VacationSelector
The City Hall of Ho Chi Minh City, Ho Chi Minh City
Ho Chi Minh CityThe City Hall of Ho Chi Minh City
The Riverwalk and the Cape Fear Memorial Bridge, Wilmington
WilmingtonThe Riverwalk and the Cape Fear Memorial Bridge

Photos: Ho Chi Minh City by trungydang, CC BY 3.0, cropped; Wilmington by Unexpected Snacks, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Ho Chi Minh City or Wilmington?

Our verdict in twelve categories, each scored against the same fixed benchmark cities, and the climate month by month, so you can choose for your trip.

Choose Ho Chi Minh City for

  • prices
  • food and drink
  • nightlife

What lies behind each score is written up on Ho Chi Minh City’s own page.

Choose Wilmington for

  • beaches
  • nature and the outdoors
  • families

What lies behind each score is written up on Wilmington’s own page.

Scoreboard

Twelve categories on one fixed scale from 0 to 100. The shaded stretch is the gap between the two.

Beaches & swimming. Ho Chi Minh City 18, Wilmington 73: Wilmington leads by 55 points.
Food & drink. Ho Chi Minh City 86, Wilmington 48: Ho Chi Minh City leads by 38 points.
Culture & sights. Ho Chi Minh City 55, Wilmington 40: Ho Chi Minh City leads by 15 points.
Nightlife. Ho Chi Minh City 70, Wilmington 40: Ho Chi Minh City leads by 30 points.
Nature & outdoors. Ho Chi Minh City 28, Wilmington 58: Wilmington leads by 30 points.
Day trips. Ho Chi Minh City 58, Wilmington 45: Ho Chi Minh City leads by 13 points.
Good for families. Ho Chi Minh City 40, Wilmington 62: Wilmington leads by 22 points.
Getting around. Ho Chi Minh City 38, Wilmington 28: Ho Chi Minh City leads by 10 points.
Shopping & style. Ho Chi Minh City 55, Wilmington 33: Ho Chi Minh City leads by 22 points.
Affordability. Ho Chi Minh City 92, Wilmington 42: Ho Chi Minh City leads by 50 points.
Live music & performing arts. Ho Chi Minh City and Wilmington are level on 40.
Wellness & relaxation. Ho Chi Minh City 60, Wilmington 33: Ho Chi Minh City leads by 27 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Ho Chi Minh City and Wilmington.

Your match

Pick a travel style or drag the sliders, and both match scores follow your weighting.

Ho Chi Minh City
Best match
53match

Wins on prices and food and drink with your weighting.

Wilmington
45match

Wins on beaches and nature and the outdoors with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

Pick your month. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.

Ho Chi Minh City in July

33 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
285 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
29 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Wilmington in July

32 °Cdaytime high
23 °Cnight-time low
174 mmrain in the month
10 hsunshine a day
27 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
Ho Chi Minh CityWilmington

Where the figures come from

Ho Chi Minh City has no rain gauge within 25 km of the centre, so its rainfall comes from a gridded climate dataset read at the city rather than from a gauge further away.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Ho Chi Minh City: 1991-2020 normals, Ho Chi Minh (6 km from centre). Wilmington: 1991-2020 normals, Wilmington / The Palms Mobile Home Park (5.3 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureHo Chi Minh CityWilmington
Official languageVietnamese-
CurrencyDong (VND)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsACFG220 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+7UTC-5, UTC-4 in summer
Emergency numberPolice 113, ambulance 115, fire 114911
Elevation13 m9 m
Main airportTan Son Nhat International Airport (SGN)7 km from centre90 non-stop destinationsWilmington International Airport (ILM)5 km from centre25 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year-14 days

By the numbers

MeasureHo Chi Minh CityWilmington
City population14,002,598115,451
People per km²2,068839
Museums within 10 km92
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months6 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Ho Chi Minh City or Wilmington somewhere new.

Browse every destination

Sources

Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. Rainfall where no rain gauge is within 25 km is from the TerraClimate 1991-2020 climatology (Abatzoglou et al. 2018, Scientific Data), read at the city. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. Airport data from OurAirports (public domain). Non-stop route lists from the "Airlines and destinations" tables on English Wikipedia airport articles, by Wikipedia contributors, reused under CC BY-SA 4.0. Currency from the ISO 4217 register maintained by SIX, cross-checked against country data from GeoNames (CC BY 4.0). Price level from World Bank open data (PPP conversion factor for private consumption and official exchange rate), CC BY 4.0. Time zones from GeoNames (CC BY 4.0); clock offsets computed from the IANA time zone database. Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates. Daylight hours computed from each destination's latitude using the NOAA solar position algorithm.

Category scores are our editorial verdict under rubric v3, each placed against the same fixed benchmark cities; the climate figures are measured. How the scores are set. Snapshot generated 2026-11-02. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.