Sidecar Tours in Saigon: Vintage Three-Wheeled City Rides

A different vehicle, not a different route

Saigon has no shortage of ways to be driven, ridden or walked through its own traffic, and it is easy to lump them all together as “a motorbike tour.” A side-car tour is its own thing. The vehicle is a three-wheeled machine — a motorbike-style front end paired with an attached cab bolted to the side — often built or styled to look like a military model from the mid-twentieth century, sometimes genuinely vintage, sometimes a modern reproduction dressed to look the part. The passenger does not sit behind the driver on a shared saddle, as on a motorbike or Vespa tour; they sit beside the driver, in their own seat, inside a low open cab with its own little windscreen.

That distinction matters more than it sounds. A Vespa tour and a side-car tour can visit exactly the same stretch of District 1 or the same lane in Cholon and still be two completely different products, run by different operators, using different fleets, priced and marketed on their own terms. Confusing the two is the single most common mix-up travellers make when they start comparing “motorbike experiences” in Saigon — they are shopping for a route when what actually varies between listings is the vehicle.

What the ride feels like

Riding in a side-car puts you lower and further out from the driver than a pillion seat does. You are not gripping a handle behind someone’s shoulders; you are strapped into a fixed seat with your own space, watching the street go past at eye level with the motorbikes around you rather than over the shoulder of the person steering. For a first-time visitor overwhelmed by the sheer density of two-wheeled traffic in this city — nowhere else in the country matches it — that separation from the driver’s body can feel calmer than pillion riding, even though the vehicle is still moving through the same stream of scooters.

The open cab also changes what you notice. There’s no helmet visor narrowing your view, no need to lean with the driver through a turn. It is closer, in feel, to being driven in a very small, very exposed car than to riding a motorbike, which is part of why side-cars are so often marketed on nostalgia and photographs rather than on speed or thrill.

Sidecar vs Vespa vs motorbike vs open jeep

Four formats get sold side by side in Saigon under overlapping marketing language, and it helps to separate them properly before booking.

Format	Seating	Feel	Typical framing
Side-car	Own seat in an attached cab, beside the driver	Stable, open, retro-styled	Vintage or military-look sightseeing
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Vespa / scooter	Pillion, behind the driver	Close, agile, classic scooter culture	Evening rides, food stops, street life
---	---	---	---
Standard motorbike tour	Pillion, behind the driver	Flexible, often longer range	Countryside routes, full-day touring
---	---	---	---
Open jeep	Shared bench seating, several passengers	Group vehicle, four wheels	Retro jeep sightseeing in a small group

The side-car sits closer to the jeep in comfort and closer to the Vespa in intimacy, without matching either exactly. If a listing shows a two- or three-wheeled vehicle with a visible attached cab and a driver’s seat separate from the passenger’s, it’s a side-car. If it shows a single saddle shared by driver and rider, it’s a Vespa or standard motorbike. If it shows an open-topped four-wheeled vehicle with bench rows, it’s a jeep, which our open jeep guide covers separately even though it shares the same retro branding instinct.

Why so many side-cars look military

The design most operators use traces back to military and utility side-cars from the mid-twentieth century, and a fair number of the vehicles on the road are genuinely restored or rebuilt from that era, alongside newer reproductions finished to the same look. That heritage is why so much of the marketing around this format leans on words like “vintage,” “retro” and “war-era,” and why routes are frequently framed around the city’s twentieth-century history — a natural pairing with stops near the Reunification Palace or the War Remnants Museum.

That framing is a marketing choice about the vehicle’s look, not a rule about what a side-car tour has to cover. Plenty of side-car routes are built around food, nightlife, riverside photography or a simple orientation loop through the centre, with no historical theme at all. If a war-history angle isn’t what you want, it’s worth checking a specific listing’s stops rather than assuming every side-car ride follows the same script — our broader war history category is a better starting point if that theme is the actual draw, independent of the vehicle.

What a typical route touches

Because the vehicle, not the itinerary, defines this format, routes vary by operator, but most stay within a compact loop through the city core, often extending toward the river or across to newer riverside neighbourhoods. Common elements include a pass through the landmark buildings of District 1 — Ben Thanh Market, the colonial-era streets near Notre-Dame Cathedral, the walking streets around Nguyen Hue — combined with quieter residential lanes that a side-car’s smaller footprint can navigate more easily than a full-size vehicle.

Some routes cross toward Thao Dien for skyline views of Landmark 81, and evening departures frequently work in a stretch along the Saigon River for lit-up waterfront views.

None of this is fixed. Two operators running side-cars can build entirely different loops, one leaning into a historical narrative and another built purely around photography stops and street life. The one constant is the vehicle itself.

Comparing it to the rest of Saigon’s motorbike scene

If a side-car doesn’t end up being the right fit — perhaps the seating configuration doesn’t suit your group, or the retro styling isn’t the draw — the city’s broader motorbike and Vespa scene has close alternatives worth weighing before booking anything. A cyclo ride is slower and human-pedalled rather than motorised, useful for a quieter, shorter loop through the centre.

A standard Vespa evening tour puts you closer to the driver and typically covers more ground with a stronger food focus. For a longer day out of the city rather than a city loop, a full-day motorbike tour with a driver is built for distance, not for the vehicle’s look, and our comparison of self-drive versus chauffeured motorbike options lays out that decision on its own terms.

For travellers weighing several motorised formats at once against Saigon’s other classic ride, the Ho Chi Minh City the Real Saigon Experience by Open Jeep tour is a useful point of comparison: it uses a four-wheeled open jeep rather than a side-car cab, seats more than one passenger together, and gives a sense of how a shared-vehicle sightseeing loop differs from the more individual side-car format. See the open jeep route through Saigon’s landmarks if a slightly larger, group-style vehicle suits your plans better than a two-seat cab.

Travellers who want the same central sights but on foot-paced, human-powered transport instead of any motorised option can look at a cyclo ride through the city paired with an evening visit to Saigon Zoo, which trades the side-car’s engine noise and speed for a quieter, pedalled pace through the same central streets.

When the historical angle is the point

Because side-cars lean so heavily on their vintage look, some travellers book one specifically for the storytelling around the city’s colonial and war-era architecture rather than for the ride itself. If that’s the actual interest, it’s worth considering options built around narrative first and vehicle second: a guided walk through Saigon’s colonial and post-independence architectural history covers that ground on foot, with more time to stop and look at individual buildings than a moving side-car allows.

Evening departures are also common for this format, largely because the open cab gives clear views of lit streets without the daytime heat, and food stops are often worked into a longer loop. Anyone assembling an evening plan around a side-car ride might pair it, on a separate outing, with a night walking food tour through the city’s street-food lanes, which covers dishes and stalls a moving vehicle simply passes by.

Choosing between the formats

There’s no single “best” choice between a side-car, a Vespa, a jeep and a cyclo — the right pick depends on how much you want to move versus look, how many people are travelling together, and whether a historical theme or a food-and-nightlife theme is the actual goal. A side-car suits a traveller who wants a distinctive, photogenic, individually-seated ride with a retro feel and doesn’t mind sitting beside rather than behind the driver. A Vespa suits someone who wants a closer, more classic scooter experience and is comfortable riding pillion. A jeep suits small groups who want to travel together in one vehicle. A cyclo suits anyone who wants the slowest, quietest option through the centre.

Whichever format you land on, treat the vehicle choice and the route choice as two separate decisions. Check what a specific listing actually covers — District 1 landmarks, a river stretch, a food crawl, a historical narrative — rather than assuming the vehicle dictates the itinerary. That confusion is exactly what leads travellers to book the wrong tour expecting a Vespa’s pace from a side-car’s seat, or a jeep’s group setting from what is actually a two-person cab.

Practical notes before booking

A few points are worth checking directly with whichever operator you book, since they vary by fleet and are not standardized across the format: how many passengers each cab actually seats, whether helmets are supplied, and how the pickup point relates to your hotel in District 1, District 3 or further out toward Thao Dien.

Traffic in Saigon is dense and constant at almost every hour, so however the ride is marketed, it moves through the same mixed stream of motorbikes described in our guide to crossing the street and traffic in Saigon — worth a quick read regardless of which vehicle you end up riding in.

If your stay is short and you’re weighing a side-car against everything else on offer, our one-day Ho Chi Minh City highlights itinerary shows where a two-to-three-hour ride like this typically slots into a fuller day, and the general motorbike and Vespa tours category is the fastest way to browse every vehicle format side by side before deciding which one actually matches what you want to see.

Sidecar tours in Saigon: frequently asked questions

Is a side-car tour the same as a Vespa tour?

No. A Vespa tour uses a classic scooter with the passenger riding pillion behind the driver. A side-car tour uses a three-wheeled vehicle with a separate attached seat, run by different operators, even when the neighbourhoods visited are similar.

Do I ride behind the driver on a side-car?

No. The defining feature of a side-car is that the passenger sits beside the driver in a fixed cab attached to the vehicle, rather than behind the driver on a shared saddle as on a motorbike or Vespa.

Are side-car tours only about war history?

Many side-cars are styled after military models, which leads operators toward a retro or historical theme, but the format is used for ordinary city sightseeing, food routes and evening rides too. The vehicle’s look does not fix the itinerary.

Which parts of the city do side-car tours usually cover?

Routes typically link the central sights of District 1 with river views, older residential lanes and, on some routes, a crossing toward Thao Dien. The exact stops vary by operator and are not fixed by the vehicle type.

Is a side-car safer than riding pillion on a motorbike?

The enclosed cab and three wheels feel more stable to many riders than sitting on a pillion seat, though both formats travel in the same mixed traffic and neither removes the need for caution around Saigon’s motorbike volume.

Can two people share one side-car?

This depends on the vehicle and the operator; some cabs seat one passenger, others fit two side by side. Check the seating configuration listed by the specific tour before booking, since it is not standard across the format.

How does a side-car tour differ from an open jeep tour?

An open jeep is a four-wheeled vehicle carrying several passengers together in one open body, closer in feel to a small group vehicle. A side-car is a two- or three-seat format built around one motorbike-style driver’s unit with an attached cab, a much more individual and open-air experience.

Do side-car tours run at night?

Yes, evening and night departures are common for this format, since the open cab gives good views of illuminated streets and riverfront towers without the heat of a daytime ride.