newadventure

The NewAdventure family are heading to Vietnam later this year. We are all dual UK-US citizens living in the US and all have UK and US passports. There is no visa requirement for UK passport holders to enter Vietnam (but there is for US passport holders) so intend to use our UK passports when entering Vietnam. I know we have to use US passports to enter and leave the US, but was wondering if the airline is going to check whether we have the correct visa for our final destination when leaving the US and if it is ok to pull out our UK passports at that point?
Thanks

Giantaxe

This is exactly what I do for the Latin American countries that charge US citizens (but not UK citizens) a visa fee. When I board a flight to such a country from the US, I hand the agent both passports and tell them I'm entering the destination country on my British passport.

PetrifiedExPat

Curious as to why you present both passports?

Giantaxe

Because if you don't they could notice the absence of a US entry stamp etc in your British passport and query it. I remember Virgin Atlantic getting weird about this one time.

postbox134

The US don't really stamp passports for ESTAs now.

S Folinsky

It’s been nearly 15 years since our trip to Vietnam. We flew LAX-TPE-SGN via China Air Lines and Vietnam Airlines. The China Airlines check-in at LAX did require presentation of Vietnamese travel authorization. Curiously, the travel authorization was a copy of an official fax to the travel agency from the Vietnam MFA with our names thereon whereby we would apply for visas on landing at SGN. We did not pay the visa application fee until in Vietnam. (TPE international transit is entirely without inspection remaining airside at all times).

Whether this is still true, no idea.

On a different topic, Google “Crossing street Vietnam” for a plethora of videos on the subject. The method is to walk at a steady pace without stopping. Do NOT do this stateside, it will get one killed.

newadventure

Thanks all ,gives me some reassurance. Apart from the road crossing. We might just spend the entire holiday standing beside the first road we have to cross

spouse of scouse

We first travelled to Vietnam in 2008, and have had another 7 trips there since then. It's a wonderful country with so much to see and do. The food is really good too, and the people generally very friendly. We've noticed that prices for accommodation and food in bigger cities and the coastal resorts have increased a lot, but street food is still ridiculously cheap and extremely delicious.

You've been given some good advice about crossing roads! There are no pedestrian crossings, and the few crosswalks we saw were blithely ignored by drivers and pedestrians alike. Don't worry too much though, if you look for a small break in the traffic that allows you to step onto the road without being squished, and then as mentioned walk steadily (don't run!) across in a straight line, all the trucks, cars and about a zillion motorbikes will swerve around you. You'll be stepping out like pros in no time at all.

The first time we went we were standing on the side of a very busy road thinking 'nah, not going to get across there'. Then the sweetest young Vietnamese woman approached us, stood between my husband and I, took our hands and walked us across. All without a word, she just saw that we were hopelessly bamboozled and helped us. Expect nice surprises like that in Vietnam

Any particular questions or concerns, ask away, I'll help if I can.

PS I'm sure you'll already know this, but your UK passports allow visa free entry for visits of 45 days or less. If you're going to be there longer, you will need a visa.

newadventure

Thanks SoS. Will let you know if we have any questions, Mrs NA has done all the organising all i know is that we fly into Ho Chi Minh and out of Hanoi and travel between by train. Looking forward to introducing the Young Adult Offspring to street food. I haven't been to Vietnam before but spent time in Thailand and Malaysia. Should be fun!

S Folinsky

In the FWIW department, although HCMC is used on all official communications, the locals seemed to use Saigon.