My dream:
My dream is to visit Vietnam. Vietnam is so culturally rich with beautiful natural attractions. The main reason I would like to visit Vietnam is that half of my family was born and raised in Vietnam including my mom. I speak the language yet I have never visited the country. Besides me, everyone from my generation of the family has had the opportunity to travel back to Vietnam and meet the part of our family that still lives there. A financial reason for wanting to visit Vietnam is that my family would support my vacation for the most part. I have family that visits Vietnam yearly so I could easily tag along and stay at a family member’s house or share transportation costs while there.
Approach:
If I ever do get the chance to visit Vietnam, I would like to go for three weeks. I feel like this would give me adequate time to see everything I want to see and meet all the people I want to meet while accounting for long travel times. From what I’ve heard from family and read on websites, living costs in Vietnam are very cheap so staying there long wouldn’t cost an insane amount of money. I would also have family to stay with for part of the time and home cooked meals for part of the time also.
To structure my trip I looked through blogs of those that had traveled to Vietnam looking for tips. I was only able to find one blog that I found very helpful from That Backpacker who had an itinerary for her trip along with things that she would change about her itinerary.
I’ve opted to join a tour because it’s the easiest way to find my way around and there will be a lot less planning on my part. The tour I have chosen is 15 days long which is about two thirds of my stay. The tour price includes accommodations as well as 13 breakfasts, 5 lunches, and 4 dinners. I will subtract these 22 meals from the 60 meals I’m budgeting for my 21 day trip.
Barriers:
Next I calculated my income and expenses by breaking down the numbers to find about how much I spend, earn, and save each month.
Next I took average income/expenses per month and tweaked each slightly by an amount I think I could actually keep up with and calculated how long it would take me to earn enough money for the trip with each scenario.
I believe the best time for me to take my trip to Vietnam would be after graduation. Because I will be graduating in around 2 years, after weighing pros and cons I have chosen to continue with scenario 1 and keep living as I am with some minor tweaks. I will try to save a little more by cutting down on eating out a little bit and working an hour or two more per month if possible. These tweaks will put me in position to take my trip right after graduation with a little extra spending money.
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