Cambodia 7-Day Itinerary for Australians: 2026 Trip Plan (Siem Reap + Phnom Penh)

Day by day in Siem Reap

Day 1 — Arrival, ticket office, easy first night

Most flights from Singapore land into Siem Reap (SAI) early afternoon. Clear immigration with your printed eVisa and the scanned e-Arrival QR code, grab a tuk-tuk from the official rank ($10–15 USD / ~$15–23 AUD into town, fixed-price), and check in. Take a one-hour nap, then head straight to the Angkor Enterprise ticket centre east of town — pick up the 3-day pass ($62 USD / ~$94 AUD), which is the right pick for almost every 7-day itinerary. Bring your passport; you cannot buy the pass without it.

Spend the evening on a slow dinner in town — the Khmer barbecue places along Pub Street are touristy but solid for a first night, and the riverside restaurants north of the Old Market are quieter. Early to bed; tomorrow starts at 4:30am. If you want the full airport rundown for the SAI side, our Cambodia airports guide for Aussies covers the three terminals.

Day 2 — Angkor sunrise + small circuit

Pre-book a tuk-tuk driver for the day through your hotel ($20–25 USD / ~$30–38 AUD, English-speaking). Leave at 4:45am, be at Angkor Wat's west entrance by 5:15am, find a spot to the left of the central lily pond, and watch the sun rise behind the five towers. You will share the view with maybe 200 other people in shoulder season, 600 in peak — go to the left pond, not the right; the right is more famous and three times more crowded.

After sunrise, work the small circuit: Angkor Wat itself for 90 minutes, Bayon (the temple of the smiling faces) for an hour, Ta Prohm (the jungle temple from Tomb Raider) for an hour, and a long lunch at one of the local restaurants opposite Angkor Thom. Back at the hotel by 2pm for a swim and a nap, then out for the sunset at Pre Rup — quieter than Phnom Bakheng and the laterite walls turn gold at the right moment.

Day 3 — Big circuit + Phare circus

Day three is the longer drive. Same tuk-tuk driver, same early-ish start (6am is enough today), out to Banteay Srei — the small pink-sandstone temple 35km north of Siem Reap, with carving detail you will not see anywhere else on the circuit. Back via Banteay Samre, lunch, then East Mebon and Pre Rup before heading back to town by 4pm.

Evening: Phare, the Cambodian Circus. Tickets are $18–38 USD (~$27–57 AUD) depending on seating — the mid-tier seats are fine, the show is small enough that there are no bad seats. Buy in advance through your hotel or the Phare website; performances sell out in peak season. This is not a touristy circus — Phare is a Cambodian arts NGO that trains kids from disadvantaged backgrounds, and the storytelling is closer to Cirque du Soleil than to anything you have seen in Australia. It is the single best evening of the Siem Reap leg.

Day 4 morning — Siem Reap to Phnom Penh (fly or bus?)

Two real options, and the right call depends on your budget and your patience.

Option A — fly. Cambodia Angkor Air and AirAsia run SAI ↔ KTI several times daily, $45–60 USD one-way (~$69–91 AUD). Actual flight time is around 50 minutes, but allow three hours door-to-door once you factor airport time at both ends. Worth it if you want maximum time on the ground in Phnom Penh, or if you are travelling with kids who will not survive a six-hour bus.

Option B — Giant Ibis. The Giant Ibis bus is the only intercity bus most experienced travellers will book in Cambodia. $13–15 USD (~$20–23 AUD), six hours direct from the Siem Reap terminal to the Phnom Penh terminal, working A/C, working seatbelts, working wi-fi, and a snack on the way. It departs around 8:30am and lands you in Phnom Penh mid-afternoon, plenty of time to check in and head to the riverfront.

Honest take: most Aussies on a 7-day trip take the bus. The internal flight saves three or four hours but costs four times more, and the bus journey is genuinely pleasant — flat countryside, rice paddies, occasional roadside food stops. The only case for flying is families with young kids or travellers with mobility issues. The full breakdown of arrival options sits in our Cambodia airports guide for Aussies, and the first-trip planning checklist we are publishing alongside this itinerary handles the booking sequence.

Day by day in Phnom Penh

Day 4 — Arrival, Sisowath Quay, riverfront dinner

Whether you flew or bussed, your afternoon is the riverfront. Check into a hotel within walking distance of Sisowath Quay (the riverside boulevard) — that puts you 10 minutes from the Royal Palace and inside the small grid of restaurants, cafes, and street-food vendors that work for an easy first evening. Walk the promenade at dusk, get your bearings, eat something on a balcony, head to bed.

Day 5 — Royal Palace + Tuol Sleng + Choeung Ek

Start at the Royal Palace ($10 USD / ~$15 AUD entry) when it opens at 8am — go in long sleeves and long trousers or you will be turned away at the gate. The Silver Pagoda inside the palace complex, with its solid silver floor tiles, is the unexpected highlight. Allow 90 minutes to two hours.

From the palace, tuk-tuk south to Tuol Sleng (S-21), the former school turned Khmer Rouge prison, now a genocide museum. Entry is $5 USD (~$7.50 AUD) with the audio guide $3 USD extra (~$4.50 AUD) — take the audio guide. This is a hard hour and a half; allow yourself to feel it.

After lunch (light, you will not be hungry), tuk-tuk out to Choeung Ek — the killing fields, 17km south of the city. Entry $6 USD (~$9 AUD) inclusive of the audio guide. The site is small, the audio guide is exceptional, and the round trip from the city is about three hours. Most Aussies are back in town by 4pm and want a quiet evening; the rooftop bars along the riverfront are the right call.

Day 6 — Russian Market, Mekong cruise, final dinner

Day six is the lighter day. Morning at the Russian Market (Phsar Tuol Tom Poung) for the silk, the silver, and the Cambodian coffee to take home — bring small USD bills, haggle politely, expect to pay 60–70% of the first asking price. Lunch at one of the cafes on Street 240 (Phnom Penh's small designer-and-coffee strip). Afternoon swim or massage at the hotel.

Late afternoon, do a Mekong sunset cruise — boats leave from the Sisowath Quay pier, $10–15 USD per person (~$15–23 AUD) for a 90-minute loop with a beer. Final dinner anywhere along the river. If your flight out is Day 7 evening, this is when you grab Cambodian coffee for friends back home and any last shopping.

Day 7 — Buffer day, then departure

The seventh day is the one that earns its keep. You will either spend it doing one of the three good Phnom Penh day-trip options, or you will spend it slowly. Both are correct.

If you wish you had more Siem Reap: tack the buffer onto the front of the trip instead, and run a half-day out to Kampong Phluk floating village on Tonlé Sap from Siem Reap on Day 4 morning before the bus. Boats leave 7am, you are back at the bus terminal by 1pm. The floating houses are at their best in green season (July–September) when the lake is full.

If you want one more Cambodian site from Phnom Penh: a day trip to Oudong, the former royal capital 40km north — three hours round trip, three hilltop stupas with panoramic views, lunch at a roadside restaurant. Quieter than the day before, easier on the legs.

If you just want a slow morning: do nothing. Long breakfast, an hour at the National Museum (next to the palace, $10 USD entry / ~$15 AUD, smaller and more digestible than Tuol Sleng), final coffee, packed up, tuk-tuk to KTI by mid-afternoon for the evening flight out. Aussies consistently say the slow morning is the version they would pick again. The seasonal best-time-to-visit guide for Cambodia is worth a final read before you lock the dates in — the experience of this same itinerary changes shape between dry and green season.

Pulling it together

Open-jaw flight, three nights either side, one buffer in the middle or at the end, eVisa locked in 3–4 weeks before departure, e-Arrival inside the 7-day window. That is the whole shape. If your trip dates are still moving, the Australian application walkthrough covers the visa flow step-by-step, and the Australian tourist visa specialist guide covers the edge cases — dual citizens, kids, photographers worried about gear.

A final note on the bigger picture. Smartraveller's Cambodia advisory is worth a five-minute read before you book, especially if your route involves a Bangkok or Singapore stopover. The Thailand–Cambodia land borders have all been closed since June 2025, so an overland leg from Bangkok is no longer an option — every Aussie itinerary for 2026 starts with a flight in.