10 Reasons to Move to Vietnam

As I’m writing this post it’s been about nine months since I packed my life into what I could carry on my back and hopped on a plane to the place I would call my new home—Hanoi, Vietnam. I’ve fallen in love with this country, the food, the people, everything.

The secret is out about how beautiful of a country Vietnam is and you probably can picture the giant limestone cliffs that make up Hạ Long Bay. Those images were enough to pique my interest about this country and made me want to learn more. Vietnam is much more than just beautiful landscapes though and has so much to offer someone who is looking for something more than what they can get back home.

If you’re dreaming of spending your days eating bánh mỳ sandwiches and fresh passionfruit juice while living in a place full of rich culture and excitement, then keep reading my ten reasons why you should move to Vietnam.

1. Insanely Affordable Cost of Living

Vietnam is probably one of the most affordable countries in the world to live and travel in. I was mind blown when I first moved here and discovered you can have a delicious local meal and a drink for the equivalent of only about $2. Being used to spending a minimum of $15 for just an average everyday meal back in the U.S. and having to limit the amount of times I ate out per week—this was such a new luxury to me being able to eat out for every meal if I wanted to.

You can rent a very nice fully furnished studio or one bedroom apartment for between $200 and $450 a month. How much you pay will usually depend on the neighborhood, whether or not you have a view, the spaciousness, and services that come with it. A more luxurious one or two bedroom apartment with a water view will cost a bit more but you will be really surprised how much value you can get for little money.

Most apartments will come with everything you need to live such as utensils, linens, and drinking water available. Oh, and just about every apartment provides weekly cleaning service included in the rent! That was almost incentive enough for me to pack my bags.

I pay about $450 a month for my brand new apartment which includes a water view, weekly cleaning service, balcony, smart TV with cable and streaming, secure bike parking, internet, the nicest landlords ever, a peaceful quiet neighborhood, and an endless amount of restaurants, cafes, and shops right outside my door. The only thing that isn’t already included in my rent is electricity which is also very affordable and costs me an average of $30 a month, depending on how often I use the AC.

Another aspect of the cost of living is transportation which, surprise surprise, is also really affordable. Taking a Grab bike (Southeast Asia’s Uber) will only cost you about $5 to get from one end of the city to the next. If you take a Grab car instead of a motorbike it will cost roughly double the price of a bike but still ridiculously cheaper than Uber or Lyft in the U.S. If you rent or buy your own motorbike your costs will be even lower than taking Grab.

The cost of services is also really cheap. You can get a manicure for around $10, a massage for around $14, and a haircut for around $20. Those prices are what you could expect to pay at popular spas and salons that mostly cater to foreigners, you can spend even less if you go to places catered more to locals.

So needless to say, you can live extremely comfortably in Vietnam without needing to make a huge salary. Say you make roughly $1,700 a month, you can afford to eat at local places for every meal, splurge on the more expensive Western restaurants a few times a week, have a spa day every couple weeks, treat yourself to delicious coffee drinks or tea on the daily, pay your rent, pay for transportation, go see a show or any other kind of entertainment on the weekends, have a gym membership, take a weekend trip every month, and still have plenty of money leftover to put in your savings account. Are you convinced yet?

2. Safety

If you don’t know much about Vietnam the first thing that comes to mind might not be safety, but I’ve never felt safer anywhere in the world than I do in Vietnam. If images of war is the first thing that pops into your mind when someone mentions Vietnam then you will be astounded by how at peace you will feel in this country.

Guns are illegal here which is a huge appeal coming from a country where mass shootings are happening on an almost daily basis now. The anxiety I would sometimes get going into a mall, movie theatre, or any large public space has completely dissipated after living here and realizing that mass shootings just aren’t something I have to worry about here. I can’t even tell you the amount of peace and security that brings. Yes, a world without gun violence really is possible. Honestly, the most dangerous aspect of Vietnam is navigating the crazy traffic, which is definitely intimidating as hell at first, but that’s what Grab is for.

3. Super Friendly Locals

Vietnamese people are very kind and welcoming to foreigners. Just smiling and making an effort to speak the language, even if it’s just a simple “chào”, will go a long way with the locals and they will likely want to talk to you and ask you about your life.

In Vietnam phrases like please, thank you and you’re welcome aren’t used as commonly as they are in the United States. So if you come to Vietnam and find that people don’t say anything after you say thank you, don’t be offended, that just isn’t the norm here.

Vietnamese people may not give you the kind of over the top customer service you might be used to, like being asked “how are you?” before the server takes your order and checking on you every five minutes, but Vietnamese people will absolutely go above and beyond to help you when you need it. The other day I didn’t have enough small bills to pay my Grab driver and the woman who has an ice cream shop on my street just gave me the money and let me pay her back the next day. That’s definitely not the only instance like that either, that’s just how people are here.

If you’re willing to make the effort to interact with the people despite the language barrier, then I can assure you the people of Vietnam will seep into your heart and will stay there forever.

4. Easy to Find Teaching Jobs

If you want to live and work in Vietnam legally, then more than likely you’ll need some kind of teaching job. There are some jobs for foreigners in other industries but unless you have significant experience in that field and something to offer that not many people can, then it’s probably not going to be a job that pays very well and the employer may not be able to sponsor your visa.

Long story short, you’re going to need to teach if you want to live in Vietnam. The good news is there’s a plethora of teaching jobs everywhere. Vietnam is growing and developing rapidly and there is a high demand for the younger generation to learn English to be able to get better jobs. Which means there’s a high demand for English teachers and schools are constantly hiring.

All you need to qualify for a good teaching job in Vietnam is a college degree, 120 hour TEFL certificate, and be a native English speaker. You can still get teaching jobs without all of those things but it’s probably not going to pay very well and the legality might be a little questionable.

The government has gotten a lot more strict since the pandemic about only letting teachers with all the right qualifications get a work permit. It used to be a lot easier to work on a three month visa and just do visa runs as needed to get around having to go through with getting a work permit and temporary residence card, but all that has become impossible now so it’s better to not risk it and just make sure you have all the necessary requirements.

If you have a teaching credential from your home country then you’ll most likely work at a big international school and that’s where you can make really good money. For the rest of us who don’t have a teaching credential from back home the options are: teaching at English centers, which would be evenings and weekends; teaching in private schools, which would be regular daytime hours and can pay really well depending on the school; working for a company who places you in public schools, which might mean teaching at multiple schools throughout the week and having large class sizes; private tutoring, which could take awhile to establish a clientele but allows you to create your own schedule; and the option to teach online.

Just keep in mind that you have to work for a company that is able to sponsor your visa to be able to work in Vietnam legally. Once you have that then you can do other things on the side to make extra money if you need.

I’ve only worked in private kindergartens so I can only speak to that experience but there’s so many different options that you’re bound to find something that works well for you. There are even jobs that are just part time and will still sponsor your visa if a full time teaching gig isn’t for you.

5. Incredible Food and Coffee Culture

The food and drinks in Vietnam are reason enough to move here. You could live here for years and will still never run out of new foods and drinks to try. Once you think you’ve tried everything just go to another region of the country and there’s an entirely new cuisine to try.

Each restaurant you go to is going to make the dish a bit differently and the flavors can vary. Even if you go to the same bún chả place everyday, it’s not always going to taste the same. It might have a slightly different flavor depending on the meat that day or how fragrant the herbs are, so you really never have the same meal twice.

If you think coffee doesn’t get any more interesting than a macchiato then you haven’t tried Vietnam’s famous egg coffee, coconut coffee, coffee with condensed milk, salted coffee or yogurt coffee. Yes, you read that correctly, yogurt coffee. They even have their own unique method of brewing coffee here that isn’t used in any other country that I’m aware of.

There are food stalls, street vendors, and cafes literally everywhere. It’s not uncommon to see ten different cafes right next to each other on the same city block. There are new cafes popping up around the city constantly. You could spend a lifetime here and visit a new café everyday and still never be able to catch up with the rapid pace new places open up. You will never find two cafes that are exactly the same either.

It’s amazing how easy it is to just walk outside your door no matter what part of the city you’re in and have endless options of things to eat and drink. Food delivery has also never been easier, so you can pretty much say goodbye to your pots and pans.

6. Opportunity to Learn a New Language

There’s no better motivation to learn a new language than moving to a foreign country and having no other choice but to learn—if you want life to be much easier and more enjoyable that is. Getting on Duolingo from your couch just really doesn’t compare to being in the country the language is native to and getting to practice speaking with locals everyday.

It’s so easy to give up on your language learning goals if you don’t have any plans to visit that country or don’t have many opportunities to practice the language where you live, but being immersed in it everyday makes it so much easier to want to keep getting better.

Never in a million years did I imagine myself attempting to learn Vietnamese, like a typical American I was much more interested in learning one of the romantic languages like Italian, French, or Spanish. I’m pretty sure the only Vietnamese word I knew before moving here was phở and I didn’t even know how to pronounce that correctly.

Vietnamese is a pretty difficult language to learn if you’re a native English speaker and it can be really intimidating at first. Once you think you’ve gotten the hang of all the pronouns there’s like six more you find out about and you feel like you might not ever be able to say more than your coffee order.

When I first arrived I never would have thought I’d be able to read Vietnamese or get used to pronouncing all the different tones, but if I can do it, anyone can. I feel like I can say confidently that if you can learn Vietnamese, you can learn just about any language.

7. Make Friends with People From All Over the World

The big cities like Hanoi and Saigon have a great community of expats from all over the world, from Ukraine to Egypt to the Philippines. And what’s more interesting than getting to know people from a completely different culture than your own?

If you move to Vietnam it’ll be inevitable that you’ll end up meeting people from countries you know next to nothing about and you’ll have the opportunity to have your whole world perspective opened up just by talking to them. You’ll go out to dinner and realize that everyone sitting at the table with you is from a different country, and if that’s something that’s new for you, it will feel cool as hell.

Vietnam is a country that is full of young people and there’s no shortage of opportunities to meet people with similar interests as you—from full moon gatherings to language exchange clubs to acting classes—there seems to be a community for everyone here.

I guarantee if you move to Vietnam you will meet some of the coolest people of your life and get to have connections across the globe.

8. Peaceful and Easy Way of Life

With the chaotic motorbike traffic and amount of noise in the big cities of Vietnam, you wouldn’t think that peaceful would be a word used to describe this country, but it’s true.

Once you’ve learned how to cross the street without having an anxiety attack and have adjusted to the sounds of honking, you’ll start to feel the overall sense of peace this beautiful country holds.

Maybe it’s all the Buddhist temples, the way that Vietnamese people know how to relax and enjoy themselves, or the fact that so many countries have messed with Vietnam over the course of history that peace is something highly valued by the people here.

Whatever the reason is, it’s an undeniable feeling that you can’t fully describe unless you come and experience it for yourself. Things just feel easier here, I don’t know why, it just does.

9. Easy Access to Many Nearby Countries

Having international airports in Hanoi and Saigon makes it so easy to hop on a quick flight to all the different countries that make up Southeast Asia. You can get a flight from Hanoi to Bangkok for around $60—which is wild in comparison to hardly being able to get a domestic flight in the U.S. for less than $400.

Most countries in Southeast Asia are only a few hours away by plane at most, so it doesn’t feel like you’re going on this long crazy journey. It feels like you’re just taking a quick weekend trip, but with all the benefits of experiencing an entirely different culture, landscape and language.

If you’re living and working in Vietnam and you take advantage of the national holidays throughout the year you could easily visit three to four new countries within a year, possibly even more depending on your job and flexibility. Have a long weekend? Why not go spend it in eating mango sticky rice in Thailand?

10. Life is Never Boring

In a place this densely packed with people, rich history, delicious food, and culture—it’s impossible to get bored here. Vietnam is a community oriented culture and people live their lives outside in the streets gathering with each other or with their doors wide open so anyone passing by can see what their lives are like.

If you ever find yourself feeling bored inside all you have to do is open your window and look outside or go for a walk and observe the people and life happening all around you. Walk down a street you’ve never walked down before and just allow yourself to take it all in. I guarantee you will see something entirely new everyday and life will never feel boring.

You’ll see all kinds of crazy things on motorbikes, like a family of five somehow all fitting on one seat, a cage crammed full of ducks, and the most insane amount of plastic recyclables towering on top of one tiny little grandma.

You’ll also see really beautiful things like a thousand year old temple adorned with ornate carvings into all the walls, a group of elderly people doing tai chi in the park in the peaceful early morning hours, and people loving and caring for one another.

There are much more than just ten reasons that make Vietnam a great place to move to. Whether you come here just for a vacation or you decide to take the leap and call this country your new home, Vietnam will be a country you will never forget. If you’ve ever lived in Vietnam or have just traveled here and have more reasons to add please share in the comments!