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Bella91 wrote:

Hi!
Plan to visit Vietnam, solo traveller. Safe for women to travel alone in Vietnam?

Yes.

Thanks

It's fine. Common sense like anywhere. Easy and you will meet people on the road. Enjoy your trip.

Noted. Now i can plan for my trip

just one thing to keep in mind, yes, during the day, not a problem, but at night, I would not travel alone.  FYI - I never let any woman in our family in VN travel alone at night and before I met my wife, my future father in law would never allow his adult single daughters travel alone at night either.

Ok. Will try to find someone to accompany me. Thank you very much. Appreciate it

Bella91, please understand, VN is relatively safe.   Just that at night, like anywhere, men can be protective of women in the family and VN is no different.  Also, it gets dark in VN earlier than in most western countries and it depends on the time.  For example, 6pm 7pm etc. probably not an issue.  But my wife sometimes left work at 10pm and Dad refused to let her drive home alone, even though she was a university graduated adult.  I think it would depend on where you are at night and the hour.  You can make the judgement call.  There are bad people everywhere and you need to decide what risk you want to take. 

What i saw from other female friends of my wife, they usually were together at night if they were out having fun.  Second, people normally go to bed early compared to the west so the streets get pretty quiet by 10pm where my wife's family lives.

Where are you planning to visit in VN?

I totally understand and agree with you. Still under consideration HCMC & Hanoi

vndreamer wrote:

just one thing to keep in mind, yes, during the day, not a problem, but at night, I would not travel alone.  FYI - I never let any woman in our family in VN go alone at night, and before I met my wife, my future father in law would never allow his adult single daughters travel alone at night either.

You also think an old Vietnamese style, Vietnam now totally different than ten years before. Not only Vietnam, everyone can get trouble at night if they travel along with inconvenient places.

Since I will travel alone, better not to put myself on risk, try to avoid inconvenience places and not to walk alone during night especially in dark places.

Contem talk wrote:

vndreamer wrote:

just one thing to keep in mind, yes, during the day, not a problem, but at night, I would not travel alone.  FYI - I never let any woman in our family in VN go alone at night, and before I met my wife, my future father in law would never allow his adult single daughters travel alone at night either.

You also think an old Vietnamese style, Vietnam now totally different than ten years before. Not only Vietnam, everyone can get trouble at night if they travel along with inconvenient places.

I agree, especially in the big cities.  For example, one time I arrived in Saigon at 11pm and the taxi driver dropped me off in the middle of the street around 12am because he could not find the hotel.  Even me, I was nervous and lucky I knew how the addresses work in Saigon so I walked to the hotel and lucky it was very close.  Was i worried, yes.

Bella91, first of all I'm a man, so this is second hand information, but I have travelled a fair bit in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. I have met many solo female travellers along the way and all have said that they felt perfectly safe, much safer in fact than they did in Europe.
I think you can encounter trouble anywhere and you should exercise reasonable caution, but I think you will be fairly safe.
I myself certainly feel safer in Hanoi or HCM at night than I would in Dublin, Ireland.

I cant put myself in the position of woman but In my opinion, petty crime like bag snatching and scams is higher but Violent crimes like assault and murder is a lot lower.

I feel safer in vietnam than I do walking around at night in UK but my mum was at the wrong place at the wrong time and a motorbike drove past her at the airport and snatched her necklace. My local friends and family are always warning me to hide away expensive  things. It also depends on which part of the country your in. For example, in hanoi i can ride around on my motorbike with my phone on show for google maps. If i did that in saigon, it’ll be gone before I know it.

The safest place in the world I would say is japan, you can walk around and not find any trouble, even in Tokyo.

But yeah it’s relatively safe. When my girlfriend is here in europe with me, I don’t like her walking alone at night. In vietnam, i wouldn’t worry about her. It’s like parks, i said parks at night are not the same as hanging around parks at night in vietnam. If you hang around a park at night time in UK long enough, trouble will find you. In Vietnam people go to parks to exercise in the evening.

Malcolmleitrim wrote:

Bella91, first of all I'm a man, so this is second hand information, but I have travelled a fair bit in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. I have met many solo female travellers along the way and all have said that they felt perfectly safe, much safer in fact than they did in Europe.
I think you can encounter trouble anywhere and you should exercise reasonable caution, but I think you will be fairly safe.
I myself certainly feel safer in Hanoi or HCM at night than I would in Dublin, Ireland.

Yeah, used to live in Limerick city for a little while back in 2002, I'd take any Saigon alley at midnight versus a main street in Limerick when it's dark.

Bella91 wrote:

Since I will travel alone, better not to put myself on risk, try to avoid inconvenience places and not to walk alone during night especially in dark places.

I also think the "danger" is mostly about being robbed, mostly things snatched from your body. I'd suggest never walking around randomly with a smartphone or wallet in your hands, and avoid using a purse. At least keep the important stuff close to your body hidden somewhere. It never happened to me but I heard of lot of stories. Also, when you walk in busty markets, careful with pickpockets, they're experts at snatching stuff from you.

Yeah, will be more careful about my valuable things because not only in Vietnam pickpockets exists
Seem quite safe for women to travel alone in Vietnam.
Now, I will start plan my trip to Vietnam