One Week in Saigon: An Offbeat Itinerary
A full week inside the city itself covers the palace, the museum, a hidden cafe tower, Cholon, the real record-holder tower, a turtle pond, the city’s oldest pagoda, and enough slack to end with a cooking class rather than one more rushed sight. No day trip, no rental car. Only have six days? See the 6 day version . Chasing the Cu Chi Tunnels or the Mekong Delta instead? See Ho Chi Minh City as a Vietnam base for that version of the trip.
| Day | Focus |
|---|---|
| 1 | Reunification Palace, the War Remnants Museum, and a hidden cafe tower |
| 2 | Notre-Dame’s closed cathedral square and Ben Thanh’s night market |
| 3 | Cholon’s Binh Tay Market, Thien Hau Temple, and a com tam alley |
| 4 | Metro Line 1’s skyline stretch and Landmark 81’s SkyView deck |
| 5 | A turtle pond at Jade Emperor Pagoda and a wider food crawl |
| 6 | Giac Lam Pagoda, built in 1744, and a second Cholon night |
| 7 | A cooking class, a repeat visit, and departure |
Book these before you go
- Compare District 1 hotel rates for a base near the palace and Cholon
- Book a Cholon street-food walk , the easier way through unfamiliar stalls
- Reserve Landmark 81 SkyView tickets for a weekday slot
- Book a Vietnamese cooking class a day or two ahead, since the small-group ones fill fast
Day 1: The palace, the museum, and a cafe tower
Morning: Reunification Palace (roughly 40,000 VND, ticket window about 8am-3:30pm) and the War Remnants Museum (28 Vo Van Tan, 40,000 VND, 7:30am-5:30pm) cover the essential, sobering history first. Check the palace’s hours and the museum’s ticket sessions before you go. Afternoon: the cafe-apartment elevator at 42 Nguyen Hue, ten floors deep. Evening: a proper ca phe sua da over Bui Vien’s bucket cocktails.
Day 2: Notre-Dame’s square and Ben Thanh after dark
Morning: Notre-Dame’s closed-interior square (shut since 2017, completion slipping toward 2027) and the Central Post Office across it, its ironwork wrongly credited to Gustave Eiffel rather than actual architect Alfred Foulhoux. Afternoon: Ben Thanh Market by day, then its street-food night market after 6pm.
Day 3: Cholon, the Chinatown Ben Thanh wishes it still was
Morning: Binh Tay Market and Thien Hau Temple in Cho Lon, Vietnam’s largest Chinatown, running on local trade rather than tourist markup. Lunch: the com tam alley on Vo Van Tan, District 3, 35,000-65,000 VND, sold until the stalls sell out.
Day 4: The metro’s view and the real tallest tower
Morning: Metro Line 1’s elevated stretch toward Thu Duc, fare 6,000-20,000 VND; check current fares since it’s the only line and misses most sights. Afternoon or evening: Landmark 81, Vietnam’s tallest since 2018, not Bitexco, roughly 300,000-500,000+ VND for the SkyView deck, or a rooftop bar for a similar view with no queue.
Day 5: A turtle pond and a wider food crawl
Morning: Jade Emperor Pagoda’s turtle pond on an ordinary weekday, then a slow hour at Tao Dan Park among locals doing tai chi. Afternoon and evening: banh xeo and a round of bia hoi, cheap draft beer on a plastic stool, a ritual Hanoi runs harder but Saigon keeps at a smaller, genuine scale.
Day 6: Ho Chi Minh City’s oldest pagoda and a repeat night
Morning: Giac Lam Pagoda in Tan Binh District, built in 1744 and generally considered the oldest pagoda in the city, draws a fraction of Jade Emperor’s tour traffic despite being the older, more significant site. Afternoon: the quieter residential streets of District 3 or Binh Thanh, no fixed stop required. Evening: a second round at whichever cafe tower or rooftop bar earned a repeat visit earlier in the week.
Day 7: A cooking class, a repeat visit, and departure
Is a full week actually too much time for Ho Chi Minh City alone? Not if the plan leans this offbeat. A morning hands-on cooking class covering pho, goi cuon and banh xeo from market stall to plate makes a better souvenir than another shirt from Ben Thanh, and the small-group sessions worth booking fill up a day or two out. Spend the afternoon revisiting whichever stop from the week earned a second look, the cafe tower, Cholon, or the rooftop view, rather than cramming in one more new address.
Head to Tan Son Nhat with real buffer time before your flight; District 1 to the airport runs anywhere from 25 minutes to over an hour depending on traffic, and Grab, fare fixed in the app, remains the easiest way to get there. Recheck Vietnam’s official tourism site for visa rules by nationality before you book, since a week-long trip is exactly the kind that gets derailed by a skipped e-visa application. A week here is enough time to leave having eaten more com tam than tourist-menu pho, which is the whole point of doing it this way.