When you visit Cambodia, of course you’ll go to Siem Reap, where the unbelievable complexes of Angkor Wat and a thousand other palaces are. You might also want to visit Phnom Penh, if time allows, to get a picture of modern-day Cambodia: its dark recent history and its fast-paced life today.
If you have one full week to visit Cambodia, then I would spend 2-3 days in Phnom Penh, and at least 4-5 days in Siem Reap. If you have less than a week, then I’d spend the whole time in Siem Reap, unless you really want to go deep into modern history of Cambodia instead of ancient.
Want to have me plan out your trip to Southeast Asia, and all you have to do is click on the links? Find my Southeast Asia itinerary including Cambodia here! Curious about more of Southeast Asia? Read all of my advice in this article!
Table of Contents
When to visit Cambodia
The dry season is November- April, with the driest and sunniest weather in December and January. Of course, that is also peak tourist season, and during the weeks of Christmas and New Year’s, it’s important to book your stays well in advance, as there will be many other people there then! To visit Cambodia, I’d recommend going when it’s dry! You’ll be doing so much of your fun outside!
How long to visit Cambodia
Siem Reap, where Angkor Wat is, needs at least 3 full days. It’s so much bigger than you can imagine! If you love archeology, a week is a reasonable amount of time to spend- and you can also visit gorgeous nature, do an excellent food tour, and see several different types of cultural performances.
If you want to get to know modern Cambodia, spend at least 2 full days in Phnom Penh. It’s a tragic recent history, but there are powerful and educational museums in Phnom Penh about Pol Pot’s horrific Khmer Rouge regime. It’s also a very modern, international city with excellent food from all over the world.
Cambodia also has some beautiful beaches, including resort islands, and remote national parks- but we didn’t go to these as we aren’t beach party people and had already experienced incredible national parks in the countries surrounding Cambodia- so this article won’t have recommendations for those. For the best snorkeling/scuba diving, I’d go to Indonesia (see my article here about that), and for an excellent national park nearby, I’d recommend Thailand’s Khao Yai National Park.
What to book in advance
- Where to stay if you’re going to Siem Reap in December- January, especially if you’ll be there the week of Christmas and/or New Year’s
- If you’re there those weeks, also any other special events you’d like to see, like any performances or tours you know you want to go on
- If you’re going outside of December/ January, it should be possible to arrange everything the week of…but there’s no harm booking ahead if you know what you want to do
Siem Reap
Why go: If you have only a few days in Cambodia, then spend all your time in Siem Reap. Siem Reap is where Angkor Wat is…but also another thousand incredible temples! It’s also a very tourist-friendly town, with delicious Cambodian food all over as well as food from the rest of the world. English is widely spoken, and besides the dozens and dozens of gorgeous temples to visit, you can also access incredible nature, see cultural performances, and eat very well. It’s an enjoyable, peaceful, quiet town with weeks worth of high-quality activities to do. Take your time here!
Where to sleep: We stayed at this Airbnb, where the money from the airbnb went to providing free English classes in the same building. Very comfortable, lovely host, and helping the local children! When you visit Cambodia, you will notice that it is a poor country that could use your investment!
What to do:
- When you visit Cambodia, you should visit at least 3-4 different temples, including of course Angkor Wat. We loved the views at sunrise and sunset and exploring all over on our own, but there will be many guides available if you choose. Check out the excellent Angkor National Museum to learn more! We went to 15 temples over a week, but if short on time/energy, we’d recommend Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom for the scale of the empire and Banteay Srei for the most beautiful reliefs. There are more than 1,000 temples to choose from that belonged to this vast and powerful Khmer empire in the 9th to 13th century. Angkor Thom, the largest complex, has a moat that’s 900m x 13km! (Half a mile wide and more than 7 miles long!) And…back when they were built, they would have been covered in gold, plaster and white and red paint!
- Go to the Phare Circus– fantastic circus like the Cirque de Soleil, but with performers who came from impoverished areas in Cambodia and are given this free education to have a better life. Excellent performance and a great cause! We also ate dinner at the food court available in front of the circus before each show, which was delicious, affordable and varied.
- Siem Reap food tours: We did the evening tour, and it was also delicious and educational- highly recommend! Always nice to do at the beginning of your stay to get recommendations and knowledge when you visit Cambodia.
- Eat at Jomno for more great food
- For a day in nature, arrange directly with your wonderful airbnb host Siv to go to the Prek Toal Bird Sanctuary and floating villages. You’ll see a completely foreign and unique way of living in floating villages on the lake: floating houses, floating stores, a floating school- and young children taking boats by themselves to and from their school- floating fish farms below their houses…we even saw a floating crocodile farm! At the beginning of the dry season (November), when we went, the villages were floating and there were many migratory birds. Later in the dry season, there would be far more birds, but the villages wouldn’t be floating anymore…they will have planted crops on the exposed land. Either way, a great day out seeing a totally different slice of Cambodian life!
Phnom Penh
Why go: Visit Cambodia today, with skyscrapers, international cuisine, and all sorts of modern conveniences- while also visiting the powerful museums that discuss Cambodia’s horrific recent past.
Where to sleep: This affordable well-reviewed Dutch bed and breakfast!
What to do:
- Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum: When you visit Cambodia, you should learn about their recent horrific history. This extremely well done museum is in the high school turned detention, torture and execution center where 12,000-20,000 people were tortured and then killed. 7 people were brought there and survived. The excellent audio guide, available in many languages including English and Dutch, has actual interviews with some of the survivors as well as people who worked there as torturers, executioners and even the head of that detention center. Very powerful, though very difficult to listen to. More than 2 million people- 25% of Cambodia at the time- were killed during the Khmer Rouge.
- Choeung Elk Genocidal Center: Another very powerful, very well done memorial at one of many killing fields where Cambodians were executed and buried (including many from the detention center above). The audio guide, available in many languages, is again expertly done with real voices of survivors and the perpetrators.
- Eat delicious food! We loved NESAT Seafood House and the next door Backyard Cafe in a leafy expat-friendly neighborhood, as well as LaBaab and Malis for upscale traditional Cambodian food.
- Wander around the Royal Palace, the National Museum of Cambodia, and the main temple here. Look out for the incredible giant hornbill birds!
Other tips for your visit to Cambodia
- There are many frequent, clean, on time buses between Phnom Penh and Siem Reap, and it only takes about 5 hours. Both Siem Reap and Phnom Penh have direct flights to other parts of SE Asia, so you can easily fly into one and out of the other
- You can also take a multi-day boat tour from Ho Chi Minh to Phnom Penh, though when we did it the trip was not as action-packed as we expected since the floating villages along the way have mostly disappeared with more modern highways.
- Want to have me plan out your trip to Southeast Asia, and all you have to do is click on the links? Find my Southeast Asia itinerary including Cambodia here!
- Curious about more of Southeast Asia? Read all of my advice in this article!
Have a wonderful trip!
