Our favourite Cambodia tours and excursions

Get an insider’s perspective on daily life in Cambodia with our hand-picked, hands-on experiences, each one designed to get you beneath the surface of the local culture.

What do we mean by “experience”? Well, what we don’t mean is cookie-cutter walking tours and ticking off TripAdvisor’s top-ten list. These experiences will take you inside the lives of ordinary Cambodians, putting you in touch with the culture through some of its most extraordinary people.

We get it — not everyone is a fan of guided day tours. Maybe that’s you. But then again, maybe you just haven’t been on a really great one yet. If that’s the case, let us be the ones to persuade you — because a tip-top tour or a hands-on cultural experience can absolutely make your vacation.

People are the key — we can’t stress that enough. We’ve combed the country for the most knowledgeable and engaging guides, and we’re rigorous about ensuring that the experiences we support benefit local communities. What’s more, we only ever recommend experiences we’ve tried and loved ourselves.

Take our bike tour of the Battambang countryside, for example. Sure, anyone can just rent a bike and go. But would you be able to visit cottage industries to see the craftspeople at work? Would you get to hear the local legend about that quiet, rural temple? Or be able to ask the village silk weaver how she does it? These are the little differences between a good experience and a great one; between seeing Cambodia and really experiencing it.

Soksabike tour of Battambang

Soksabike is one of our absolute favourite partners in Cambodia. A local company with a wholehearted commitment to forging real connections between travellers and local people, they’re not interested in parading tourists through show villages.

Instead, their cycle tours get you involved in the daily life of the villages, farms and cottage industries of the Battambang countryside by introducing you to some of its most interesting people. Whether you’re making rice paper or trying the local cakes, this is exactly the kind of slow, explorative, and mutually beneficial travel that Cambodia is all about.

Cruising on the Lower Mekong

From its source in the Tibetan Plateau to its delta in Vietnam, the Mekong has many different personalities.

In Cambodia, its wide, deep and slow waters make for the perfect cruising conditions, and it’s a fantastic way to see the palm-fringed paddy fields of the countryside if you’re not into trekking or cycling. By boat, you can visit little villages, remote temples, community farms and local workshops that are difficult to access by road — all while travelling in comfort and style. The Mekong also winds through Phnom Penh, which makes a great stop of modern history buffs, and in high water seasons you can make a side trip to the stilt villages of Tonlé Sap Lake.

Bird-watching in Kulen Promtep

Greater adjutants, rufous-winged buzzards, Indochinese bushlarks and white-winged ducks: a list of Kulen Promtep’s avian residents reads like a page out of Darwin’s logbook.

Covering an area of over 4,000 sq km of lowland forest and swampland, this wildlife sanctuary is the largest protected area in Cambodia and one of its most important birding sites. Over 150 species have been spotted here, including the extremely rare giant ibis, which is Cambodia’s national bird and thought to be extinct until the late 1990s. Stay at a community ecolodge and you’ll have endless opportunities to get out and spot them.

Irrawaddy dolphin spotting

Recognisable by their distinctive snub-noses and enigmatic smiles, the largest population of Irrawaddy dolphins in the world lives in the Mekong, where — if you’re lucky — you might spot their little dorsal fins dancing about above the water not far from the village of Kampi.

With just 92 left in the wild, this may be your last chance to see them — though we certainly hope not. Thankfully, conservationists have teamed up with fishermen to run low-volume dolphin-spotting tours, which supplement local incomes and motivate the conservation of these critically endangered (and strikingly cute) creatures.

La Plantation pepper farm

Whether you’re a seasoned connoisseur or simply spice curious, you can’t possibly leave Cambodia without a taste of Kampot pepper.

Practically revered in the culinary world, this musky, eucalyptus-noted peppercorn is widely considered the best of the best – and La Plantation is our favourite place to try it. First, tour the farm, smell and taste the different varieties, and learn to cook some Khmer dishes where pepper is the star of the show. Then check out the shop – stuffed with everything from black to pink and salted pepper, and even (wildly popular) pepper-infused rum. Be warned: you may need another suitcase.

Sambor Prei Kuk

Imagine stumbling upon a crumbling brick tower half-devoured by the roots of a strangler fig, accompanied by nothing but the whoops and chirps of the rainforest.

This isn’t Angkor — this is Sambor Prei Kuk, an ancient city much older, more mysterious, and (for some of us) more lovely than the more famous temples to the west. Constructed around 1,200 years ago by the Hindu civilisation of Chenla, it was recently named Cambodia’s third World Heritage Site. What’s most amazing is how many people unknowingly zoom past on the highway instead of stopping, meaning you can have these tumbledown ruins almost to yourself.