Cambodia in seven days, Siem Reap to Phnom Penh to the Kampot coast: sunrise over Angkor Wat and the jungle-swallowed ruins of Ta Prohm, a stilt-house village on Tonle Sap, the Royal Palace and a reckoning with the Khmer Rouge’s history, then pepper farms and fresh crab on a slow riverside afternoon. Real hotels, real drive times, and 2026 prices for every stop.
Day 1
Arrive in Siem Reap
A short transfer into town, a wander through the Old Market’s stalls and Pub Street’s night market, and a first taste of Khmer cuisine before an early night ahead of tomorrow’s sunrise.
🚕 Airport Transfer — Siem Reap Angkor International Airport (SAI) to Old Market
~15 minutes · $9 USD, fixed-rate taxi
A short fixed-rate taxi covers the new airport (opened 2023, about 40km outside town) into the Old Market and Pub Street area — arrange through your hotel or take a metered taxi from the arrivals curb.
🛍️ Old Market & Pub Street Night Market
~1.5 hours, self-guided · Free to browse
Psar Chas’s covered stalls sell silk scarves, silver jewelry, and dried mango by day, while Pub Street lights up after dark with $0.50 draft beer, fish-spa foot tanks, and street-side barbecue skewers.
🍽️ Dinner — Cuisine Wat Damnak
~2 hours · Set menu from $38 USD / person
Chef Joannès Rivière’s tasting menu draws on half-forgotten Cambodian recipes and daily market produce, changing every two weeks — one of Siem Reap’s most acclaimed tables, and reservations are essential.
Cuisine Wat Damnak
🛎️ Overnight — Shinta Mani Angkor
From $118 USD / night, for 2 people, breakfast included
A Bill Bensley-designed hotel a short walk from Pub Street, built around a courtyard pool, with part of every stay funding the on-site Shinta Mani Foundation’s community projects.
Shinta Mani Angkor · www.shintamani.com/angkor
Day 2
Angkor Wat at Sunrise & the Jungle Temples
The classic Angkor loop: sunrise over Angkor Wat’s towers, the carved stone faces of the Bayon, and the strangler-fig roots of Ta Prohm before the midday heat sets in.
🎫 Angkor Pass — 3-Day Pass
Valid any 3 days within 10 · $62 USD / person
The Angkor Enterprise ticket office issues a photo pass on the spot — the 3-day option is the standard choice for a proper visit and covers today’s and tomorrow’s temple runs with a day to spare.
🌅 Sunrise Tuk Tuk Tour — Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom & Bayon
~8 hours · From $25 USD / group (up to 3 people)
A private driver-guide collects you before dawn for a spot inside Angkor Wat’s outer enclosure as the five towers silhouette against the sky, then continues through the South Gate’s giant stone faces to Angkor Thom’s Bayon temple.
🌳 Ta Prohm
~1 hour, included in tour · Included in Angkor Pass
Left largely as French explorers found it, Ta Prohm’s sandstone galleries are held in the grip of centuries-old silk-cotton and strangler-fig trees — the temple made famous by “Tomb Raider” and Cambodia’s most photographed ruin.
🍽️ Dinner — Marum
~1.5 hours · Est. $12–$18 USD / person
A social-enterprise restaurant training at-risk youth in hospitality, serving updated Khmer dishes like red tree ant beef and pumpkin hummus in a garden courtyard just off the tourist strip.
Marum
🛎️ Overnight — Shinta Mani Angkor
From $118 USD / night, for 2 people, breakfast included
A second night at the Shinta Mani, resting up for tomorrow’s temples further afield.
Shinta Mani Angkor · www.shintamani.com/angkor
Day 3
Banteay Srei & Tonle Sap’s Floating Villages
A morning at Angkor’s most intricately carved temple, then an afternoon by boat through a village built entirely on stilts and water.
🛕 Banteay Srei
~1.5 hours round-trip by car (25 miles / 40km each way) · Included in Angkor Pass
A 10th-century temple carved from pink sandstone in relief so fine it’s nicknamed the “citadel of women” — smaller and further out than the main complex, which keeps the crowds noticeably thinner.
🚤 Kompong Phluk Floating Village Boat Tour
~3 hours · From $20 USD / person
Stilt houses rise 20 feet above the Tonle Sap floodplain, sinking and rising with the lake’s dramatic seasonal swings — a wooden boat winds past a flooded mangrove forest to a village school and a floating market stall.
Floating Village Tours · floatingvillagetours.com
🍽️ Dinner — Chanrey Tree
~1.5 hours · Est. $15–$25 USD / person
Contemporary Khmer fine dining on the river road, known for its fish amok steamed in banana leaf and a wine list that outdoes most of Siem Reap.
Chanrey Tree
🛎️ Overnight — Shinta Mani Angkor
From $118 USD / night, for 2 people, breakfast included
A third and final Siem Reap night before tomorrow’s bus south to the capital.
Shinta Mani Angkor · www.shintamani.com/angkor
Day 4
Siem Reap to Phnom Penh
A scenic bus ride south across the Cambodian countryside to the capital, with the afternoon free for a riverside introduction to Phnom Penh.
🚌 VIP Bus — Siem Reap to Phnom Penh
~6 hours (320 km) · From $15 USD / person
Giant Ibis’s air-conditioned coaches run the highway route past rice paddies and sugar-palm groves, with free WiFi, a rest stop, and reclining seats — book the morning departure to arrive with daylight left.
Giant Ibis Transport · www.giantibis.com
🏯 Wat Phnom & Sisowath Quay Riverside
~1.5 hours, self-guided · $1 USD temple entrance
The hilltop pagoda that gave Phnom Penh its name sits atop the city’s only hill, a short stroll from the Tonle Sap riverfront promenade where the afternoon crowd gathers for sunset over the water.
🍽️ Dinner — Malis Restaurant
~2 hours · Est. $20–$35 USD / person
An open-air Khmer restaurant built around a lily pond, serving refined versions of Cambodian classics — beef lok lak, fish amok, and a “Cambodian tapas” tasting flight — a favorite with visiting diplomats.
Malis Restaurant
🛎️ Overnight — Raffles Hotel Le Royal
From $188 USD / night, for 2 people
A 1929 colonial-era landmark where Jacqueline Kennedy and Charlie Chaplin once stayed, with a palm-lined pool, a cigar bar, and the Elephant Bar, which claims to have invented the Femme Fatale cocktail.
Raffles Hotel Le Royal · www.raffles.com/phnom-penh
Day 5
Phnom Penh — Palaces and a Reckoning with History
The Royal Palace’s gilded pavilions in the morning, then an unflinching afternoon at the sites of the Khmer Rouge’s genocide — one of the heaviest, most necessary days of the trip.
🏛️ Royal Palace & Silver Pagoda
~2 hours · $10 USD / person
The still-functioning residence of Cambodia’s king, with the Silver Pagoda’s floor of solid-silver tiles and an emerald Buddha housed inside — modest dress with covered shoulders and knees is enforced at the gate.
🕊️ Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum & Choeung Ek Killing Fields
~4 hours · $8 USD (Tuol Sleng) + $6 USD (Choeung Ek, audio guide included)
A former high school turned S-21 prison, then the mass graves 30 minutes outside the city, where the audio tour — narrated in part by survivors — winds along wooden pathways between excavated pits; heavy, but essential context for modern Cambodia.
Tuk tuk for the half-day
🍽️ Dinner — Sisowath Quay Riverside
~1.5 hours · Est. $10–$20 USD / person
An evening to decompress along the riverfront’s row of open-air restaurants and bars, with the illuminated Royal Palace across the water and the night market a short walk south.
🛎️ Overnight — Raffles Hotel Le Royal
From $188 USD / night, for 2 people
A second night at the Raffles before tomorrow’s drive south to the coast.
Raffles Hotel Le Royal · www.raffles.com/phnom-penh
Day 6
Phnom Penh to Kampot
A drive south to the sleepy riverside town at the foot of Bokor Mountain, with an afternoon among the pepper vines that made Kampot famous.
🚐 Private Transfer — Phnom Penh to Kampot
~2.5–3 hours (148 km) · From $45 USD, private car for up to 3
The drive south leaves the capital’s traffic behind for open highway and roadside sugar-palm stands, arriving in Kampot’s shophouse-lined old French quarter by early afternoon.
🌶️ La Plantation Pepper Farm Tour
~2 hours · Est. $8–$12 USD / person
A working farm growing the peppercorns that once supplied the tables of Paris, with a self-guided walk through the vines followed by a tasting of black, red, and rare white Kampot pepper straight off the plant.
La Plantation
🍽️ Dinner — Rikitikitavi
~1.5 hours · Est. $15–$22 USD / person
A riverside restaurant on stilts above the Praek Tuek Chhu river, built around Kampot’s famous pepper crab and a wine list longer than most Phnom Penh restaurants can manage.
Rikitikitavi · www.rikitikitavi-kampot.com
🛎️ Overnight — Rikitikitavi
From $55 USD / night, for 2 people, river-view room
A restored 1930s shophouse turned six-room boutique hotel above its own restaurant, with a small rooftop pool and private balconies looking straight over the river toward Bokor Mountain.
Rikitikitavi · www.rikitikitavi-kampot.com
Day 7
Kampot & Departure
A last quiet morning in Kampot’s old quarter before the drive back to the capital to close out the loop.
🚶 Old French Quarter Walking Tour
~1 hour, self-guided · Free
Crumbling colonial shophouses along the riverfront, a handful of independent cafes serving Kampot pepper lattes, and the town’s slow, unhurried pace — best walked before the midday heat sets in.
🚐 Private Transfer — Kampot to Phnom Penh International Airport
~2.5–3 hours (155 km) · From $50 USD, private car for up to 3
The return drive retraces the highway north to Phnom Penh, with buffer time built in for the capital’s unpredictable traffic before an international departure.
✈️ Departure — Phnom Penh International Airport (PNH)
Self-guided
Closes a seven-day loop that ran from Angkor Wat’s sunrise towers and a floating village on Tonle Sap to Phnom Penh’s palaces and Kampot’s pepper coast — check international carriers’ recommended arrival times, typically 3 hours before departure.
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