.
Heat strategy. Two indoor anchors a day (a museum, a long cafe stop, your hotel pool) is not laziness, it is how the city is designed to be visited. Sunscreen, water and a hat for Cu Chi and the Delta are non-negotiable.
Going further. Ho Chi Minh City pairs beautifully with the rest of the region — plenty of travellers fly on to Thailand next, and my Bangkok in 3 days itinerary follows exactly the same morning-heavy rhythm, while the Singapore in 3 days itinerary is the natural first or last stop on a Southeast Asia loop.
The Bottom Line
Three days in Ho Chi Minh City works when you respect its two rules: cluster by neighbourhood, and surrender the middle of the day to shade and coffee. Day 1 gives you the story — palace, museum and colonial boulevards. Day 2 gives you the context — the tunnels above ground and below, then the local city after dark. Day 3 gives you the contrast — a river world moving at sampan speed. Do it in that order, and Saigon stops being overwhelming and starts being unforgettable.