Angkor With Kids: A Three Day Pass and the Order That Works

Angkor is a city of temples the size of Los Angeles, hidden in a forest, and it is the reason to bring children to Cambodia. It is also hot, big, and full of stairs. The order matters.

Buy the three day pass, not the one day. Three days lets you do a temple in the morning, a pool in the afternoon, and never push a tired child through a fourth ruin. The pass is valid over a week, so a rest day in the middle is fine.

Day one, a guide, and the big three. Angkor Wat itself, the biggest religious building on earth, with its moat and its towers and the carvings of a churning sea of milk that a good guide turns into a story. Then the Bayon with its two hundred stone faces. Then Ta Prohm, the one with the trees growing through the walls, which every child recognizes from the film and every child climbs.

Sunrise, once

Angkor Wat at sunrise is worth it once. Up at four thirty, a tuk tuk in the dark, a spot by the pond, the towers appearing out of the black. The kids will complain and then go quiet. Do it on day two, after they have seen it in daylight, and go back to the hotel for breakfast and a sleep.

Day three is the small circuit. Banteay Srei, the pink temple with the finest carvings, an hour out through the villages. Or the Roluos group, or a bike ride around the moat. Or nothing, and the pool.

A tuk tuk driver for the whole three days is the way to move. Hats, water, closed shoes for the stairs, and shoulders and knees covered for the upper levels of Angkor Wat. The temples open at five and the heat starts at ten. Be done by noon.

Planning Cambodia with kids? Start with the full Cambodia family travel guide, or send me the ages and the dates and I will come back with what is really available.