Cambodia Travel Budget
Let us be your guide, providing an insider’s perspective on navigating Cambodia, all while staying within a reasonable budget. From the bustling streets of Phnom Penh to the ancient wonders of Angkor Wat, we will be sharing all of our expenses. Let’s dive into our Cambodia travel budget for two weeks!
Note: In this blog, we use the US Dollar. Converting prices always come with a different rate depending on the date. We deliberately did not convert further into euro for everything.
Currency
The currency in Cambodia is the Cambodian Riel and the US Dollar. Two currencies that are both well-used. US Dollars will be used for “bigger” expenses while the Riel will be used for small expenses like a smoothie on the streets. Be aware that locals won’t accept any damaged notes of dollars. They don’t fully trust the dollar, so they will only accept perfect notes. Keep that in mind when you receive change in US Dollars because once you have a “damaged” note, you won’t get rid of it.
In Cambodia, you can get decent amounts of cash out of the ATM without paying too much of a fee. If you can, bring some US Dollars with you. It’s always easier when you arrive somewhere new, and you have some cash with you.
We both have a simple converter app on our phone (Currency+), which makes it easy to convert currencies. We travelled through Cambodia in January 2023.
Visa
You need a visa to travel to Cambodia. This time, we didn’t go for an E-visa as we mostly did during our Asia travels. We crossed the border of Cambodia from Laos, where we opted for a visa on arrival. We were prepared to pay a bit more to avoid all the scams at the border. We ended up paying 40 USD each for a visa, including exit stamps of Laos, and entry stamps of Cambodia, good for 30 days.
In total, we spend 80 USD on our visas for Cambodia.
Transportation
Coming from Don Det, a small island in the Mekong River, we booked a bus to Phnom Penh, this included a taxi boat to the mainland, a bus to the borders and then another bus to the capital of Cambodia. We paid 1.420.00 LAK for both of us, which was at that time about 82 USD.
If you’re flying into Cambodia, Siem Reap is the best city to fly into. You can also come by bus or train from Thailand (Koh Chang or Bangkok) or from Vietnam as well.
It’s convenient to get around in Cambodia by bus. You can buy tickets at different bus stations or even at your hotel. In Phnom Penh and Siem Reap, we used Grab to get around (short distances). We hired a scooter for 5 USD for one day at Kampot.
We spend 82 USD to get to Cambodia and for the transportation inside the country, we spend 115,23 USD for two people.
Accommodation
There are lots of accommodations in Cambodia. We have had some good-budget hotels in Cambodia. We always had a private room with an ensuite bathroom. In total, we spend 138,50 USD for accommodations. That’s an average of 9,89 USD per night for two people.
Food
In general, food is affordable by Western standards in the country, but compared to its neighbours, it’s about double to triple the price. Quite unfortunate, for us as foodie lovers. It took us some time to get to know the good foods in Cambodia. This, combined with the higher prices, resulted in not eating a lot during our two weeks in Cambodia.
We spend 211,85 USD on food in Cambodia for the two of us. This is 15,12 USD on average per day.
Activities
Cambodia, known for its rich history has a lot of sites to visit. You definitely want to see the ancient wonders of Angkor Wat, but also, don’t forget about the haunting past that echoes through the Killing Fields. Here’s what we spend on activities in Cambodia.
- Entry to Killing Fields for 6 USD per person (including audio guides)
- Entry to Genocide Museum (Phnom Penh) for 7,4 USD (including one audio guide)
- Kayaking in Kampot for 2,5 USD per person
- Tickets for Angkor Wat 62 USD per person
For all the activities together we spend 156 USD for the two of us.
Others
Some other expenses we had:
- Sim-card for 5 USD
- New tripod
- Personal expenses
After Indonesia and Vietnam, we switched from credit card as it seemed like one was cheaper than the other one when withdrawing money. The negative side of using the other credit card is that we are no longer able to see the ATM fees.
Total Breakdown
For our Asia travels we have set a budget of €66 a day for two people including everything except insurance. If we manage to travel for this budget, we would be able to travel for six months. We knew this
very strict but it is a goal we will try to approach.
Did we manage to reach our budget goal in Cambodia? In total, our Cambodia trip of two weeks costed us €772,68 including everything (converted when spent in January 2023). That gives an average of €55,19 per day for two people, which is under our aimed daily budget.
