Cambodia month by month

This is the calendar our consultants work from, written by the team that runs Cambodia out of our own Hanoi office.

The year at a glance

Nights are pleasant from November to February, around 70 F (21 C) in Siem Reap, which is the real difference between that window and the rest of the year.

November to February, the window

This is the season, and it is short. Humidity drops, mornings are clear, and the light on the sandstone at Angkor in the first and last two hours of the day is at its best. The Tonle Sap is still high from the wet season, so the floating villages sit on water rather than above cracked mud, which is the difference between a good half day and a strange one.

It is also the annual peak for rates and for crowds. Christmas and New Year book out first, by a long margin. Six months of lead time is comfortable for this window and three months is tight, particularly for the small hotels that have twenty rooms and no more. What that period costs is set out in our Cambodia cost article.

If you want the cool season without the peak, the last two weeks of November and the first two of February are the sweet spots. The weather is effectively the same as December and the hotel rate is not.

March to May, the hot season

March is hot, April is genuinely difficult and May is hot with humidity on top. April regularly passes 95 F (35 C) and can reach the low hundreds Fahrenheit before the rains break.

We build trips in these months and we build them differently. Temple mornings start at opening and finish by eleven. The middle of the day is a long, unapologetic gap: a pool, a lunch, a nap, a museum. The second temple session runs from four until the light goes. That gap is not lost time, it is the only way the day works, and travellers who fight it are the ones who end up unwell.

What you get in exchange is real. Rates fall, the temples empty out after Khmer New Year, and the dry-season light is dramatic. April and May are also the best months for the beach and the islands, where the sea is calm and the boats run reliably.

June to October, the green season

The reputation of this season is worse than the reality for most of it. June, July and August often deliver a clear morning, a bright afternoon and a heavy hour of rain around four o’clock. The countryside is green rather than dust-coloured, the moat at Angkor Wat is full, and the temples in the morning can be close to empty. Photographers frequently prefer these months to December.

September and October are different, and we will say so rather than sell you a route that cannot run. These are the wettest weeks of the year. Rural roads in Mondulkiri, Ratanakiri and the Cardamoms turn to mud and some become impassable, which is why our wild Cambodia route is a dry-season trip and we will not build it in September. Coastal boat services cancel more often. Against that, the Tonle Sap reaches its maximum extent and the flooded forest at Kampong Phluk is at its most extraordinary.

Region by region, if your dates are fixed

Siem Reap and Angkor. Follows the national pattern. The one refinement worth knowing: in the wet months the far temples on unsealed roads, Beng Mealea and Koh Ker in particular, are still reachable, while smaller forest tracks are not.

Phnom Penh. Hot all year and least pleasant in April. The city is indoors-friendly, so it copes with a wet afternoon better than anywhere else in the country.

The coast, Kampot, Kep and the islands. Best from November to April. The sea is calmest and clearest from December to March. From June the sea gets choppier and island boats cancel more often, though a wet-season island stay at half the rate is a reasonable trade if you accept the risk.

Mondulkiri and Ratanakiri. Dry season only in practice. December to February is cool and green in the east, with highland mornings around 10 F (6 C) cooler than the plain, which is a genuine relief.

The Cardamom Mountains. Dry season only, roughly December to April. In the wet, community trails at Chi Phat are leech-heavy and rivers rise fast.

Festivals worth planning around

Khmer New Year falls in mid-April and it is the largest event of the year. The country goes home to the provinces, Phnom Penh empties, businesses close for several days and Siem Reap fills with Cambodian families rather than visitors. It is a genuinely good thing to see and a difficult week in which to move around. Some sites keep short hours.

Pchum Ben, the ancestors’ festival, falls in September or October and has a similar though shorter effect, with a rush to the pagodas and to family homes.

The Water Festival in November marks the reversal of the Tonle Sap river and brings very large crowds to the Phnom Penh riverfront. It has been cancelled in some years for safety and other reasons.

All three follow the lunar calendar, so the dates move, and the Water Festival in particular is confirmed relatively late. We check where your dates fall against the current calendar before we quote anything.

What we would tell a friend

If you are free to choose, go in the second half of November or in early February: the cool season without the peak-season rate. If your dates are fixed to April, come anyway and let us build the day around the heat rather than pretending it is not there. If your dates are fixed to September, we would put you in Siem Reap, Phnom Penh and on the water, and leave the eastern highlands for another trip.

Plan this trip

Tell us your dates and we will tell you honestly what they will be like on the ground, then build the route around them. Free first outline, no obligation.

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Keep reading

• Cambodia, the complete guide to planning your trip
• What does a trip to Cambodia cost?
• Angkor in two days, three days, or five
• Cambodia beyond Angkor: Battambang, Kampot and the coast
• Wild Cambodia, 12 days
• All our Cambodia trips

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