Nowadays, sports interest many Vietnamese people because of their benefits in improving their health and entertainment.
Plenty of popular sports in Vietnam are suitable for various ages, genders, and physical conditions.
Let’s check the top ones!
1. Football in Vietnam: A National Passion
Football is considered the national sport in Vietnam, and many people worldwide love it because football’s appeal has been hotter and hotter.
Football is present in rural and urban areas, mountainous and plain regions, public places, or in-home gardens. You can easily see the ball rolling with excitement anywhere in Vietnam.
The attraction of this sport is also evident in the players, including adults, children, men, and women. If you are strong enough to play with a ball, you can go out on the field and immerse yourself in football’s joy.
The rules of this king sport in Vietnam are no different from international rules. However, the number of players becomes more flexible
in a community sport. From the standard regulation of 11 players for each team, this number is sometimes only 7, 5, or even 3, depending on the situation.
Soccer fields are also very flexible, from natural grass fields designed to artificial turf fields, mini fields, or spontaneous fields in rice fields, home gardens, sandy beaches, and school grounds. This flexibility makes football even more popular and receives more love.
Of course, when you come to Vietnam, if you are interested in matches like this, don’t hesitate to go to the stadium in the late afternoon and interact with the local people. People will be happy to do that.
2. Badminton: A Fast-Paced Public Sport
Badminton has emerged as a sport in Vietnam in recent years. Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, this subject has become even more well-known. The advantage of far contact between players explains this.
This sport is only suitable for two or four people to play together and be divided into two teams. Each team will include men’s singles, women’s singles, a couple of guys or women, or mixed doubles. The playground is a rectangular surface divided into two equal parts and separated by a net of a specific size and height.
Playing equipment requires a racket and a shuttlecock made from feathers as the main tools. When playing, players will show their flexibility and accuracy by using the racket to catch the shuttlecock from the opponent and immediately hit it back over the net. Whichever team lets the ball touch the ground on their side of the field, points will be awarded to the opposite team.
A badminton match has three rounds. Any team that scores 21 points will win that set. That team receives the right to start the shuttlecock in the next set.
If both teams reach 20 points, the team that scores two consecutive points will win. If no one can score 2 points higher, the match’s final score will stop at 30. The team that wins two rounds is the final winner.
Badminton is relatively easy to play and highly popular. Players are not limited in gender or age, including children as young as five and people as old as 65 and 70.
Traveling to Vietnam, you will quickly see groups playing badminton on sidewalks, dormitory areas, apartment buildings, offices, school yards, parks, or stadiums in the early morning or late afternoon.
Please stop! And try playing a round if you are interested in this subject. Almost all players can welcome you.
3. Volleyball: A Popular Team Sport in Vietnam
Volleyball is a sport that cannot be ignored in Vietnam. The game rules are as simple as anywhere else, so it easily attracts various Vietnamese sports players to choose to practice and compete.
The entire volleyball court is rectangular and divided into two halves by a boundary line. A net stretches on two columns above this boundary line. The court’s surface can be sand, grass, or cement.
Players will use their hands and combine their agility and body strength to move the ball from their own to the opponent’s court. According to regulations, points will be scored when the ball touches another team’s court ground.
There are three forms of volleyball, including:
- Indoor volleyball: Each team has six players on the field. A match will last a maximum of five rounds; the team that wins three rounds is the overall winner.
- Beach volleyball: Each team has only two athletes of this type on the field. The number of rounds is also less than in indoor volleyball, including a maximum of three rounds per match; the winning team must win in two rounds.
- Air volleyball: Similar to beach volleyball, an air volleyball match has three rounds. However, the number of athletes is more significant, with five athletes on each team. Volleyball is relatively easy to play, does not require highly technical movements, and requires little effort, so it is more suitable for entertainment than competition.
Indoor and beach volleyball are usually suitable for both men and women under the age of 35. Meanwhile, air volleyball is popular with middle-aged female players.
In addition to official matches in Vietnam, community volleyball has an almost unlimited number of players. Therefore, you can participate in a public volleyball match when traveling to Vietnam if you feel excited enough about it.
4. Swimming: Aquatic Sports for Hot Days
This water sport is popular and valuable to most people in this hot tropical country. In addition to health training, entertainment, or competition reasons, swimming is also one of the necessary human survival skills.
Coming to Vietnam in the summer, you will quickly see images of people of all ages practicing swimming at specialized swimming pools, rivers, streams, or the sea.
There are many different swimming styles, such as freestyle, breaststroke, butterfly, dog stroke, and backstroke. Each style has a different technique and movement combination that will bring the best results to the person practicing it.
In particular, parents are very interested in teaching their children swimming skills. However, they do not think that swimming is necessarily a professional sport. Learn to swim to practice physical fitness and prevent unfortunate drowning accidents.
Every year, in each locality, government organizations and unions also offer many recommendations and free swimming training programs for children. Therefore, swimming has become a popular community sport here.
5. Martial Arts in Vietnam: The Nation’s Strength Sport
Martial arts are one of the two national sports of Vietnam. They are essential for many people for self-defense, helping to limit the dangers that arise in everyday life. At the same time, practicing martial arts is an effective way to improve health and reduce stress.
We can review the specific benefits of martial arts, such as increasing resistance, helping to lose weight because the exercise process consumes a lot of energy, increasing height in children, helping to relax the mind, training concentration, and confidence, and improving sensitivity and self-defense ability.
Martial arts in Vietnam get a lot of attention from young people of school age. Depending on training purposes and preferences, each person can choose a suitable martial art, such as Vovinam, Karatedo, traditional martial arts, Muay Thai, boxing, Taekwondo, Wushu, or Tai Chi.
For tourists, many people show interest in traditional Vietnamese martial arts. Many have chosen a short-term martial arts training course, from 1 month to 3 or 6 months, at a club they like. You can also participate in practicing a martial arts class if you have enough love for this sport.
6. Ping-Pong: A Sport of Lightning Reflexes
Ping-pong is a widely known sport not only in Vietnam but also around the world. The speed of playing this sport is relatively fast, so players must be sharp and have high reflexes.
Two or four players will oppose each other in a match. The player uses a wooden racket to catch and return the ball on a complex rectangular table divided in half by a net. The movement must ensure that the ball, once on your side of the table, passes over the net and returns to the opponent’s side of the table. Points will be counted when one side fails to return the ball to the other side.
The racket used in ping-pong is a racket made of wood, has a short handle, and the racket surface is covered with rubber. Ping-pong balls are made from polymer or celluloid, which is light and highly elastic.
In Vietnam, the game rules, scoring method, number of sets, and score per set in professional ping-pong competitions will follow world rules.
For fun, the players will discuss and agree upon the above criteria. Also, the players who play this sport mainly focus on middle-aged people, ranging from 35 to 65 years old.
As a tourist with the same interest in ping-pong, when you encounter a group of people playing table tennis recreationally in Vietnam, please don’t be shy; ask them to play together with a racket. Surely this will be an excellent experience for your trip.
7. Jogging: A Fitness Trend in Vietnam
Jogging is the most straightforward sport for everyone, from children to older people, both women and men.
In recent years, Vietnam has organized many running events. These running races receive a strong response from the community. Typically, the marathon in Vietnam, by VnExpress – a famous online newspaper, has thousands of runners.
Participating in running in Vietnam is easy. Register and follow the instructions. The runners will receive numbers along with the registered running distance. The next thing is to wait until the time and date of the competition, bring your number to the gathering place, and have fun with great excitement.
Are you a tourist coming to Vietnam? Forget about professional running competitions, but you should think about public running, and you can join in running on ideal routes. This activity promises to be an exciting experience during your visit to this beautiful country.
8. Shuttlecock: A Typical Vietnamese Sport
Shuttlecock is a popular sport among Vietnamese school and university students. Except for the hands, players can use all parts of their body, especially the feet, to control and kick the shuttlecock in the air so that it does not touch the ground.
In competition, this sport is performed on a flat rectangular court, divided in half by a net and lines.
Forms of shuttlecock competition include:
- Singles match: two athletes play against each other on two parts of the field.
- Doubles: includes four athletes competing in two teams.
- Team competition: six athletes compete in two teams.
- Team match: the number of athletes specified for each team is six to nine. The contents of a team match will occur in the order of single – double – team – double – single. Each athlete can only compete in a maximum of two match types.
Points will be counted when one side violates the rules or lets the shuttlecock fall into their court.
In Vietnam, players often choose shuttlecock for high entertainment purposes, specifically for young people. The way to play is much simpler than competing. It includes unlimited players gathered in a large field, such as a schoolyard, park, or stadium.
The playing style can follow the way of single-kicking and counting the number of kicks. The winner has the most number of shuttlecocks in one round.
Or you can also play in a way where all players stand in a circle, and each person’s task is to kick the shuttlecock flying to them and then pass it to an arbitrary person in the circle.
The remarkable thing is that this circle can be comfortably expanded to welcome new players. Therefore, if you are interested in the Vietnamese shuttlecock, confidently step into the circle and try to show off your kicking skills. It was entertaining and memorable.
9. Basketball: Growing Popularity
Basketball has gradually dominated Vietnamese sports as a team sport with not too complicated rules.
Basketball in Vietnam is played on a rectangular court with two teams, similar to world basketball. Players from each team try to legally put the ball into the opponent’s basket. At the same time, the other team must prevent the opponent from throwing the ball into their team’s basket.
A basketball game consists of four quarters, each lasting ten minutes. The winning team is the team that wins more points after the end of the rounds. If the scores are equal, the two teams will enter an extra five-minute period. Extra innings will stop when any team gets a score.
Currently, Vietnamese parents like their school-aged children to play baseball because they believe that this sport significantly improves their children’s height.
The number of basketball courts is also becoming increasingly popular. Young people can easily find and play this sport at school gyms or stadiums.
10. Cycling: A Beneficial Sport for Health
Cycling is a sport that is familiar to everyone in Vietnam. More and more people are interested in this sport because of its benefits, such as improving health, reducing the risk of cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, and bone and joint diseases, reducing stress, helping people maintain a comfortable spirit, saving fuel, and contributing to environmental protection.
In addition to competition, this sport is gradually becoming a trend in Vietnam for entertainment and health training purposes. It is easy to see groups of people of various ages, from children to older adults, cycling together on the street in the early or late afternoon. They can be friends, colleagues, or family members.
Bicycle rental services in Vietnam are top-rated for tourists. They are present in almost all large and small tourist cities. Bicycles for rent are a popular type of bike used for scenic cycling around the city. However, you can find a few specialized bicycles for professional cyclists who conquer long distances, overcome passes, or even cycle across Vietnam.
Many tour and experience programs by bicycle have been put into operation by travel companies. You can choose to ride your bike through beautiful roads stretching across Vietnam. It’s worth a try. You will realize every wonderful moment follows your bicycle tour.
11. Golf in Vietnam: A Luxury Sport
Like many countries, Golf in Vietnam is a sport for the rich. Introduced by King Bao Dai around 1920, it first appeared in Vietnam. He also built Vietnam’s first golf course at Cu Hill—Da Lat.
However, golf did not become widely known until the 2000s. Since then, this elegant sport has developed continuously and extremely strongly in Vietnam.
By mid-2024, Vietnam will have about eighty 18-hole golf courses in operation. However, many expect that the above number will fluctuate dramatically shortly. Specifically, there will be about 200 golf courses by 2025 and about 400 – 500 golf courses launched to serve players by 2030. ( Data taken from the source: https://vnexpress.net/viet-nam-co-the-co-400-san-golf-vao-nam-2030-4664003.html)
The vigorous development of the playground system has partly shown Vietnamese people’s interest in golf. Golf not only attracts men and wealthy businessmen but also many women and children who love it and participate in training and competition.
At some schools in large cities, golf is taught in the physical education program. At the same time, many golf tournaments for women and minors regularly take place across the country.
You are a tourist traveling to Vietnam, and you want to play golf, we introduce to you some famous golf courses:
- The Bluffs Ho Tram Strip golf course – Vung Tau
- Ba Na Hills golf course – Da Nang
- Laguna Lang Co Golf Course – Hue
- Trang An golf course – Ninh Binh
- Sky Lake golf course – Hanoi
Contact us if you need assistance planning your travel and golf program at beautiful golf courses in Vietnam. We are always ready to welcome you.
12. Tennis: An Urban Exercise
Tennis is much more popular in Vietnam than golf. However, tennis is still considered a sport for people with a good income, so tennis is only prevalent in urban areas.
Although not as pervasive as other community sports, tennis still captures the sympathy of various groups of players, including children, women, and older people. The number of tennis courts in cities is quite common, and it is easy for players to find an address that suits their needs.
Most tennis courts in Vietnam are clay courts and court rental prices range from 80,000 VND/1 hour to 300,000 VND/1 hour. In particular, the time frame from 7:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. is considered the time with most players. Thus, the court rental price will be higher than at other times.
Tennis rules in Vietnam are almost the same as the general rules of the world. Players can play in man vs man, woman vs woman, or mixed genders.
There are two types of matches, including 3-set matches and 5-set matches. The score for each game is 6, and the winning team needs to have a difference of 2 points from the opponent. Therefore, in many cases, the match’s final point can last much longer than the prescribed 6 points.
If you are a tourist and want to play tennis, you can contact the hotel reception directly to receive instructions on finding and renting a tennis court. In particular, many large hotels in Vietnam will have their own tennis courts to serve guests’ needs. If the hotel you are staying in has this fascinating area, why not go out and enjoy the exciting moments of this sport in Vietnam?
Sports in Vietnam has been affirming its necessary role in human life. Almost all people love sports in the most natural way they have. Most of them spend their leisure time playing the sport they love.
In addition to health benefits for the body, sports create a broad connection between community members.
When traveling to Vietnam, you can choose any appropriate sport among the popular sports we introduce to interact with the locals. This sports activity will help you more fully realize the friendliness, comfort, and hospitality of local life.
