Mekong Delta Travel Guide: Day Trip or Overnight, and Where to Go

This Mekong Delta travel guide starts with one choice: a day trip from Ho Chi Minh City shows you the canals, but only an overnight stay in Can Tho gets you to the Cai Rang floating market at dawn. From our Vietnam travel blog, it covers Ben Tre, Can Tho and Chau Doc, the best season, an itinerary by number of days and onward trips to Cambodia and Phu Quoc.

The delta is a web of rivers and canals south and west of Ho Chi Minh City, and it is also a route to Cambodia. If you plan to cross the border, apply for a Vietnam e-visa online with the right exit gate.

Mekong Delta at a glance:

Town	From Ho Chi Minh City	Best for
My Tho and Ben Tre	About 2 to 2.5 hours by road	Day trips, coconut canals, cycling
Can Tho	About 3 to 4 hours by road	Cai Rang floating market, the delta's main city
Chau Doc	About 5 to 6 hours by road	Sam mountain, Tra Su forest, boats to Cambodia

Mekong Delta day trip or overnight

A Mekong Delta day trip from Ho Chi Minh City usually goes to My Tho or Ben Tre: a boat ride through coconut canals, a stop at a family workshop and lunch. It is easy, but the canals near the city are busy with tour boats.

Stay at least one night if you can. The floating markets trade before 7:00, which is impossible to reach on a day trip, and evenings in Can Tho or a homestay are when the delta feels local. Two nights let you combine Can Tho with Ben Tre or Chau Doc. Our Ho Chi Minh City guide covers the city days before you go.

Ben Tre and My Tho

Ben Tre is the coconut province, with narrow canals shaded by water palms, orchards and quiet cycling lanes. It is the best one-day taste of the delta, and less crowded than My Tho across the river.

Rent a bicycle or join a small-boat tour into the side canals, where larger tour boats cannot go. Many homestays in Ben Tre offer cooking classes and bicycle loans, a good reason to stay one night on the way to Can Tho.

Can Tho and the Cai Rang floating market

Can Tho is the largest city in the delta and the base for the Cai Rang floating market, where wholesale boats sell fruit and vegetables from poles hung with samples. Trading is busiest from about dawn until 7:00.

Book a small boat the night before and leave the pier around 5:30. After the market, visit a rice noodle workshop and the canals beyond, then rest in the heat of the day. In the evening, walk the Ninh Kieu riverside. Markets in the delta have shrunk as roads replace waterways, so expect fewer boats than old photos show. Our guide to Mekong Delta food lists dishes to try in Can Tho.

Chau Doc and Tra Su forest

Chau Doc is a border town on the Hau River, with Cham villages, floating fish farms and Sam mountain's pagodas and views. It is the most varied stop in the delta and the last before Cambodia.

Spend a morning at Tra Su, a cajuput forest reserve where small boats glide through green duckweed and bird colonies, about an hour from town. Climb Sam mountain at sunset for views over rice fields to the border. Chau Doc deserves two nights, given the long drive.

Best time to visit the Mekong Delta

December to April is the best time to visit the Mekong Delta, during the dry season, with sunny days and easy boat trips. Fruit orchards are at their best from about May to August.

From about August to November, the floodwater season raises the rivers and fills the fields around Chau Doc, which is beautiful but makes some roads and homestays harder to reach. Short tropical showers fall most afternoons from May to November.

A Mekong Delta itinerary by days

Your Mekong Delta itinerary depends on how many nights you have and where you go next. Plan fewer stops than you think, because road travel between towns takes hours.

Days	Route	Ends near
1	Ben Tre day trip	Ho Chi Minh City
2	Ben Tre, overnight Can Tho, Cai Rang at dawn	Ho Chi Minh City
3	Ben Tre, Can Tho, Chau Doc	Cambodian border
4 to 5	Ben Tre, Can Tho, Chau Doc, Tra Su, Ha Tien	Phu Quoc ferry or Cambodian coast

The route you choose decides the next questions: crossing into Cambodia, continuing to Phu Quoc, or flying straight into Can Tho.

Mekong Delta travel guide: onward trips

The delta sits between Ho Chi Minh City, Cambodia and the Gulf of Thailand, so many travelers pass through rather than return. Here is how each onward route works.

To Cambodia by river or road

From Chau Doc, speedboats run up the Mekong to Phnom Penh through the Vinh Xuong border gate, and roads cross at Tinh Bien and Ha Tien. All three accept the Vietnam e-visa, as our guide to Vietnam land border crossings explains.

Choose the gate as your exit point on the e-visa, and get a multiple-entry e-visa if you will return to Vietnam.

To Phu Quoc

Ha Tien, on the coast near the Cambodian border, has ferries to Phu Quoc island, and Rach Gia has boats too. Phu Quoc also has frequent flights from Ho Chi Minh City. Our Phu Quoc guide covers the island.

Flying into Can Tho

Can Tho International Airport is one of the airports that accept the Vietnam e-visa, as our list of e-visa airports shows, though international flights there are limited. Most visitors still arrive at Tan Son Nhat.

VietnamVisa-Easy.com is a private visa service operated by H2 Global Travel JSC since 2012, not a government website, and you can apply directly at evisa.gov.vn for US$25. If you would like your entry and exit gates checked before submission, start your application with us.