Cu Chi Tunnels half-day guided tour from Ho Chi Minh City
The tunnels still hold the daily routines of the people who built them.
A half-day guided tour of the Cu Chi Tunnels, 60km from Ho Chi Minh City, with an English-speaking guide who walks you through the underground resistance base, explains the wartime traps and command posts, and shares the stories of the Vietnamese people who lived underground. Hotel pickup is included, and the tour ends with traditional wartime tea and cassava root before the return drive to the city.
Options for this experience
3 optionsStep-by-step itinerary
Cu Chi Tunnels half-day tour
- Board van with tour guide
- Travel 60km to Cu Chi
- Receive historical overview
- Learn about wartime traps
- Visit command post and cannons
- Explore underground guerrilla base
- Optional walking tunnel experience
- Enjoy tea and cassava root
- Test marksmanship with AK-47
- Return to pick-up point
What’s included
- Hotel pickup and drop-off in Districts 1, 3 or 4.
- round-trip air-conditioned van transport.
- English-speaking guide.
- entrance fees to the Cu Chi Tunnels.
- bottled water.
- traditional wartime tea and cassava root at the end of the visit.
- Every day 08:00 09:00 10:00 11:00 12:00
Information
Half-day Cu Chi Tunnels tour from Ho Chi Minh City with English-speaking guide, entrance fees and hotel pickup included.
Compare the 12 alternatives
Traveler reviews
The experience
The van picks you up from your District 1, 3 or 4 hotel in the early morning, and the 90-minute drive to Cu Chi becomes the first part of the story. Your guide talks through the Vietnam War as the landscape changes, so by the time you arrive at the tunnels, you already understand what you are about to walk into. A documentary at the site gives you the scale of the place: the tunnels stretch across 250 square kilometers, and they were built, lived in, and defended by hand. This is not a ruin you are visiting. It is a system that was engineered to survive.
Inside, you walk through sections of the actual tunnels, ducking through passages that were deliberately narrow and low, designed to slow down anyone who did not belong there. You see the Hoang Cam kitchen, where meals were cooked underground without smoke escaping to give away the position. You see the handmade traps: sharpened bamboo stakes hidden in the earth, booby-trapped doors, hidden chambers. The command post still stands. Your guide does not just point these things out. They explain how each detail kept people alive, how the tunnels were not just hiding places but a functioning underground city where families lived, where children were born, where decisions about survival were made every day. The resilience is not something you are told to admire. It emerges from the details themselves.
At the end of the tour, you sit down for special tea and cassava root, the food that sustained the people who lived here during the war. It is a small moment, but it grounds the history in something real: what people actually ate, what they actually drank. Then there is the optional shooting range, where you can test an AK-47 if you want to. The drive back to your hotel takes 90 minutes, and by then the tunnels have had time to settle into what you saw and what you learned.
Top questions
Can I be picked up at my hotel?
You can choose: pickup at your hotel, or go straight to the meeting point. Pickup is included in the price. When you book, you choose your hotel from 396 pickup locations; if yours isn’t listed, you can type in your address. Pickup is about 30 minutes before departure.
Can children come?
Yes. Ticket types: Child (5 to 7 years); Infant (under 5): free.
What happens if it rains?
It may be canceled due to bad weather. If that happens, you're offered another date or a refund. Free cancellation up to 24 h before the start.
How long does the Cu Chi Tunnels tour take from start to finish?
The tour lasts six hours total, including the 90-minute drive each way from Ho Chi Minh City and the time spent walking the tunnels and learning the history on site.
What exactly is inside the tunnels that I will see?
You walk through the actual underground passages, see the Hoang Cam kitchen where meals were cooked without smoke escaping, view the handmade wartime traps and booby-trapped doors, and visit the command post where decisions were made during the war.
Does the tour include the drive from my hotel?
Yes, pickup and drop-off at District 1, 3 or 4 hotels are included, along with the air-conditioned van ride both ways and an English-speaking guide throughout the day.
What is the cassava root and tea at the end of the tour?
Cassava root and tea were the actual food and drink that sustained the people living in the tunnels during the war. The tour includes this traditional wartime meal so you experience what daily life was like underground.
Can I shoot a gun at the range?
Yes, testing your marksmanship with an AK-47 at the shooting range is optional and happens at the end of the tour before you return to Ho Chi Minh City.
Is this tour suitable if I am not very fit?
The tour is suitable for all physical fitness levels. However, walking the tunnels does require ducking through narrow, low passages, so consider your comfort with confined spaces and bending before booking.
Operated by mekong cruises tours. Explorevia does not run this tour: we compare it with similar options, and you book it with our booking partner.
Prices and times updated 4 days ago
Cu Chi Tunnels half-day guided tour from Ho Chi Minh City
6h · EN
from US$ 17.10 per person
Next, you choose your date and number of travelers and see the final price.