Culture Shock: Hanoi, Vietnam (November 23, 2025)
I’d like to take a moment to highlight and share my cost of living culture shock. Normally, that would be the HIGH cost of living when you are travelling abroad, but in Vietnam, it’s the opposite. I’m having difficulty adjusting to the cost of living DEcrease.
You see, when I travel (especially when I’m by myself), I have zero interest in being a tourist. I desire to truly LIVE in the places I am visiting. So when I booked myself a place in Hanoi, Vietnam, I essentially rented a short-term studio apartment in the heart of the city. So let’s start there. In New York city, that would cost you a minimum of $3,264. Airbnb for a 10 day stay in NYC will run you … about the same amount. Now you can do better, sure, but we’re talking averages. My stay for 10 days in the heart of Hanoi? $300 (or $30 per day). That’s after all the fees and markups from our friends at Kayak, Priceline, and Agoda.
Awesome haircut AND beard trim for … wait for it … $2.50
It was time to get my haircut and as you can see from above, I was able to get my hair and beard trimmed for a whopping $2.50. That’s less than 10% of what they want to charge me in my home town of Port Washington, NY which recently upped their prices to $35 for just the haircut (and I’m running out of hair). The beard is an extra $20. Combined, I paid 4.5% of what they want back home. And that wasn’t even the most shocking cost of living decrease of the day today.
40,000 VND is about $1.50 for two kilos of laundry … serviced!!!
I know I’m throwing out all the spoilers with these images, but I can’t help myself. $1.50 for two KILOS of laundry … serviced. What?!? That’s all my laundry. Dropped off. I will pick it up tomorrow. I’m sure if I had planned better for an extra fifty cents they would have picked it up and delivered it for me as well. It’s just, I don’t live here and didn’t take the time to figure that part out. Besides, I could use the one kilometer walk exercise. I mean come on. It’s like a few blocks from my appartment.
Shall I continue? You know I’m going to and that this was a rhetorical question. I have many more examples (feel free to bail if you’ve got the point and no longer give a …ehum … care to read on).
Home cooked Vietnamese Pho cooked to order … 50,000 VND or $2.00
When I sat down for lunch, I didn’t see a menu. What I did see were a ton of locals enjoying what looked to be a fabulous soup. I made eye contact with the owner, pointed to the soup and then to me. She smiled and pointed to a seat and we were playing charades in lieu of using the Google Translate app. It was every bit as good as I imagined.
When I was done, I did get out my app and typed in, “How much do I owe you for the soup?” and before she could say anything she whipped out a 50,000 VND bill. I smiled and handed her one of my own. meanwhile I’m gobsmacked that my entire lunch was $2.
Street eats with the locals in Hanoi. I came for the FULL experience!
I already shared that the concert ticket I purchased for VIP Seats and no waiting in line was $8. What I didn’t mention was that it came with a giant pitcher of beer that I gave to a group of friends that were having a good time (as I’m currently 987 days sober). The point is the $8 wasn’t just an entrance ticket. It included what looked to be about 6 generous 12 to 16 ounce pours of beer that was being promoted at the event. That works out to be $1.30 a beer if you don’t count anything for the VIP SEATS themselves!
Pitcher of beer plus VIP Seating for $8 … oh, and the concert itself!
I haven’t dug into it yet, but I’m also considering some high-end suits while I’m here. From my preliminary research, you can get “worsted wool” (i.e. high-end wool) custom tailored suits for $300 to $500. At Brooks Brothers that will set you back between $2,000 to $3,000 depending on how good the tailor is and how “custom” you want to the suit. Here they are starting from straight fabric so they really mean “custom” as in built from your measurements. Excited to dig into that.
Even the transportation is really well priced. I haven’t played around with the scooters or motorcycles, but “Grab” is the Uber equivalent here and it works great. Back home to get an Uber from JFK to our home in Port Washington (about 30 minutes away) you’re lucky if you spend less than $100 and with surge / busy periods you will more likely will pay $120. Same distance here in Hanoi, $9.
I’ll end with a link to a related video post from someone else who simply asked the question, “Can you live WELL on $1,000 a month in Hanoi, Vietnam?” And because you got this far, you don’t need to read their article to already know the answer. Absolutely. But you may want an even more detailed breakdown on how this couple does it and have continued to live well on about $12k a year. It’s a solid back-up plan for retirement if “Plan A” doesn’t work out.
