Tours · Prices

The price, and every part it is made of

Guide ranges first, then the published cost of each ticket, berth and bed that sits inside them. Ending with the part most price pages leave out: how a quote 25 percent below ours is normally constructed.

Plan my trip How to book

lowest starting price: USD 58
Fansipan cable car, adult: VND 850,000
holiday uplift on rail berths: 10 - 30%

Guide ranges by trip shape

Everything below is indicative. It is built from published transport fares, published entrance tickets and published Sa Pa accommodation rates, plus the cost of a guide, transfers and the work of holding berths. Figures are per person, two sharing a twin room, and they move with the season and the class of transport you choose.

What you are buying	2 travellers	3 - 4	5 - 8	9 - 12
Three days from Hanoi, 6-berth sleeper, 3-star hotel	USD 300 - 340	USD 265 - 300	USD 245 - 275	USD 235 - 260
Three days from Hanoi, 4-berth cabin, 4-star hotel	USD 365 - 410	USD 325 - 365	USD 300 - 335	USD 285 - 315
Three days from Hanoi, private carriage, 4-star hotel	USD 410 - 465	USD 360 - 405	USD 330 - 370	USD 310 - 345
Fansipan cable car day, from Sa Pa	USD 125 - 140	USD 110 - 125	USD 100 - 112	USD 95 - 105
Cat Cat and Ta Van walk, shared guide	USD 78 - 88	USD 68 - 78	USD 62 - 70	USD 58 - 65

Indicative guide ranges only, per person, two sharing a twin room, international flights excluded. These are not fixed tariffs. The formal quotation is issued per group once dates, transport class and hotel are fixed, because rail fares are only released by date and holiday uplifts of 10 to 30 percent apply on the private carriages. Single occupancy, child fares and private-guide upgrades are quoted separately.

The booking sequence that turns one of these ranges into a firm figure is set out on how to book. The ranges overlap on purpose. A group of four on a quiet Tuesday in March and a group of four on the Friday before a national holiday are not buying the same thing, even when the itinerary is identical.

What the tickets and beds cost where they are published

Every figure in this table is published by somebody other than us: the cable car operator, the village ticket offices, the rail and coach agencies, or a newspaper handbook. None of them is our buying price, and we do not publish one. What the table gives you is the floor under any quote for this region, ours included.

Line item	Published range	Notes
Night train berth, Hanoi to Lao Cai, one way	VND 340,000 - 430,000 in a 6-berth cabin; 490,000 - 650,000 in a 4-berth; 800,000 - 1,250,000 in a two-berth deluxe	SP7 sits at the cheaper end, SP3 slightly above it
Private carriage berth, one way	VND 850,000 - 950,000 in a 4-berth; 1,500,000 - 1,800,000 in a two-berth VIP	Chapa Express published rates; 10 to 30 percent higher on holidays, weekends and peak summer
Sleeper coach or limousine, Hanoi to Sa Pa, one way	VND 250,000 - 320,000 standard sleeper; 310,000 - 750,000 sleeper cabin; 300,000 - 750,000 limousine seat	Return tickets run VND 450,000 - 1,350,000, a 5 to 15 percent saving
Fansipan cable car, return	VND 850,000 adult, VND 550,000 child	2026 tariff, weekday and weekend the same
Cable car with both funiculars	VND 1,370,000 adult, VND 1,070,000 child	Cheaper than buying the three separately if you use all three
Cable car with summit buffet	VND 1,100,000 adult, VND 750,000 child	Buffet alone is VND 250,000 - 330,000
Muong Hoa mountain train, return	VND 200,000	2,000 m from the centre of Sa Pa to the cable car base, about six minutes
Do Quyen summit funicular	VND 150,000 up, VND 120,000 down, VND 270,000 return	Removes roughly 600 stone steps and leaves about fifty
Cat Cat village entrance	VND 150,000 adult, VND 70,000 - 80,000 child	Valid the same day only; two agency sources disagree on the child fare
Lao Chai to Ta Van route ticket	VND 75,000 adult	Ham Rong is VND 70,000 and the Silver Waterfall VND 20,000 for comparison
Hotel bed in Sa Pa, per night	From VND 100,000 in a dorm; mid-range bungalows from about VND 500,000	Our 3-star and 4-star columns sit well above the bungalow figure
Eating out	Grilled dishes VND 20,000 - 100,000 a plate; salmon hotpot VND 300,000 - 600,000 for three to six people	Dinners are outside the tour price

The one line with no published price

A guide day rate is not published anywhere in this region, by us or by anyone else. It is the single largest element we add, and the honest statement is that it is the part you are trusting rather than checking. Everything else on this page can be looked up.

Sources: Sun World Fansipan Legend — ticket guide; Fansipan cable car price list; vetau247 — SP1, SP3 and SP7 compared; vetau247 — Chapa Express carriages; HK Buslines — Hanoi to Sa Pa coach route; Sinhtour — Cat Cat entrance ticket; Du lich Sapa — Sa Pa attraction ticket prices; VnExpress — Sa Pa travel handbook · checked 2026-09-24.

The variables, ranked

Listed in the order in which they move the total. The first two account for most of the spread between the cheapest and the most expensive version of the same itinerary.

Group size. The guide, the vehicle and the transfers cost the same for two travellers as for eight. Going from two to nine takes roughly 20 to 22 percent off the per-person figure for the three-day trip, and it is the only variable that changes nothing about what you experience.
Transport class on the Hanoi leg. A 6-berth sleeper against a private-carriage cabin is a swing of more than VND 1,000,000 per person each way. It is the single biggest line item in the multi-day trip.
Hotel grade. The gap between a 3-star and a 4-star room in Sa Pa is two nights wide and shows up directly in the columns above.
Date. National holidays and the harvest weeks in September to November carry uplifts on carriages and hotels alike, and the private carriages publish a 10 to 30 percent increase on those dates.
Shared or private guide. A private guide on the valley day is the difference between the second and third columns of the table on the Cat Cat and Ta Van page.
Which tickets sit inside the package. On the mountain day, the plain cable car return at VND 850,000 against the full combination at VND 1,370,000 is most of the price difference between our columns.
Single occupancy. A room alone in Sa Pa and a berth alone in a four-berth cabin are two separate supplements, and the rail one cannot always be bought.

Outside the price, and the reason

A list of exclusions is only useful if it says why, because that is what tells you whether the omission is a saving or a trap.

Travel insurance. We do not sell it and we ask every traveller to hold it. A weather closure on the cable car is the operator's call, not a refundable service failure, and insurance is the only thing that covers a missed activity.
Dinners. Sa Pa has a working evening food scene at VND 20,000 to 100,000 a plate. Bundling it means a fixed set menu at a restaurant that pays a commission, which costs you more and gives you less.
International and domestic flights. The nearest airport is Noi Bai, about 320 kilometres away and five and a half to six and a half hours by expressway. The Sa Pa airport project at Cam Con is not operating in 2026.
Visas and entry formalities. Yours to arrange. We do not give immigration advice and will not pretend to.
The funiculars, unless you choose the package that includes them. They are real optional costs, VND 200,000 and VND 270,000, and hiding them inside a headline price is how a quote stops being comparable.
Tips. Not included, not expected, not calculated into anybody's wage on our side.

How a quote 25 percent below ours is built

Cheaper quotes for Sa Pa exist and some of them are perfectly honest. The five methods below are the ones that produce a large discount without removing much cost, and each is easy to check before you pay.

The four-berth cabin becomes a soft seat. A seat on the same train costs a fraction of a berth in a closed cabin, and on a departure at 22:00 arriving at 05:55 it is the difference between arriving rested and arriving wrecked. Ask which cabin class, in writing, with the berth count.
The limousine becomes a shared coach on the night run. Same road, same expressway, VND 250,000 instead of VND 750,000, and an arrival in Sa Pa between 03:30 and 06:00 when no hotel will check you in. The saving is real; the hours it costs you are not mentioned.
The hotel is described by star rating instead of by name. '4-star hotel in Sa Pa' covers a very wide field. A quote that will not name the property before payment is a quote that intends to choose it later, on price.
The cable car ticket sits outside the price. VND 850,000 per adult is a large share of a day-tour price. Removing it from the headline and selling it on the morning produces an instant discount and a surprise at the base station. Check whether the entrance tickets for Cat Cat at VND 150,000 and the Lao Chai to Ta Van route at VND 75,000 are inside or outside as well.
The group size band is quoted low and run high. A price calculated at nine to twelve travellers, then delivered as a group of four, is not a discount; it is a different quotation from the one you compared.
Lunches and the guide's own day disappear. A tour with a driver who points at a path is cheaper than a tour with a guide who walks twelve kilometres with you. Both can be called guided.

What to ask for in writing

Cabin class and berth count, the hotel by name, which entrance and cable car tickets are inside the price, the group size the quotation is calculated at, and whether lunch is included on each full day. Five questions, and they settle most price comparisons in this region.

Currency, and why two of them appear here

Tour prices are quoted in US dollars because that is the currency most travellers budget in and the one we can hold stable between quotation and departure. Supplier costs appear in Vietnamese dong because that is the currency the operators publish them in, and converting them here would put a made-up exchange rate on this page.

The rate used on your invoice is the one on the day the quotation is issued, and it is stated on the quotation itself. Entrance tickets bought on the day, in the villages or at the base station, are paid in dong.

Plan your trip

Ask for the quotation with the five answers in it

Cabin class, hotel name, tickets inside or outside, calculated group size, lunches. You get all five in the first written itinerary, without asking twice.

Request a quotation

Common questions

Questions travellers ask most

Why is your quote higher than the one we got elsewhere?

Usually one of five reasons, and they are all checkable. The other quote has a seat rather than a berth on the night train, or a shared night coach rather than a limousine; the hotel is a star rating rather than a name; the cable car or village entrance tickets sit outside the price; the group size it was calculated at is larger than the group you will actually travel with; or the guided day is a driver and a drop-off rather than a guide who walks with you.

Put the two quotations side by side and ask both companies the same five questions in writing. If the answers come back identical and theirs is still cheaper, take theirs. We would rather lose a booking than win it by matching a number we cannot deliver at.

Are these prices fixed?

No. They are indicative ranges and this page says so deliberately. Rail fares are only released for a specific date, holiday uplifts on private carriages run 10 to 30 percent, and hotel rates in the September to November harvest weeks move a long way.

The formal quotation is issued per group once dates are fixed, and once issued it is held for the period stated on it.

Do children pay the same?

No. The cable car charges VND 550,000 for a child against VND 850,000 for an adult, and Cat Cat charges VND 70,000 to 80,000 against VND 150,000, so the ticket element falls significantly.

The guide, the vehicle and the room do not fall, so a child's total is lower than an adult's but not proportionally. Child fares are quoted individually against ages.

What is the cheapest honest way to see Sa Pa?

A 6-berth sleeper each way, a 3-star room, the valley walk rather than the mountain, and dinners bought in Sa Pa. That is the left-hand column of the table above and it is a perfectly good trip.

What we would not cut is the berth. A seat on an eight-hour overnight service saves a modest amount of money and costs the first day of a three-day trip.