Vietnam vs Mallorca: the landed cost of a training week, honestly

Every European triathlete who looks at a camp in Vietnam does the same sum in their head, and does it against Mallorca. Twelve hours of flying and a long-haul ticket for the same seven nights of swim, bike, run. The sum usually ends with "it is about double", the tab closes, and we never hear about it.

This article does that sum in the open, with the figures anyone can check, including the one that works against us. We are not going to argue that Vietnam is cheaper. It is not. We are going to show you exactly how much more it costs from your city, and then say what the difference buys, so that you decide on the real number rather than on the one you guessed.

How we built the comparison

Two camps of seven nights in April 2027, two weeks apart, both for amateur triathletes, both with coached sessions in all three disciplines.

The Mallorca reference is the F4L Triathlon Training Camp at Colonia de Sant Jordi, 17 to 24 April 2027, priced per person in a twin room, half board, airport transfers included. It is a serious camp with a published coach-to-athlete ratio of one to eight, which most European camps do not publish, and it deserves credit for it. Ours is the April week in Phan Thiet, 2 to 9 April 2027, twin room, full board, two coaches for eight to twelve athletes.

The flights are return economy fares for those exact dates, read on Google Flights on 29 September 2026, cheapest itinerary shown for each city. They will move. We took them on the same day for both destinations so that they move together.

Our prices are published in dollars on the camp page, because that is what you are charged; the euro figures below convert the standard rate at the European Central Bank reference rate of 28 September 2026. The pound figures are converted at the same day's rate. Round numbers, nothing hidden in the rounding.

The number, city by city

Per person, twin room, seven nights, camp plus return flight, in euros. Mallorca includes airport transfers and half board. Vietnam includes full board and the flight; the transfer from Saigon to Phan Thiet is a shared car you pay on the day, and it is not in this table.

Read the columns in order. The camp itself costs almost the same: about 1,281 euros for the Mallorca week and about 1,314 for ours at the standard rate, 183 against 188 euros a night. The whole gap is the flight. Palma from these four cities was 169 to 218 euros return in April 2027 when we looked; Saigon was 952 to 1,122. That is 800 to 1,000 euros more before you have packed a bike, and it is the honest floor of the difference.

Then the bike. If you fly Vietnam Airlines, which has the non-stop from Paris and Frankfurt, a bike bag is over their 203 cm limit and pays a bulky-item charge each way, about 264 euros at the same exchange rate, 527 for the return. That is the last column, and it is the worst case, which is why we print it: with a non-stop ticket and the bike, a Vietnam week costs roughly double a Mallorca week. On THAI through Bangkok, or Qatar through Doha, the same bike flies inside your allowance and that column collapses back to the middle one. The article on airline bike fees has the figures, airline by airline.

Two things in this table favour Mallorca and we left them there. Its airport transfers are included and ours are not. And we have not added an airline bike fee to the Mallorca column, although most low-cost carriers to Palma charge one; we did not read those pages, so we did not print a number.

What the gap buys

So the difference is 800 to 1,000 euros, and up to 1,400 with the bike on the non-stop. Here is what it buys, without adjectives.

• Fourteen more meals. Full board against half board, seven lunches and seven dinners built around the sessions, so a long ride is followed by a meal and not by a search for one. Priced at what a hotel dinner costs, that is a real part of the camp gap being zero.
• Two coaches on the road for eight to twelve athletes. Rides split into two paced groups, a coach in each, and the support vehicle behind the second group. Nobody rides home alone. The article on the level required explains how that works day by day.
• The sea, every morning. Real open-water swimming on the Mui Ne coast in the calm morning window, in water around 28 to 30 °C in April, not a pool with a wetsuit rule. In mid-April Mallorca's sea is around 16 °C.
• Heat you can use. Air in the low thirties and full humidity from the first day, which is the whole point if your race is hot, and the reason the heat article exists. Mallorca in April is 18 to 20 °C, which is lovely, and which teaches your body nothing about July.
• A country, not a training resort. Open coastal roads, dunes, fishing villages, a different food and a different light every day. This is the one line you cannot price, and we will not try.

And here is what it does not buy, because the sum has two sides.

• Your weekend. Palma is two hours away. Saigon is twelve to seventeen with the stop, plus three hours to Phan Thiet. You lose a day each way, and most people take two extra days of leave.
• Familiar roads. Mallorca's climbs are famous for a reason: the tarmac, the signage, the drivers who expect cyclists. Vietnamese roads are quieter than you think and different from anything you know, and we put a car behind every ride precisely because of that.
• A short flight with the bike. Even at zero fee, a bike box through two airports and a long-haul hold is a longer day than a bike box to Palma.

Who the sum works for

If you want a week of volume on good roads in mild spring air, and you live two hours from Palma, Mallorca is the right answer and the cheaper one, and we would rather say so than pretend otherwise.

The Vietnam week is for the athlete for whom one of the lines above is worth 800 euros: a hot race in the summer, a coach beside them on every ride, sea swimming as the daily session rather than the exception, or simply wanting the week to be somewhere they have never been. For that athlete the gap is the price of a different week, not a worse version of the same one.

Do the sum from your own city, with the fare on the day, with your own airline's bike line. If it comes out in favour of Mallorca, go and have a great week. If it does not, the calendar shows nine weeks, and the one you are pricing is the April week in Phan Thiet.