NZ family moving to Hoi An

    Hi expat community! We are considering moving to Vietnam for a year & thought I would accelerate the research process by asking here about visas. It looks like we can only get a 3 month visa & then need to apply for another one - How many times can we do this? We have a 3 year old & a 1 year old so any advice / info on day cares would be much appreciated too! Cheers, Dee
   

    -@lennoxdeanne

You didn't mention it, but that process of applying for and receiving approval for and actually using each subsequent new tourist visa will require your entire family to leave the country on or before the expiration date of the previous visa before you can reenter Vietnam.

Your options are land border crossings and airplane flights to another country.

If you choose to live in Hội An, your options will be a round-trip bus ride to & from Laos that takes an average of 12 hours, private car that might get the trip done in 10 hours, or flying out of Đà Nẵng to Thailand, which rarely takes less than a day including layover time and car transfers from and to Hội An.

In comparison, if you choose to live in Huế, north of Đà Nẵng, you'd chớp about 5 or 6 hours off your visa run time and the cost of transportation would be cut in half.

If you live on the southwest coast of Vietnam at Hà Tiên, your total ground trip to and from Cambodia could be as quick as 1 hour, and certainly much cheaper than the other options mentioned.

Probably easier on your children too.

Even living in or around HCMC would make border runs easier with a round trip to and from Cambodia running somewhere between 4 to 6 hours at the slower times; longer during heavy traffic. 

Anyway, choosing Hội An means choosing one of the more difficult options for you and your family.

Not meant as criticism, just to arm you with pertinent info.

There really isn't any western style child care in Hội An, but there are a few Vietnamese women who advertise as baby sitters.