For Angkor above all — the temples of the Khmer Empire are among the great sights of the world — but Cambodia offers far more than a temple tour. It pairs that ancient grandeur with a sobering recent history, a quiet southern coast, a subtle and underrated cuisine, and a warmth of welcome that most visitors remember longest. It is one of South-East Asia's most affecting countries.

How long do you need in Cambodia?

A week covers the essentials — Angkor and Siem Reap, plus Phnom Penh — without rushing. Ten days to two weeks lets you add the southern coast around Kep and Kampot, or venture into the Cardamoms or up the Mekong. Distances and road conditions mean travel takes longer than the map suggests, so it pays not to over-pack the itinerary.

When is the best time to visit Cambodia?

The dry season from November to March is the most comfortable, with cooler, clearer days ideal for the temples and the coast — it is also peak season. The green season, roughly May to October, brings rain but a lush landscape, fewer crowds and lower rates. April and May are very hot, especially inland around Angkor.

Is Cambodia a good destination for luxury travel?

Increasingly, yes. Siem Reap leads the way with genuine design-led and boutique hotels, the southern coast has begun to follow, and Phnom Penh has a growing high-end scene. The field is still smaller than in Thailand or Vietnam, so the approach is to choose a few genuinely good properties and build the trip around them rather than expecting depth everywhere.

How do you get around Cambodia?

Domestic flights link Phnom Penh, Siem Reap and the coast quickly; otherwise it is road travel, by private car and driver for comfort or by bus for economy, with some scenic river routes. Tuk-tuks handle short hops in town. Roads have improved but journeys are slow, so a car and driver for the rural legs is the usual, and most relaxed, solution.

Where should you stay in Cambodia?

For a first trip, base yourself in Siem Reap for Angkor — choosing between a design landmark like Shinta Mani Angkor and an intimate family house like Maison Polanka — and add a few nights on the southern coast at Kep, where Knai Bang Chatt sets the standard. Phnom Penh is worth a stop in between for its history and its river.

Boutique Hotels in Cambodia - Temple Town & River Stays

Siem Reap and Angkor

For most visitors Cambodia begins at Angkor — the vast temple complex of the Khmer Empire, Angkor Wat among hundreds of others, and one of the great sights of Asia. The town that serves it, Siem Reap, has grown into a likeable, walkable small city of colonial shophouses, galleries, markets and a strong food and craft scene, well worth lingering in beyond the temples themselves.

Where to stay: Shinta Mani Angkor is the design landmark, a Bill Bensley-designed hotel in the Royal District that grew out of a hospitality school and still funds the foundation behind it. For something smaller, Maison Polanka is a French-Cambodian family's art-filled former home, three traditional Khmer houses in a walled garden in the centre of town.

The southern coast

Cambodia's coast, on the Gulf of Thailand, is its quietest corner — a string of sleepy former resort towns, undeveloped islands, pepper plantations and salt fields. Kep, once the seaside playground of the country's elite, is the most characterful: haunting and slow, famous for its crab market and for the ruined modernist villas of its 1960s heyday. Neighbouring Kampot adds colonial streets, river trips and the pepper farms that made the region's name, while the islands further west offer simple beach days.

Where to stay: Knai Bang Chatt, in Kep, is a design-led hotel set in restored 1960s villas right on the shore, pairing handcrafted interiors and a saltwater pool with a genuine marine-conservation programme along the coast.

Phnom Penh and the river

The capital, Phnom Penh, sits at the meeting of the Mekong and Tonle Sap rivers — a fast-changing city of French-colonial architecture, the gilded Royal Palace and the National Museum's Khmer treasures, alongside the Tuol Sleng museum and the Killing Fields, which tell the harder story of the Khmer Rouge years honestly and unflinchingly. It is the gateway for most international arrivals and a city worth a couple of days in its own right, with a riverfront, a dining scene and a momentum that repay a proper look before the river leads on into the wider country.

Beyond

There is more for those with time. The Cardamom Mountains in the south-west are opening up to eco-lodges and jungle treks, a frontier for conservation tourism; Battambang offers colonial calm, a celebrated circus school and the countryside's quirky bamboo railway; the upper Mekong around Kratie shelters rare Irrawaddy freshwater dolphins; and remote temples such as Beng Mealea and the cliff-top Preah Vihear repay the journey for the dedicated. Distances are real and the roads variable, so a relaxed itinerary built around two or three regions almost always beats a dash across the map — and leaves room for the unplanned encounters that tend to become the trip's best memories.