Planning a trip to Cambodia on a budget and wondering exactly how much backpacking Cambodia costs?
We’ve rounded up our full Cambodia travel budget in this blog post, and even though we blew our personal flashpacker-level travel budget a bit on comforts like nicer hotels and restaurant meals, we still walked away feeling like backpacking Cambodia was an excellent value for money.
Here’s exactly what we spent in Cambodia!
A Brief Overview of Our Cambodia Itinerary
Relaxing at a beach resort, touring the temples of Angkor Wat, and exploring Phnom Penh all fit more than comfortably into our roughly $50/person/day expenses.
The Cambodia trip costs outlined here represent our time spent backpacking Cambodia on what we would consider a flashpacker budget.
Basically, no to dorm rooms, (mostly) yes to a/c, and no to major luxuries.
During our trip, we split our time primarily between Phnom Penh, the island of Koh Rong, and Siem Reap.
We spent 17 full days in the country, averaging a total Cambodia travel budget of $98.96/day for two people, or $49.48 per person, per day. This added up to a total cost of $1682.35 for our 2.5 week trip.
All prices for our trip to Cambodia costs are listed in USD unless otherwise noted, and, as usual for our travel budget roundups, we don’t include the costs of entering or leaving the country here, as those expenses can vary so dramatically depending on your starting point (in our case, we entered Cambodia via a budget flight from Vientiane).
2026 Note on Cambodia Backpacking Prices
This blog post is quite dated at this point, as it covers our experience backpacking Cambodia in 2016!
Travel and the world in general have obviously changed since then, so I can’t make any promises on the exact prices of specific items today (and of course, fluctuating exchange rates play a role too, since this travel budget is written in USD).
I’ve left our initial blog post and reflections intact here, but if you have any budget takeaways from your more recent Cambodia trip, I’d love to hear about them in the comment section!
Our Lodging Costs in Cambodia
Total: $817.24 for 17 nights, an average $48.07/night.
We felt that we got excellent value for money with our hotels in Cambodia, including at the resort we stayed at on Koh Rong.
If you take off our Koh Rong resort splurge, our per night cost drops significantly: we only paid between $19-$37/night for the rest of our hotels.
Cambodia’s hotels offered a great value. Both properties we stayed at in Phnom Penh, plus our property in Siem Reap had pools, were extremely clean, and were centrally located.
We would stay at any of them again, though, we would return to Kolab Sor Phnom Penh Hotel before Home Feel CS Hotel in Phnom Penh, just because they offered a lower price for what we thought to be a similar value.
Here’s where we stayed in Cambodia!
Phnom Penh
HomeFeel CS Hotel — Our first stop in Phnom Penh! The most memorable thing about this hotel (as all of our Cambodia hotels felt clean, safe, and accessible) was the breakfast: it was delicious, and served across the street in a restaurant!
On the day we left for Sihanoukville, the staff was happy to get us a takeaway breakfast to go with us.
Kolab Sor Phnom Penh Hotel — A huge room, a varied and delicious breakfast, and a great location in the heart of town: we were very satisfied with our second stop in Phnom Penh!
This hotel also has a reasonably priced rooftop bar with a very relaxed atmosphere. We loved watching the sunset over the city from here.
Check rates & book your stay in Phnom Penh today!
Koh Rong
Sok San Beach Resort — This resort is beautiful, and located on the “quiet” side of Koh Rong, with only a small fishing village was nearby.
The pluses included staying directly on 7 Kilometer Beach, delicious food, and the perfect place to relax.
The minuses included isolation, and the resulting lack of competition. Most of the small restaurants in the fishing village were closed for the season, so we were stuck with resort food at resort prices for the duration of our stay.
If you want to “get away from it all”, then this is the place to do it.
Check rates & book your stay at the Sok San Beach Resort!
Siem Reap
Angkor Boutique Villa — We adored our guesthouse in Siem Reap, and would return here in a heartbeat.
This small, family-run guesthouse is on a very quiet road and also less than a 10-minute walk from Pub Street. What can beat that combination?
The family running it was incredibly kind and treated us to a wonderful meal our final night there.
The pool was beautiful and the perfect place to head after getting overheated at the temples, and the room was extremely clean with plenty of space.
Check rates & book your stay at Angkor Boutique Villa!
Our Transportation Expenses in Cambodia
Total: $251.10
Our biggest transportation expense, by far, was the $80 we paid to take Sok San Beach Resort’s private ferry to Koh Rong and back to Sihanoukville. It cost us $20 per person/per way.
The (clean, air-conditioned) buses that we took from Phnom Penh to Sihanoukville and back, and to Siem Reap from Phnom Penh, were a great value, and ran about $15/person, give or take, for a several hour ride.
We used Great Ibis and were very satisfied with them as a company.
Here’s a hint that I read too late: if you’re taking Great Ibis’ country bus, do not book seats 1A and 1B.
Those seats rest on a ledge, so your legs sit straight out in front of you rather than having a place to rest on the ground. That made for a much less comfortable ride to Sihanoukville than needed.
We could have upped this cost a bit by taking day trips outside of the cities, like from Phnom Penh to Oudong or from Siem Riep to ruins further away than Angkor Wat, but were content to stick closer to town on this trip.
Our Restaurant Travel Budget for Cambodia
Total: $426.64
We went a little expensive on the food side in Cambodia.
We ate lots of sit-down meals, especially in Siem Reap, and during our week on Koh Rong, the resort food was really the only accessible food in the area.
Overall, the damage wasn’t bad: we averaged $13.31 per person/per day in food costs, including the grocery category, which from a foreign traveler perspective is significant only by Southeast Asia backpacker standards.
Our Grocery Trip Costs in Cambodia
Groceries: $25.92
“Groceries” in Cambodia consisted of about what it did in Thailand and Laos: water and the occasional snack item.
Virtually all of our meals were eaten out, with the exception of the owners of our guesthouse in Siem Reap making us a delicious thank you dinner by the pool one night.
Our Tour & Excursion Cambodia Travel Budget
Total: $146.00
Considering how much adventure we squeezed into our Cambodia itinerary, I’m thrilled with this number!
$146.00 covered an ATV tour of Koh Rong, our 3-day passes to Angkor Wat, our visits to S21 and the Killing Fields, and, most inexpensively, about 15 minutes spent at a fish spa in Siem Reap.
The fish spa was bizarre, and I mostly laughed through the entire thing (I’m completely ticklish), but it did start to feel good after a while!
Miscellaneous Trip to Cambodia Costs
Total: $15.45
We had very few miscellaneous expenses in Cambodia, and this category mostly consisted of replacing some toiletries that we were running low on.
This number does include our last round of completely inexpensive laundry. I will forever miss $3.00 loads of laundry in Southeast Asia that included washing, drying, and folding!
Our Overall Impressions of Cambodia Backpacking Prices
Though we spent more than we initially planned for our Cambodia itinerary, I’m still entirely happy with our Cambodia budget.
Our decision to splurge on nicer accommodation in Koh Rong definitely edged our numbers upward, but it was worth it: we were very ready for something slower-paced at that point.
While food also ate into the budget, transportation and excursions were both incredibly affordable in Cambodia.
With the exception of maybe a couple of meals that we could have done more cheaply, I wouldn’t change anything about how we managed our Cambodia travel budget.
Read More About Traveling Southeast Asia
Are you bouncing around multiple destinations in Southeast Asia like we were during this trip?
If so, we’d love to continue to be part of your trip planning process here on Our Escape Clause!
You can browse our other Cambodia blog posts here, or check out these guides:
- 13 Essential Tips for Your First Time in Bangkok
- Is Rainy Season in Laos Worth the Trip? (Our Experience + Tips)
- 9 Essential Tips for Visiting Angkor Wat
- 7 Best Things to Do in Vientiane in One Day
- 7 Tips to Ethically Swim With Elephants in Thailand (Can You?)
next trip to cambo….be sure to visit Kampot and Kep….smaller towns, but very affordable and slow paced without the cost of the islands
Sounds like you had an amazing time in Cambodia. As you know, we LOVE it there and go back every chance we get. We usually stay in cheaper accommodation than you, but next time we go back we’ll probably spend a little more to me a little more comfortable.
J
We definitely did! Cambodia is lovely–we are missing Southeast Asia, hopefully we’ll finally make it back in 2019.
Hi! I love your website! We’ve been travelling for a year but the money’s run out (we don’t have remote work options just yet but have been bitten by the long term travel bug and are looking for options…). I am the budget guru in our relationship and I love that you keep such a budget too! We managed $65 per day for the both of us but knew we were getting to the end so we were pretty tight on the purse. Anyways – just wanted to say I’m enjoying reading your posts! Greetz Marina
Aw, thanks so much Marina! Very impressive budget–as you can see, we definitely didn’t keep it that low, though we had originally intended to! Glad to have you around the blog. 🙂