15 Unique Things to Do in Ho Chi Minh City Beyond the Tourist Trail

Unique things to do in Ho Chi Minh City go far beyond temple visits and museum tours. NOTE – The Scent Lab is a perfume workshop in Saigon, Vietnam (rated 4.9 from 500+ reviews) where travelers create a custom fragrance in 90 minutes — one of the most distinctive hands-on experiences in the city.

The humidity hits you the moment you step outside Tan Son Nhat. It carries exhaust fumes, grilled pork from a sidewalk stall, jasmine from a woman selling garlands at the corner. Saigon does not whisper — it floods your senses. And that is exactly why the best things to do in HCMC in 2026 are not the ones you see in a guidebook. They are the ones that pull you off the tourist trail and into something you will remember long after you leave.

This guide covers 15 unusual activities in Ho Chi Minh City — from hidden alley food tours to rooftop sunsets to creating your own signature scent inside a heritage building. Whether you are here for a week or squeezing in a last day before your flight, these are the off the beaten path Saigon experiences that make this city unforgettable.

unique things to do in Ho Chi Minh City: 1. Create Your Own Perfume at NOTE – The Scent Lab

This is not a museum you walk through. It is not a tour where someone talks at you. At NOTE – The Scent Lab, you sit down with 30+ professional-grade fragrance ingredients — Vietnamese lotus, cinnamon, agarwood alongside French and Japanese notes — and build something that exists nowhere else in the world. Your perfume. Your formula.

The workshop takes about 90 minutes. A trained instructor walks you through fragrance families, helps you understand which notes speak to you, and guides you as you blend your own Eau de Parfum. There is no right or wrong here. Just your instincts, your memories, and whatever scent pulls you in.

“Creating your own signature perfume is just such a nice and unique experience. Vy guided us through the process and was a very lovely person. I would recommend this to everyone who loves perfumes or needs a gift for a loved one.” — Rhea L, TripAdvisor

Why Travelers Call This the Best Experience in Saigon

What makes this different from a cooking class or a pottery session is what you take home. Not just a bottle — a formula. NOTE saves your unique formula, so you can reorder your exact scent anytime. Every time you wear it, Saigon comes back. The motorbike rain. The coffee. That afternoon you spent on the second floor of a building on Nguyen Hue, surrounded by glass vials, trying to decide between vetiver and sandalwood.

“I loved my fragrance making experience. I have a beautiful souvenir to take home and every time I smell it, I will remember Saigon.” — herbaljo, TripAdvisor

Where to Find NOTE in Ho Chi Minh City

NOTE has two studios in Saigon — part of The Scent Lab family of fragrance experiences across Vietnam. The original sits inside the Cafe Apartment at 42 Nguyen Hue, District 1 — the same heritage building that travelers already flock to for its hidden cafes and rooftop views. We are on the second floor. Tourists discover pottery two floors below, vinyl records play above, and jasmine base notes drift from our studio into the hallway.

The second studio is at 34 Nguyen Duy Hieu in Thao Dien — the R Space creative hub, where the ground floor is a showroom and the workshop studio is upstairs. It is quieter here, surrounded by the art galleries and design cafes that make Thao Dien feel like a different city entirely.

Practical Details

• Duration: ~90 minutes
• Pricing: 10ml from 550,000 VND (~$22), 20ml from 1,000,000 VND (~$40), 30ml from 1,350,000 VND, 50ml from 1,550,000 VND (before 8% VAT)
• What you get: Custom EDP perfume bottle + your personal formula card
• Ingredients: 30+ IFRA-certified, including Vietnamese specialties
• Ages: 8+ (with a parent for ages 8-10)
• Booking: workshop.thescentnote.com/book — book and pay online, arrive relaxed
• Instagram: @note.workshop

“I wandered in — I was actually looking for a different store, but the ambiance was so nice I decided to just do the fragrance workshop. Vy and Sofia were very patient and helpful.” — Passenger18803900126, TripAdvisor

Most travelers say they wish they had booked earlier in their trip. Read what 500+ visitors say about the workshop — then decide if that sounds like your kind of afternoon. The studio is open daily.

Book Your 90-Minute Perfume Workshop

2. Explore the Cafe Apartment at 42 Nguyen Hue

A nine-story colonial apartment block in the dead center of District 1, repurposed into a vertical village of independent cafes, studios, and creative spaces. Every floor has a different character. Ground floor: chaos and motorbikes. Third floor: a ceramics gallery. second floor: the scent of bergamot and cedarwood drifting from a perfume workshop. Rooftop: a panoramic view of Nguyen Hue Walking Street that looks better at dusk than any postcard.

The Cafe Apartment is one of the most photographed spots in HCMC, but most visitors only make it to one or two floors. The trick is to start at the top and work your way down. Grab a Vietnamese egg coffee on an upper floor, watch the city turn golden, then wander. You will stumble into things you did not plan for — and those are usually the best things to do in Ho Chi Minh City.

3. Eat Through the Back Alleys of District 4

Most food tours stick to Ben Thanh Market or Bui Vien. District 4 is where Saigonese eat. Cross the bridge from District 1 and you enter a network of narrow alleys where smoke from charcoal grills hangs at knee height and plastic stools appear from nowhere at 5pm.

The best strategy: no strategy. Walk into any alley (hem) that smells good. Point at what the locals are eating. Expect banh mi with fillings you have never seen, bowls of bun mam that taste like the Mekong Delta distilled, and grilled shellfish that costs less than your morning coffee at home. District 4 rewards curiosity.

4. Ride a Motorbike to Cu Chi Tunnels at Sunrise

Every tourist goes to Cu Chi. Almost none of them go at dawn. Hire a motorbike guide the night before, leave at 5:30am, and you will ride through rubber plantations as the mist lifts and the light turns the trees gold. You arrive before the tour buses. The tunnels are cool and quiet. The guides have time to actually tell you stories instead of herding groups.

The ride itself — 70 kilometers through villages waking up, past women carrying baskets of fruit on shoulder poles — is half the experience. You are back in the city by noon, with the entire afternoon free for something creative like a craft workshop or a Thao Dien gallery walk.

5. Vintage Vespa Tour Through Hidden Saigon

Several local companies run evening Vespa tours that bypass every tourist trap. You ride pillion through District 4 alleys, Cho Lon’s lamp-lit streets, and neighborhoods in Binh Thanh that most visitors never see. The engine vibrates beneath you. The wind carries charcoal smoke and frangipani.

The best tours are the food-focused ones — four or five stops over three hours, each in a different neighborhood, each dish something you would never find on your own. The Vespa is not just transport. It is the experience. You see Saigon the way Saigonese see it — fast, loud, and deeply alive.

6. Coffee Cupping at a Specialty Roaster

Vietnam is the world’s second-largest coffee producer, but most visitors never taste beyond a ca phe sua da at a street stall. Saigon now has a thriving specialty coffee scene — roasters who source single-origin beans from Da Lat and Lam Dong, who can tell you the altitude and processing method of every bean they serve.

Book a cupping session. You will learn to distinguish washed from natural process, taste notes you never associated with Vietnamese coffee — stone fruit, dark chocolate, a jasmine-like floral — and leave with an entirely new understanding of what this country produces. Several shops in District 1 and District 3 offer guided sessions on weekends.

7. Cooking Class in a Local Home Kitchen

Skip the big cooking school with twelve stations and matching aprons. The most memorable cooking classes in Ho Chi Minh City happen in someone’s actual kitchen — a local home where the instructor is a grandmother who has been making pho for forty years, or a former chef who quit restaurants to teach travelers.

You will start at a wet market, choosing herbs and vegetables you might not recognize. Then you will cook two or three dishes — spring rolls, banh xeo, maybe a caramelized clay pot fish — and sit down to eat what you made. The lesson is less about recipes and more about understanding how Vietnamese food works: the balance of sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and umami in every single dish.

8. Saigon River Dinner Cruise With Live Music

The river after dark is a different Saigon. The skyline glitters. The air cools just enough to feel like relief. Several companies run dinner cruises that depart from Bach Dang Wharf in District 1 — two hours on the water with Vietnamese and international food, live acoustic music, and the kind of slow pace that the city rarely offers.

It is not adventurous. It is not off the beaten path in the traditional sense. But watching Saigon from the water — the construction cranes, the old colonial facades, the lights of Thu Thiem’s new towers — gives you a perspective that walking never will. Go on a weeknight. Fewer crowds. Better seats.

9. Walk the Art and Design District of Thao Dien

Thao Dien was an expat neighborhood. Now it is becoming Saigon’s creative district — a cluster of independent galleries, concept stores, plant-filled cafes, and studios that feel more Chiang Mai than Ho Chi Minh City. The area around Nguyen Duy Hieu and Xuan Thuy streets is walkable, shaded, and packed with things to discover.

Start at one of the galleries showcasing young Vietnamese artists. Wander into a concept store selling handmade ceramics. Find the Thao Dien creative spaces that most guidebooks have not caught up with yet — including R Space at 34 Nguyen Duy Hieu, where NOTE’s second perfume workshop studio sits upstairs above a fragrance showroom. The whole area rewards slow walking and unplanned stops.

10. Ben Thanh Market Night Tour and Street Food

Yes, Ben Thanh is in every guidebook. But here is what most guides miss: the market transforms after 6pm. The daytime stalls close and the surrounding streets erupt with food vendors, grilled seafood stations, and makeshift beer corners where you sit on tiny chairs and watch District 1 light up.

The night market is messier, louder, and more authentic than the daytime version. Walk the outer perimeter. Try the grilled squid, the banh trang nuong (Vietnamese pizza), the che dessert stalls. The energy after dark is a completely different experience from the souvenir shopping you expected.

11. War Remnants Museum and Its Surrounding Neighborhood

The museum itself is powerful and sobering — one of the most visited in Vietnam for good reason. But the neighborhood around it, in District 3, is worth your time too. The tree-lined streets between Vo Van Tan and Pasteur are full of colonial-era villas converted into restaurants and cafes, French-influenced architecture, and a quieter pace that District 1 rarely offers.

After the museum, walk south along Pasteur. Stop at a ca phe sua da stall. Let the weight of what you just saw settle. District 3 is the part of Saigon that lets you think — and that is an unusual thing in a city that usually runs at full speed.

12. Hidden Temples Walk in Cho Lon (Chinatown)

Cho Lon in District 5 has been Saigon’s Chinatown for over 300 years. The main temples — Thien Hau, Nghia An Hoi Quan — are well-known. But between them, down alleys you have to look twice to notice, are smaller shrines where incense has been burning for decades and the caretaker is a woman who has tended the altar her entire life.

Walk Nguyen Trai to Luong Nhu Hoc. Duck into the herbal medicine streets where the air smells of dried tangerine peel and star anise. Visit Binh Tay Market (the real local market, not the tourist one). Cho Lon is one of the most culturally rich neighborhoods in Southeast Asia, and most HCMC visitors skip it entirely. That is exactly why it is on this list.

13. Rooftop Bar Hopping in District 1

Saigon has one of the best rooftop scenes in Southeast Asia — and it keeps growing. The view from twenty stories up, with motorbike rivers flowing below and construction cranes dotting the skyline, is something you will not find in Bangkok or Singapore. Each rooftop has its own character: some are sleek and cocktail-focused, others are open-air and casual with craft beer.

Start early — sunset from a rooftop in District 1 is worth arriving for. Move between two or three spots over the evening. The best views are along the river and near Nguyen Hue. Dress smart-casual for the nicer venues. And if you were at the Cafe Apartment earlier, you already know what Nguyen Hue looks like from above — now see it from higher.

14. Ao Dai Photoshoot in Heritage Buildings

Renting a traditional ao dai and hiring a photographer for an hour or two has become one of the most popular hidden activities in HCMC for visitors from Korea, Japan, and China. The best locations are the colonial-era buildings: the Central Post Office, Notre-Dame Cathedral surroundings, and the old apartment blocks on Ton That Dam and Nguyen Hue.

Several local services handle everything — fitting, styling, professional photography, and edited images delivered within 24 hours. It is not just a souvenir. For many travelers, putting on an ao dai and walking through Saigon’s heritage architecture becomes one of the most meaningful parts of their trip. The fabric moves in the heat. The light is best between 7-9am or 4-5pm.

15. Cyclo Ride Through Old Saigon at Golden Hour

The cyclo is disappearing from Saigon. A decade from now, this might not be possible. For now, you can still hire one near Ben Thanh Market or the Opera House and ride slowly through the old French quarter as the sun drops low and the city shifts into its evening rhythm.

No engine noise. Just pedaling and the sounds of a city that has reinvented itself a dozen times over. You pass colonial facades bathed in golden light, narrow alleys where families are setting up dinner, and intersections where the motorbike flow looks choreographed from the slow vantage of a cyclo seat. It is the most peaceful way to see the most chaotic city in Vietnam.

How to Plan Your HCMC Itinerary Around These Experiences

You cannot do all fifteen in one trip — and you should not try. Here is how to think about it:

• First day (jet-lagged, exploring): Cafe Apartment + Nguyen Hue walk + rooftop sunset
• Full day (energy high): Cu Chi sunrise ride + District 4 food in the afternoon
• Creative day: Perfume workshop in the morning + Thao Dien gallery walk
• Cultural day: War Remnants Museum + Cho Lon temples + Binh Tay Market
• Last day (before your flight): Cyclo ride at golden hour or cooking class — something that bottling a memory, not checking a box

If you only have time for one unusual thing, make it something you create with your hands — a scent, a dish, a photograph. Those are the experiences that stay.

Book Your Perfume Workshop in Saigon

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the most unique things to do in Ho Chi Minh City for first-time visitors?

The most unique experiences in HCMC go beyond sightseeing — creating a custom perfume at NOTE – The Scent Lab, eating through District 4’s back alleys, exploring the Cafe Apartment’s hidden floors, and taking a sunrise motorbike ride to Cu Chi Tunnels. These are hands-on experiences that most tourists miss.

Is there a perfume workshop in Ho Chi Minh City?

Yes. NOTE – The Scent Lab operates two studios in Saigon: one inside the Cafe Apartment at 42 Nguyen Hue (District 1) and one at 34 Nguyen Duy Hieu in Thao Dien. The 90-minute workshop lets you create a custom Eau de Parfum from 30+ ingredients. Rated 4.9 from 500+ reviews on TripAdvisor and Klook.

How much does the perfume workshop at NOTE cost?

Pricing starts at 550,000 VND (~$22 USD) for a 10ml custom perfume, up to 1,550,000 VND (~$62) for 50ml. All prices are before 8% VAT. The workshop itself is the same regardless of bottle size — you choose your size after creating your formula.

Where can I find off the beaten path experiences in Saigon?

District 4 for authentic street food, Cho Lon (District 5) for hidden temples, Thao Dien for the emerging art and design scene, and the Cafe Apartment for creative studios. Avoid staying only in the Bui Vien backpacker area — the real Saigon is in its neighborhoods.

What should I do on my last day in Ho Chi Minh City?

A 90-minute perfume workshop is ideal for a last day — it fits around flight schedules, and you leave with a custom souvenir that captures your Vietnam memories in a bottle. A cyclo ride at golden hour or a final District 1 food walk are also good last-day options.

Is Ho Chi Minh City good for couples?

Absolutely. A couple’s perfume workshop, a sunset Saigon River cruise, rooftop bar hopping, and an ao dai photoshoot together are among the most romantic activities. Many couples create perfumes for each other as a meaningful travel memory.

What unusual activities are there in HCMC besides museums and temples?

Hands-on experiences are the best hidden activities in HCMC: perfume making, cooking classes in local homes, coffee cupping sessions, vintage Vespa tours, and ao dai photoshoots. Saigon in 2026 has shifted from passive sightseeing toward creative, experiential travel.

How many days do you need in Ho Chi Minh City?

Three to four days lets you cover the highlights plus two or three unique experiences. Five days gives you time for Cu Chi, Cho Lon, the Thao Dien art scene, and a slower pace. Even with just one free afternoon, a perfume workshop or District 4 food walk makes a memorable addition.

Can I book the perfume workshop online?

Yes. Book and pay online at workshop.thescentnote.com/book. Walk-ins are welcome when seats are available, but booking ahead is recommended during peak tourist season (November through March).