Immersive VN - Decent air quality city?

Difficult at best.

Like China, (etc?) it is industrial, not (only) local traffic/burning - off,
sometimes called 'land-clearing', which is less at this time 'Here'.

..but still there, more or less (where?) - is the real question.

The coastal towns can be suss too, for the industrial age is in full
force North, Central & South Viet Nam.    Research needs to be
(over) a year and even then, the burning of forest still continues.

I (originally) thought the northern mountains, but even (especially?)
there, the illegal logging and clearing is a major problem.

Yes, it is good at the moment, but it changes very quickly.
So look before you leap.   Utopia it ain't, but getting there..?     

Thanks for the response, Bazza. Can't even get an AQI reading on pm2.5 anywhere in VN. Given that you can't see it or even smell it most of the time, the pollution levels might be as bad as in China. Living in that is a good way to shorten your life.

Vung Tau for southern accent to listen to; Nha Trang, Quy Nhon, Hoi An, and Hue to listen to progressively thicker central accents.

ralphnhatrang wrote:

Vung Tau for southern accent to listen to; Nha Trang, Quy Nhon, Hoi An, and Hue to listen to progressively thicker central accents.

Agreed.    The risks come with the terror-itory!   
   The prevalence of face masks, along with the high incidence of
   chronic infections such as bronchitis, asthma etc scares me and
   the missing data since 1970..(?)   ..speaks (shouts?) in silence...

    Anyone for Nepal?   ..but then, the earthquakes...     

SeoulCoughing wrote:

I'll be studying Vietnamese and want to immerse myself in the culture as much as possible.

Phú Quốc if you can find a VN teacher down there. Just avoid the diesel fishing boats and fish sauce factories in the harbor area.

In my opinion, Phu Quoc has one of the best air-quality but it's kinda isolated, typically it's a tourist trap when you can only find luxury hotels/tourist attractions. Nha Trang is better if you are looking for good air quality and local interaction or you can move up north (Da Nang maybe?) For your purposes however, I think your great choice could be HCM city where the locals always say "here has everything". Saigon offers a lot of unique cultural qualities but of course its also the most polluted city in the south. The best air in Saigon is probably in Dist. 2 or Dist. 7 but it's at least 30 mins drive to central HCM and can be quite expensive. Dist 2 and 7 are where the richs live now because it's quiet and have better air-quality. I still love to live in dist. 1 however for the sake of convenience.

Hope I could be a help,

Thinh