Where to go in Cambodia
Cambodia is small enough that the question is not what to leave out but how many nights each place needs to be worth the drive. This page answers that for eight regions.
The eight places worth your nights
| Region | Nights | Best months | Why you would go |
|---|---|---|---|
| Angkor Archaeological Park | 2 - 3 | Nov - Mar | The reason almost everyone comes, and bigger than the day trip suggests |
| Siem Reap | 3 - 4 | Nov - Mar | The base for Angkor, and a better town than its reputation |
| Phnom Penh | 2 | Nov - Feb | Recent history, the best food in the country, a working capital |
| Battambang | 2 | Nov - Feb | Colonial-era streets, rice country, the strongest arts scene in Cambodia |
| Kampot and Kep | 3 | Nov - Apr | Pepper farms, river, crab market, and the country at its slowest |
| Mondulkiri | 3 | Nov - Mar | Hill forest, Bunong villages, elephants living in forest rather than working |
| Kratie and the Mekong | 1 - 2 | Dec - May | Irrawaddy dolphins, a river town that time forgot |
| Koh Kong and the Cardamoms | 2 - 3 | Nov - Mar | Cambodia's largest intact rainforest, and almost no other visitors |
How to combine them
Cambodia's road network is a rough triangle with Siem Reap at the top, Phnom Penh at the centre and the coast at the bottom. Almost every good route is a line down that triangle with one detour east or west.
The standard line
Siem Reap and Angkor, then Phnom Penh, then either Battambang on the way down or Kampot at the end.
The line plus the coast
Angkor, Battambang, Phnom Penh, Kampot and Kep, finishing at the sea. This is our ten-day route.
The line plus the east
Add Kratie and Mondulkiri, which is where Cambodia stops looking like anywhere else in the country.
Nowhere on this list is worth a single night. Every one-night stop costs you an arrival evening and a departure morning, which is the entire visit. If a place only fits as one night, leave it out and give the time to somewhere already on the route.
What we would skip, and why
- Sihanoukville. Rebuilt around casino development in the last decade and no longer the beach town in the guidebooks. If you want the coast, go to Kep and Kampot.
- Chong Kneas, the closest floating village to Siem Reap. Heavily touristed and heavily worked. Kampong Phluk is better and Kampong Khleang is better still.
- The southern islands, unless you have four nights. Koh Rong and Koh Rong Sanloem are genuinely beautiful, and the boat and transfer time makes them a bad two-night trip.
- Any 'floating village' trip between February and July, when the lake is low and the villages stand on dry mud.
Two places most itineraries miss
Sambor Prei Kuk, an hour off the Siem Reap to Phnom Penh road near Kampong Thom, is a seventh-century brick city that pre-dates Angkor by three hundred years and was inscribed by UNESCO in 2017. It is quiet, shaded, and a genuinely useful thing to see before Angkor rather than after, because it shows you what the Khmer were building before the empire.
Koh Ker, 120 km north-east of Siem Reap, was the imperial capital for about twenty years in the tenth century and was added to the World Heritage list in 2023. Its seven-tier pyramid looks like nothing else in Khmer architecture. Both feature on Remote temples, 5 days.
Questions travellers ask most
If I only have four days, where should I go?
Siem Reap, all four. Angkor takes three days to see properly and the fourth gives you the Tonle Sap or Banteay Srei without rushing. Adding Phnom Penh to four days means spending one of them travelling.
Is the Cambodian coast worth including?
Kep and Kampot are, if you have ten days or more. They are three hours from Phnom Penh, the crab market and pepper farms are genuinely good, and it is the most relaxed part of the country. Sihanoukville is not what it was and we do not send people there.
Which destination surprises people most?
Battambang, consistently. People add it as a stop on the way and then wish they had given it another night. Mondulkiri surprises people who expected Cambodia to be flat and hot everywhere.
Can I see the Irrawaddy dolphins?
Yes, at Kampi near Kratie on the Mekong. The Mekong population has recovered to just over a hundred animals in recent counts, and sightings on a morning boat trip are common though never guaranteed.
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Tell us what you want out of Cambodia
Dates, party size and the places you care about are enough to start. You get a draft route and an indicative price, not a brochure.