This article original appeared on TripBitten
How much does it cost to travel in Cambodia?
Today, we are talking about the cost to travel in Cambodia. This is part of a new series were we are looking at the cost of traveling in different countries. We will talk about five main costs: Food & Drinks, Accommodation, Transportation, Sightseeing, and Other Expenses. Other expenses will include things like travel taxes, visa costs and costs that do not fall into the other categories, but you will still need to consider when traveling in a particular country.
If you want to watch this article, we made a video with all the great shots from our trip and you can hear Miguel’s “beautiful” voice!
Food & Drinks
Let’s get started with talking about food and drinks, because we love to eat! Cambodian food is influenced by neighboring countries, but they do have some local Khmer dishes. For the most part, we ate a lot of fried rice and seafood.
On average, we spent between US$18-20 per person per day. Yvonne and I are not budget travelers, but we are not necessarily luxury travelers either. We would consider ourselves low to mid-range travelers. So, the cost of food could be more or less depending on your travel style.
We also are not heavy drinkers or partiers, which means we didn’t spend a lot of money on drinking. With that said, the average cost of a beer was around $1 and mixed drinks around $2-3. Yvonne and I did eat at nicer places a few nights and those nights the bills were around $25-30 for two people.
The cost for a bottle of water was about $1 and some hotels include breakfast with the room. If not there are many restaurants serving eggs and pancakes plus local options. Breakfast costed us around $3-5 per person some days, but most of our hotels offered breakfast.
For one week of traveling, we spent around $135 per person for food costs.
Accommodations
Moving on to accommodations! Like I said before, Yvonne and I are not budget travelers, so this is where we spent more money than most backpackers. On average, we spent $17.50 per person per night. This is about 2-3 times more than most backpackers will pay.
In Siem Reap or Sihanoukville, you can get dorm rooms for under $5 per person per night. With that said, we enjoy having swimming pools and a nice shower, which is why we spend a little more on rooms. We were in the mid-range for accommodations, but there are nicer places if you are more of a luxury traveler.
If you are looking for a place to stay, click on the links below. We have low, mid, and high range hotels and hostels depending on your budget and travel style. Overall, Yvonne and I really enjoyed our hotels and one of the best was the Blue Lime in Phnom Penh.
Here are a few hotels that you can stay at if you are traveling in Cambodia:
High End:
Mid-Range:
Low End:
Transportation
When it comes to transportation most city transportation is done by TukTuks. They range in price depending on the city and distance. TukTuks from the airport to the city center in Phnom Penh cost about $7, but it will really depend on where your hotel is located. Most of the other cities like Siem Reap are much smaller, which means the prices should be around $4-6 to get anywhere in town. Most of the time TukTuks cost us about $2-3 per ride.
You can also rent one for the whole day for about $20-25 and they will take you anywhere you want. Most people do this in Siem Reap as part of the temple tours, our hotel worked with a few TukTuk drivers and they were happy to take us around for the day.
Other transportation costs can include flights, buses, and boats. We went from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap by plane and the cost was $37.80 per person. This saved us about 4 hours. The bus ride to Siem Reap costs around $6 – 15 depending on the bus company, but takes around 6 hours. We were more interested in saving time, which is why we flew.
We also took a boat from Siem Reap to Battambang, which was really fun and cost $21 per person and took all day or about 8 hours.
On average, we spent $10 per person per day on transportation, which we thought was very reasonable.
Sightseeing
Cambodia is an amazing country to visit, because it is really pretty and has some of the best temples in Asia. Yvonne and I went to most of the major sites including the Killing Fields, Royal Palace, Sunrise at Angkor Wat, the Siem Reap Night Market, S-21 prison, the bat caves, and many more.
Overall, we spent about $250 on sightseeing or around $125 per person. This allowed us to see all the major sites and we kept busy during our trip. We could have done more, but we feel we saw most of the things and after seeing 20-30 temples in 2 weeks, you start to think “Is the next one really worth it?”
The most expensive sightseeing active was the Angkor Archaeological Park, which is the main park for all the temples in Siem Reap. We bought a 3 day pass, which cost $62 per person. This was our most expensive ticket, but it was well worth it. We used the tickets all three days and really got our monies worth. The second most expensive sightseeing item was Yvonne’s horse back riding tour in Siem Reap, which cost $52 for a morning tour, which was about 3 hours.
Sightseeing is really a personal decision, but if you are planning a trip you can get a rough idea of how much you might spend. We were in Cambodia for 18 days, but most of our sightseeing costs happened in the first 12 days, because we went to Koh Rong for the last part of our trip and there were little sights to see on the island.
Other Expenses
Another expense you need to be aware of is the visa cost. The visa costs $30 per person and you will need to pay when you arrive at the airport. The process is simple, but be ready to pay when you arrive.
Other costs are souvenirs, which is largely a personal decision. If you are buying things for family or friends, most small items are a few dollars. Yvonne likes to collect fridge magnets and she bought one for $1.5. Other souvenirs range from small chess sets and clothes to chopsticks and temple models. Most of the souvenirs were typical things you can get at touristy spots and didn’t cost much. And finally, if you are traveling for a longer time you can do laundry for about $1 per kilogram. Overall, we spent $95 on other costs, which included massages, visas, souvenirs, and laundry.
Total Cost to Travel in Cambodia Per Day
So there you have it. If you are planning on traveling in Cambodia your daily costs per person will be about $55, if you are in the low to mid-range. If you are more of a budget traveler, your daily costs per person will be around $15 – 30 depending on your accommodation and food habits. Also, feel free to leave a comment below to tell us how much you spent when you were in Cambodia.