Cambodia Family Travel Guide

Buy the three day pass, not the one day. It is not much more and it changes the whole shape of the visit. Three days means you go out early, come back for the middle of the day, and go out again at four when the light is good and the tour buses have gone. One day means you fry.

Skip the famous sunrise, or do it on the second morning. The crowd at the pool is enormous. Angkor Wat in late afternoon is emptier, warmer in color, and you can actually stand still in it. If you want sunrise, do it at Srah Srang or from inside Angkor Thom instead.

Bayon and Ta Prohm are the two that stayed with me. Bayon has two hundred and sixteen faces carved into it and every one of them is looking at you. Ta Prohm is the one with the trees growing straight through the stone, and it is the one that looks like the films because the films were filmed there.

Hire a guide for one day, not none and not all three. Angkor without any interpretation is a lot of beautiful stone you cannot read. One licensed guide on day one, then two days on your own with what you learned. Book through your hotel, agree the price and the hours before you set off.

What S-21 actually is. Tuol Sleng was a secondary school. It was turned into a detention and torture center. The classrooms still have the iron beds and the shackles in them, and other rooms are lined floor to ceiling with the photographs the guards took of each prisoner. Around seventeen thousand people passed through. A handful came out.

My honest age guidance, and it is the same advice I give for Auschwitz. Fourteen and up for S-21 and the Killing Fields, and only if they want to go. Eleven to thirteen with a parent who has prepared them properly and is willing to leave early. Under eleven, no. The photographs of children among the victims are what breaks people, adults included.

Do one, not both, and not on your last day. Choeung Ek and S-21 in a single morning is too much for an adult and far too much for a teenager. Pick one, go early, and put something gentle after it. Do not schedule it against a flight.

If your children are too young, do not simply skip the subject. The National Museum, the royal palace and a walk along the riverfront tell you plenty about what was nearly lost. You can say that a terrible thing happened here to a great many people and that the country rebuilt itself, and that is a true and complete answer for a nine year old.

Buses are the default and they are fine. Saigon to Phnom Penh, Phnom Penh to Siem Reap, Siem Reap to Battambang. Air conditioned, cheap, and slower than the timetable says. Book the morning departure so a breakdown does not put you in a strange town at midnight.

Tuk-tuks in town, by the trip or by the day. Agree the fare before you get in, every single time. A day rate is better value than four separate trips and the driver becomes useful, because he knows where things are and when they close.

Do not put a child on a motorbike, and think hard before you get on one yourself. We rode one out to the dolphin docks at Kratie and it was lovely and it was also a decision two adults made about their own necks. Helmets are inconsistent, road rules are aspirational, and most travel insurance voids on an unlicensed rider.

Fly the Siem Reap to Phnom Penh leg if you are short of time. Forty minutes in the air against six hours on the road. Everything else in Cambodia is close enough to do overland, and the road is where you see the country.

Shoulders and knees covered, for everyone, children included. I was refused entry at the royal palace in Phnom Penh for bare shoulders, and refused again at the upper level of Angkor Wat. Both were entirely fair and both were avoidable. Pack a light long sleeved shirt and a scarf and stop thinking about it.

The middle of the day is not negotiable. Out at six, back by eleven, out again at three thirty. That rhythm is why the three day pass matters. Fighting the heat between eleven and three is how families end up crying at the base of a staircase.

The staircases are close to vertical and there are no handrails. Khmer temple stairs were built steep on purpose, because approaching a god was meant to be difficult. Some have modern wooden steps bolted on, many do not. With small children, make the decision at the bottom rather than halfway up.

Cambodia runs on US dollars, with riel as small change. Prices are quoted in dollars, ATMs dispense dollars, and anything under a dollar comes back in riel at about four thousand to one. Bring clean, unmarked, untorn notes. A ripped twenty will be refused, politely, everywhere.

The visa is straightforward but do it properly. There is an official e-visa and there are dozens of sites that look official and charge you four times the fee. Use the government portal. At land borders, expect an unofficial extra dollar or two to be asked for, and expect it to be persistent.

Buy the Angkor pass at the official ticket office. It has your photograph on it, it is checked at every temple, and a three day pass can be used across a week rather than three consecutive days. Do not buy a temple ticket from anyone in a parking lot.

Angkor is a walking site and that is the whole planning problem. Kilometers of it, on uneven sandstone, in the heat. A six year old will manage two temples. A ten year old will manage four with a long break. Nobody manages eight. Build the day around three, and let the tuk-tuk be the rest.

Book a hotel with a pool and use it every single afternoon. This is not indulgence, it is the mechanism that makes the trip work. In Siem Reap a pool costs almost nothing extra. It is the difference between children who want to go back out at four and children who do not.

Talk about begging before you arrive, because it will happen. Children will approach your children, selling postcards and bracelets. Some are working for adults and some should be at school. Decide as a family what you will do, say it out loud in advance, and be consistent. Give to a school or a training restaurant rather than to a hand.

Say no to orphanage visits. Voluntourism at orphanages is a real industry in Cambodia and much of it is harmful, including places where the children are not orphans at all. If a tuk-tuk driver offers, decline. This is one of the few things in travel I will state flatly rather than as a preference.

Stomachs, mosquitoes and sun, in that order. Bottled water for everything including teeth. Dengue is present, so repellent and long sleeves at dusk. There is malaria risk in remote forested areas but not in Siem Reap or Phnom Penh. Talk to a travel clinic about your exact route.

That everything is priced in American dollars. We did not know until we crossed the border. It makes the arithmetic easy and it makes the poverty far more legible, because you can read exactly what someone earns in a currency you understand.

How young the country is. It felt as though every young woman we passed had a baby with her. That is what happens to a population after a quarter of it is killed. It is demography, and once you see it you cannot unsee it.

How much better the wet season looked. Storms build all afternoon, the light turns strange and gold, the moats fill and everything reflects. We had one flash flood in Phnom Penh deep enough that our tuk-tuk engine was underwater and still going.

How much of the trip turned out to be about people rather than places. Our driver Sophet, who had been a teacher until the school system pushed him out. The children in the museum courtyard. The family from London we walked round Angkor with for a whole afternoon. I remember all of them as clearly as the temples.

Angkor was once the heart of an empire, not just a ruin. the Khmer Empire ran much of Southeast Asia from here for centuries, and the temples were built to prove it.

The Khmer Rouge years are recent, not distant history. Tuol Sleng and the Killing Fields are hard visits, and worth doing with a guide who can hold the weight of it for you.

Apsara dance connects directly back to Angkor’s carvings. the poses in a classical performance in Siem Reap are the same ones carved into the temple walls centuries ago.

Buddhism shapes daily rhythm here. orange robed monks collecting alms at dawn is an ordinary sight, not a show staged for visitors.

Siem Reap and Angkor come first for almost everyone. plan at least three days to see the temples properly without rushing.

Phnom Penh adds the capital and the harder history. the National Museum, the Royal Palace, Tuol Sleng and the Killing Fields all sit here.

The south coast is an optional add on, not a must. Kampot, Kep and Koh Rong island are worth it if you have the extra days, skippable if you do not.

A Mekong river leg connects Cambodia to Vietnam. a river cruise or overland crossing from Phnom Penh to Saigon links both countries without a flight.

A private sunrise guide at Angkor. someone who knows exactly where to stand and when to move gets you the view without fighting the crowds.

A proper resort in Siem Reap. after full days of temples, a real pool and air conditioning make a bigger difference here than almost anywhere else.

A private boat on the Tonle Sap. a private guide beats the crowded group boats to the floating villages, especially with kids.

A few nights on Koh Rong instead of a day trip. staying over turns a rushed ferry visit into an actual beach break at the end of a temple heavy trip.