Boutique Cambodia: 10 days, and where the money actually goes
Cambodia has perhaps fifteen hotels we would put a client in at the top of the market and several hundred that charge boutique rates for a marble lobby and a bad breakfast. The difference is not the price. It is whether the building is interesting, whether the people who run it are the people who ow
- Duration
- 10 days
- Pace
- Relaxed
- Hotel changes
- 4
- Best months
- Nov, Dec, Jan, Feb, Mar
- From
- $2,800 per person
This is the route we build when someone says they want the good version. Ten days, four hotels, and a clear explanation of what each one buys you.
Who it suits: travellers who care about where they sleep, want a private guide on the days that matter and free days on the days that do not, and would rather have four excellent nights than ten adequate ones.
Your specialist: Osnat Angerman or Paz Prosianoy, with our Hanoi office holding the rooms.
Day by day
Days 1 to 4: Siem Reap. Four nights in a restored colonial villa or a small architect-designed hotel on the quiet side of the river, twenty rooms or fewer, with a courtyard, a pool and a kitchen that is worth eating in.
Day 1. Arrive, transfer an hour from the airport, nothing scheduled.
Day 2. Angkor at opening with a private guide and car: the Bayon while it is still cool, Angkor Thom, Ta Prohm. Back by half past eleven. Afternoon at the hotel. Angkor Wat at four, when the light is on the western face, and sunset at Srah Srang.
Day 3. Banteay Srei in the morning, an hour out through the rice fields, then Preah Khan or Banteay Samre on the way back. Afternoon free. Evening at Phare, the Cambodian circus.
Day 4. Nothing scheduled. A dawn balloon over the temples, the silk farm at Puok, a cooking session, or the pool. Your document lists all four and you choose on the day.
Day 5: Siem Reap to Phnom Penh. A 45-minute flight after a slow morning. Two nights in a small hotel in a quiet street rather than a chain tower on the riverfront. Afternoon at the National Museum, then dinner at one of the modern Khmer kitchens that have made Phnom Penh worth eating in.
Day 6: Phnom Penh. Tuol Sleng in the morning with the audio guide, and a deliberately empty afternoon behind it. The Royal Palace at four if you want it. This morning is hard and we place it here rather than later on purpose, because there is nothing after it on this route that it would spoil.
Day 7: Phnom Penh to the Cardamoms. Four to five hours west, then a river crossing into the forest. Two nights in a tented camp: proper beds, en suite bathrooms, canvas walls, mosquito nets, no wifi worth the name, and a river that you can hear from the bed. This is the night people talk about afterwards.
Day 8: The Cardamoms. A boat up a flooded forest channel at first light, when the gibbons are calling and the hornbills are moving, then a forest walk with a ranger, many of whom were hunters before the conservation project employed them. Afternoon on the river. Night walk if you want one.
Days 9 and 10: The coast. Out of the forest and down to the water. Either two nights on Koh Rong Sanloem in a beachfront bungalow, reached by fast boat from the Sihanoukville port, or two nights at a small hotel above the sea at Kep. Nothing scheduled either day. Fly home from Phnom Penh or Sihanoukville.
If you want the archipelago’s private-island properties instead, we price those separately: they are a genuine step up in comfort and a large step up in cost, and whether they are worth it depends entirely on how much of your trip is the beach.
What is included
Four nights in a small character hotel in Siem Reap, two in a Phnom Penh boutique property, two in a Cardamom tented camp on full board with all activities, two on the coast, all breakfasts, the Siem Reap to Phnom Penh flight, private air-conditioned car with driver throughout, private licensed guide on three days, the three-day Angkor pass, Phare tickets, the forest boat and ranger walks, the island fast boat where relevant, and a WhatsApp group with your consultant and our Hanoi office.
What we would change, and when
- Travelling June to October? The Cardamom camps close for part of the wet season and the forest roads become unreliable. We replace those nights with a river property near Kampot and tell you plainly why.
- Want a fifth Siem Reap night? We would rather you did not. Four nights and three temple sessions is the point at which most people are still enjoying it. If you want more time in Siem Reap, use it for the countryside, not for more temples.
- Beach-led trip? Flip the weighting: two nights in Siem Reap, none in the Cardamoms, five on an island. It is a legitimate holiday and a poor introduction to the country, and we will say so once and then build it.
- Want the highest end? There are two or three properties in Cambodia operating at genuine international luxury level, and a private island resort in the Koh Rong archipelago. We will price the trip at that tier on request. It roughly doubles the total.
Honest notes
The tented camp is not a hotel. The bathroom is en suite and the bed is good, but the walls are fabric, the power may be solar, the insects are outside the net and the forest is loud between three and five in the morning. Almost everyone loves it. The people who do not are the people nobody warned.
Boutique in Cambodia is a term used very loosely by hotels that are not. If you have found a property online that you like and you want our view, send it to us. We will tell you whether it is what it looks like, and we have no incentive not to.
Siem Reap’s best hotels sell out for December and January by August. If you want a specific twenty-room property in that window, we need to be booking six months ahead, not three.
Built by Paz Prosianoy, our Southeast and Central Asia specialist, and checked by our Hanoi office before it goes out.
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