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Discover the best hotels and accommodation prices in Vietnam-Ho Chi Minh(Saigon) and Hanoi when travelling with kids. Recommended destinations for a comfortable stay

Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh city are both remarkable destinations that any tourist would love. Not only do they have a certain charm around them, these cities are also home to some really amazing relaxation spots. However, when you stare reality in the face, the first thing you observe are the clogged array of motorbikes, scooters, cars, and smoke in a dense and people-clogged environment. This colorful mess might make you stop in awe at the crosswalk and wonder if you will ever be able to cross that road.

However, even with this rather dense atmosphere, navigating these two cities can be really easy if you know the right place to stay and are able to find your way around.

Below is a list of Recommended hotels in Ho Chi Minh City when travelling with kids:

Best Luxury Hotels:

The reverie Saigon– Do you want to get a mind blowing view of the river and the entire city? This hotel offers you everything you need in a five-star hotel and so much more. From a breathtaking swimming pool with color changing waters, to a full bursting minibar and a manservant available for hire, it is just perfect if you are looking to have a great time. It also features wall-to-wall windows with well facilitated rooms (including an espresso machine!)

Kids below 11 years of age stay free. Price– 225$ a night.

Book your stay now to enjoy the amazing city and all of its pleasantries!

Click to book through Agoda now

Click to book through Booking now

Sherwood residence hotel– Get the feel of luxury at an affordable rate! The Sherwood residence hotel offers you apartments from 80sqm in size in a spectacular apartment setting. This standard room comes with 2-bedrooms, 2-bathrooms, living room, well equipped kitchen with a fridge and even a washing machine.

To get more out of your stay, you also get a swimming pool, a play room for the kids and so much more in a sparkling and squeaky clean setup.

What’s even better? Children younger than 11 years get to stay for free!

The price- 87$ (for the standard apartment described above) a night and upwards for other high end rooms with additional features.

Book your stay now to set down a reservation for your trip!

Book through Agoda today

Book though Booking today

caravelle saigon hotel– Would you like to enjoy the serenity and astonishing beauty of Ho Chi Minh? the Caravelle Saigon hotel brings you a 5-star hotel in the perfect location! You get great rooms, a wonderful pool and a remarkable view!

It also offers free stay for kids younger than 5 years!

Price- starting from 135$ a night.

Make your reservation today to enjoy excellence in hospitality!

Click here to book through Agoda

Click here to book through Booking

Best Guesthouses in Saigon:

beautiful Saigon hotel– Want an affordable yet high class accommodation that brings you quality service and a family friendly environment? The beautiful Saigon is what you need!

Here, you get an amazing location, swimming pool, clean rooms, fast Wi-Fi and breakfast included in the fee. It is absolutely affordable and offers you the option for rooms with three or more beds for better convenience.

Kids younger than 10 get to stay for free!

Price: Starting from $28 night.

Click here to book through Agoda

Click here to book through Booking

Saigon Europe hotel spa– Experience convenience and relaxation in a spa styled hotel with all of the facilities you need!

Want to stay in a good location, with big, clean, air conditioned rooms and a pool? The Saigon Europe hotel spa offers you that and so much more. It also come with a served breakfast included in the fee.

Price: $50 a night for the family room.

Book your reservation today and give your family a treat.

Click here to book through Agoda

Click here to book through Booking

Recommended hotels in Hanoi with kids:

Best Luxury Hotels:

meracus hotel– Enjoy the service of a great staff and a breakfast served for kings in the highly rated Meracus hotel. With a strong reputation of excellence, this hotel is located right on Hoan kiem in a perfect location and is extremely affordable for all of the features it offers!

Price: 70$ a night for a family suite.

Click here to book through Agoda

Click here to book through Booking

Hanoi la siesta– Perfect for maximum comfort, the Hanoi la siesta is designed as a family friendly location with pleasant and helpful staff and a good location. Located in the old quarter, you can book rooms with connecting doors for great family accessibility and closeness.

Price: 160$ a night for two rooms with a connecting door, or 170$ a night for a family suite.

Want to enjoy your stay with your family? Book a room at the Hanoi le siesta today!

Click here to book through Agoda

Click here to book through booking

A good hotel for a good price:

hanoi lotus boutique hotel– This hotel offers you an amazing array of services including friendly staff, great location, an awesome restaurant and organized tours for the entire family. You also get free Tea/Coffee/fruit juice throughout the whole day.

Price: 25$ a night for a double room, 40$ a night for a family room.

Follow this link to book through Agoda

Follow this link to Book through Booking

Best Guesthouse in Hanoi:

funky jungle– If you are a backpacker/traveler, a group of friends travelling together or visiting the city as a family, then the funky jungle is the ideal location for you!

Located in the heart of the old quarter, this guesthouse provides a common playroom, restaurant and bar (free beer!). It is a great place for social encounters/making new friends from all over the world.

You can get a few beds in a dorm room, or get a private room.

Price: A bed costs 10$ a night and a room costs 35$ a night.

Click here to book through Agoda

Click here to book through Booking

Don’t forget that you need to make your Vietnamese visa in advance online. and read more information about trip to Vietnam with kids. 

For more inspiration try our awesome itineraries:

Vietnam with kids- Two weeks luxury vacation

Vietnam for food loving families

and more…

You can find many more hotels throughout Vietnam on Agoda  , Booking  or Hotelscombined  

My new eBook is now available on amazon. click here, and find out how to travel the world with your kids for less than 1400$ a month (yes, even when staying at those really nice hotels :-)).

 

 

A second before summer vacation, a lot of the families I escort can already smell the flight date getting nearer. And the closer the moment comes for them, I feel a sort of confusion, a need to hold on to something, a minute before they lose control and head into the unknown.

So for their sake, and for any others that feel the need, here are the two most important tips I can give:

1. you already made a basic plan (after in depth research or maybe in less depth), bought flight tickets, consulted with a traveler’s clinic. Everything is more less arranged? Great.
Now let go. Leave the travel guides be. Leave the facebook groups, leave the blogs (even mine).
From now on, let the road set the way. Sit quietly, breath deep. Live already knowing that each one will get his/her own journey. It doesn’t matter if it rained on you on the way to Dharamsala or if it was boiling hot. If you have a hotel in New-Delhi or not. Those things are no longer in your control. All that’s left is to look on the road, the view, on what your journey will bring you.
That the decision that whatever comes your way- you’ll deal with. That you’re open and ready for adventures, of every kind and color. To meetings with others, with yourselves, with your family members. Accept that the way won’t necessarily be what you imagined it would be, or (and especially) what you planned. Changes and surprises will come. They’re part of the journey.

2. the hot springs in Vashisht are a huge gift. A little piece of heaven I’m grateful for everyday I’m here. We enjoy them and learn a lot from the experience of going to them.
Things that would’ve been very hard to teach my daughters any other way. And that I probably couldn’t teach them any other way, if it wasn’t for our stay here.
But not everyone sees it that way. In fact, most tourists that come here to see the hot springs don’t spend time on them, and definitely don’t dare to actually swim in the pools.
They see that place in an entirely different way. They see grey cement, dirt, bare brick walls.
And they run away.
And I want to thell them- wait a moment. Stop. Take those western glasses off for a minute. And look. Lean. Without prejudice, without criticism, without judging. Leave the west outside. Come try. Open a door to experiences, to curiosity, to love for something completely different, and not necessarily better or worse.
Open yourselves. Completely. Don’t close down because that’d be a shame. To visit a different place, a new place, totally different from anything you know and manage to really experience it on a deep level- that’s amazing. A whole world suddenly opened. A million flakes of inspiration, a million new points and each one of them can lead to a different and spectacular way. And it’s a shame to miss that.
Oh… all the things I learned in the last five years. From everyone. The tourists. The travelers. The views. The locals. There’s so much wisdom in them, a different wisdom, odd and fascinating. Yes, they think very differently from us. They see things differently. But that’s what’s so interesting!
I see tourists that made an effort and saved money for a very long time, invested a lot of money and and went really far. And all that for what?
Leave the books, the researches on the internet. Leave them. Go see the world with clean eyes. Sit with the locals, talk with them, ask them where they think you should go. Where is the best local food. And how exactly do you eat it. How to get from this village to the other one. Join that journey you took yourself into.
Come take of your clothes, slowly slowly dip your legs in the hot water, until you get used to them, look around you, see the women, the youths, the old ladies. How everyone here, free with their bodies, washing each other, dipping naturally in the pool, chit-chatting, laughing.
Come, get in, like it’s your first day alive.

watch this video– the girls talk about their experience at the hot springs in vashisht.

Spark Online Training by Edurekabanner

A big fear many parents have is about the hygiene of foods and drinks in developing countries. Even doctors specializing in travel medicine recommend to be extra careful with those. I wrote here the ways we deal with it.

Drinks:

  1. Many of the worst diseases originate in water.

2. That’s why I always go under the assumption that the water anywhere is not fit for drinking. Not taking any chances.

3. The most effective way to disinfect water is by boiling.

4. That’s why any dish containing water must be well boiled.

5. Drinking water- you can find different qualities of drinking water anywhere. From mineral water from abroad to locally treated and disinfected. Buy a few types, pick the one you like best and stick with it. And of course, pay attention to the lid signature.

6. Juices- fresh fruit juice is one of the ways to keep the kids healthy. It’s important to make sure they don’t mix it with water or ice. Also, pay attention to how clean the dishes are.

7. Cold drinks- sodas and the likes are perfectly safe to drink.

8. Hot drinks- usually there’s nothing to fear, the water is well boiled and even if they add milk- they boil that too for you.

Food:

  1. The best way to disinfect food is by boiling.

2. That’s why it’s always better to eat food that was cooked in high temperatures, baked or well fried.

3. Meat is one of the biggest sources of disease, that’s why rule no.2 is twice as important if you’re going to eat meat. Don’t eat meat that hasn’t been well coocked!

4. You don’t have to eat meat.

5.Eggs- go under the assumption that the Eggs have been fertilized. If that doesn’t bother you, I recommend you to put Eggs in the same category with meat- make sure all parts of the Egg have been well cooked (I don’t order fried, boiled or scrambled Eggs, I order an omelet and ask it to be well done).

6. The locals prefer to be healthy and know all these rules even better than us. True that their digestive system is designed to those conditions, but they’re not immune either.

7.That’s why the local foods are always healthy and nutritious, while keeping to the hygienic rules relevant to that place.

8.On the other hand, it’s the western foods that are made only for the tourists are those that aren’t prepared properly according the hygienic rules and hence have a higher chance of making you sick.

9. In addition, take under consideration that the local food is what the locals cook best. Western food won’t be ‘like home’, and especially the meat- not always worth the risk (depending of course on the destination of your trip)..

10. In short, it’s recommended to just order the local food.

11. Another important detail- people are always warning of the cooling and keeping conditions of the food, but in local restaurants they never prepare food in advance. They only start to make it when they get an order. It takes a while (take a deck of cards with you J)… but together with that you can be sure the food is the freshest it can be.

Fruits and vegetables:

  1. Fruits and vegetables that were watered with polluted water are not recommended to eat, because their peel is contaminated.

2. That’s why you have to make sure they were properly cooked.

3. Or properly peeled..

4. Or properly washed..

5. If there’s no way to wash/cook you should always pick the fruits or vegetables with a thick peel (Papayas, Oranges, Coconuts, Pineapples, Bananas). And those that grow on trees/bushes and not on the ground.

6. Many restaurants in touristic areas are aware of the problem and clearly mention that they wash their fruits and vegetables with disinfectant (iodine usually). Even with that, I don’t take risks and don’t allow the kids to eat fruits and vegetables that aren’t peeled.

Buying snacks or packed food:

  1. One thing you have to remember: pay attention to the expiry date. If that’s not written, or if it’s expired, DON’T BUY!

Eating at food stands:

  1. Usually their food is very fresh (and tasty!), they always make it that same day.

2. In large, the rules are the same rules, don’t forget them.

3. Pay attention how many locals eat from that stand. Don’t buy from an empty stand.

4. Pay attention to their utilities and where they sharpen their knives (there are stand owners that sharpen their knives against the sidewalk..).

5. Don’t forget to ask a number of times ‘not spicy’.

6. Or come with a ready-to-pull bottle of waterJ.

7. It’s best to come with your own disposable utilities.

8. And yet, I wouldn’t eat meat in stands.

General hygiene:

  1. The utilities are washed with regular water, usually with soap..

2. They have a different way of washing dishes: they soak the dishes in a big bowl full of water, then scrub with soap, wash and leave in the sun.

3. Their use of the sun is not only to dry but also to disinfect.

4. They serve the silverware on a plate.

5. Table cleaning: oh well, it’s usually not very clean. You can ask them to clean, you can use a wet wipe yourself, or you can simply not mix the silverware with the table.

6. You don’t have to use glasses, drink straight from the bottle..

7. You can buy a packet of straws and drink through them for maximal hygiene.

8. Remember to wash your hands before every meal.

Bottom line:

  1. Wash your hands before every meal.

2. Prefer local foods.

3. Cooked in high temperatures.

4. always suspect the water. Drink only purified water/fresh juice/sodas/hot drinks

5. Check the date of expiry on all packaged snacks.

It looks complicated but within a few days you get used to these rules and they become habit. Even the kids learn fast and the rules become a part of their life. they don’t even think about it anymore.

When people think about traveling they usually picture themselves on the move. They see a suitcase or at least a big bag, from which dangles a sleeping bag full of experiences, they see days of nonstop journeying and excitement. They see tempting shop windows and bags with foreign logos, smelling of cheese and wine and perfume. They see airplanes and trains and boats…
And thats the reason that sometimes I find it very hard to explain our style of traveling. People simply find it difficult to understand, because it doesnt fit their image of traveling.

We’re traveling in a way thats called nesting. That means we locate to one place at a time, for a long period. Nesting. Our style of traveling goes deeper, far beyond the touristic experience.

We’re not necessarily looking for the tourist attractions, but the truer experience. Usually we don’t even get a guidebook to the place we’re going to, but prefer to get to know it ourselves, without prejudice. Learn about their way of life, their culture, their customs, their routine through seeing the everyday of the place, and questions we ask the locals.

In a ‘Nesting’ trip the meetings with the locals and with other travelers crosses the border of ‘tourist’ and becomes a deep personal bond. And that has many implications.

When the kids learned about Buddhism and they had questions that didn’t have an answer on the Internet (why do today’s kids look for all the answers online?) they just went down to the street and found a few monks for a conversation. At the end of which they came back home excited and knowing more, and with three new friends that invited them to visit their monastery. And when we went to visit them, they gave us the full tour, and explained everything and served us tea and a special kind of bread and since then we go to visit them often. These are the type of experiences that only become possible in this sort of trip. And those are the ones we love best.

∴ How do we decide where to nest?
We try to find a place that attracts and interests us in ways of natural views and local population. We look at the seasons and see if the weather is good for that time. We look at the level of transportation, and at medical services, common diseases,if any. We check economically, if living there is expensive or not. And finally, since we work on the Web- how good a network they have there.

∴ Where do we live?
That depends on a lot. In Europe we chose to live in rented apartments, because living is expensive and we preferred to cook at home and save the cost of hotels. And beyond that, there’s something very comfortable in a real house. We chose to live on the edges of beautiful places, that way everything is much cheaper than it is at the center. In Europe the tourist centers are packed full and noisy, and the prices are needlessly high (the pizza in the town where we lived was just as good as pizza in Florence only much cheaper).

In southeast Asia, for example, we live in hotels or guesthouses, sometimes right in the middle of the whole tourist scene, sometimes slightly on the side. That way instead of travelling the whole world, the whole world comes to visit us. We meet people from all over the world, hear every language. And all that without even leaving the restaurant.

∴ And what about the kids?
In ‘Nesting’, what we’re actually doing is giving them a sort of a routine and a feeling of consistency. In other traveling styles you’re usually on the move, which puts the kids off balance after a while. When ‘Nesting’ they stay in the same place, in the same neighbourhood that slowly becomes familiar. We eat in the same restaurants every day, meet the same friends every day, go to explore the area, go to programs. A kind of a pleasant bubble.

The advantages of Nesting are many. For example, i have no doubt it’s one of the best ways to make travelling cheaper. Our personal acquaintance with the loacls, let’s us get most everything much cheaper. For example, when we stayed in Tuscany, our friendship with our owners of the apartment made our rent drop by half. In Pokhara, Nepal, the owners of our guesthouse lowered the price on their own, without any bargaining on our part. We could use their laundry machine, their kitchen, we bought water in bigger containers and many other things that eventually added up to a huge saving.

It was the same way in Vietnam and in fact anywhere else where we decided to nest.

Another advantage of being part of the local scene, and everything it means. Is learning to eat with our hands in Nepal (that’s how they eat) and knowing all the songs on the local charts. To get invited to an engagement ceremony to a wedding, to a celebration at a Buddhist monastery. Or on the other end of the spectrum, to care for a friend whose father died through all the Nepali mourning ceremonies. The personal acquaintance experience is different from any touristic experience, when you go to see a wedding of a stranger. For us they were friends, and that makes all the difference.

We hear the stories of our local friends about their lives, about how they educate their kids, about what the learn at school, politics, history, currency and a lot of other subjects in some of them we discover how much we’re all alike, in others we find an entirety different outlook than the one we have.

We spend time with them in their home and in their kitchen and learn about their lifestyle and customs, as well as their flavours and traditional ways to cook. We meet friends for life and know that when we come back to visit those places, there will always be someone to give us a warm welcome.

Short term Nesting:
Most families can’t afford to go to long term trips as long as a few months or years. But Nesting can work wonderful even when time is tight. We were only in Tuscany for three weeks, but made contacts and friendships that are with us even now and we really understood the place where we stayed. When we were in China we were in the city of Chengdu only for two weeks, and in that time we found a restaurant we went to every day (and that’s how we were exposed to the Chinese kitchen, helped them cook and made friends). And in the hostel where we stayed we discovered a whole world. We celebrated with friends our daughter’s birthday, went with them for walks in the city, and played many traditional Chinese games. And all that made our visit to this magicl city, to an experience that was far more impressive than any list of tourist attractions.

The principles of Nesting are simple. Settle in one place. Keep things consistent. Be open to meet everything the place has to offer (and forget about the ‘attractions’ list). Explore it slowly, peacefully.