Ten days is the sweet spot for a first trip to Cambodia — enough to do the Angkor temples justice, sit with Phnom Penh, and still get a few slow days by the sea. This day-by-day Cambodia 10 day itinerary maps the whole thing and tells you exactly what to sort before you fly.
For a first trip, split ten days three ways: four nights in Siem Reap, three in Phnom Penh, and three on the southern coast. Use Siem Reap for Angkor — a sunrise at Angkor Wat and the central temples, the Grand Circuit and Ta Prohm, and the carved pink sandstone of Banteay Srei with the jungle ruin of Beng Mealea. Fly or bus to Phnom Penh for the Royal Palace, the National Museum, the sobering Tuol Sleng and Choeung Ek memorials, and the riverfront. Then head south to Kampot, Kep, or an island for three slow days by the water before flying home. Move between bases by short domestic flights or express buses. Before any of it, you need a Cambodia eVisa: $80 USD for tourists, approved in 3 business days, plus a separate e-Arrival Card in the week before you fly.
Ten days is the length that finally lets Cambodia breathe. A week forces a hard choice — the temples or the coast, never both — and most first-time American visitors come home wishing they had built in a few unhurried days. Ten days fixes that. You get Angkor done properly, Phnom Penh sat with rather than skimmed, and three slow days by the sea to land softly before the long flight home. Three bases, no place rushed, and a rhythm that survives the heat.
Cambodia is larger than it reads on a map, and the distances between the headline sights are real. Siem Reap in the northwest, Phnom Penh in the center, and the coast in the south sit at the points of a wide triangle, and how you connect them shapes the whole trip. This itinerary keeps the moves simple — two travel days, both of which double as scenery — so the bulk of your ten days is spent standing in temples and walking riverfronts, not sitting on highways.
This guide lays out all ten days in order, tells you how to move between the three bases, and flags the one thing that trips Americans up: the visa and a separate arrival card both need sorting before you fly. When your dates are firm you can apply in a few minutes, and for the full cost-and-documents picture our main Cambodia visa for US citizens guide pulls everything into one place.
Fly into Siem Reap-Angkor International (SAI) and give the town four nights. This is the heart of the trip and the reason most Americans come to Cambodia at all. Angkor is not one temple; it is a sprawling archaeological park covering hundreds of square kilometers, and three structured days lets you see the masterpieces without temple fatigue setting in. Buy a three-day Angkor pass — it is valid across a week, so a rest day in the middle costs you nothing.
Land, get to your hotel, and shake off the flight with a gentle first afternoon. If you arrive early enough, do the small circuit — the walled city of Angkor Thom with the giant carved faces of the Bayon, then Ta Prohm if there is light left. Many travelers save Angkor Wat itself for a sunrise the next morning. Either way, do not over-schedule day one; jet lag and tropical heat are a punishing combination, and Siem Reap rewards an easy first evening on Pub Street or at a quiet Khmer restaurant.
This is the marquee day. Be at Angkor Wat before dawn for the sunrise behind the central towers reflected in the pool — yes, with a few hundred others, but it earns its reputation. Explore the main temple as the crowds thin after sunrise, head back for breakfast, then take the Grand Circuit in the cooler late afternoon: Preah Khan, Neak Pean, and the tree-strangled ruins of Ta Prohm, the one made famous by the films. Mornings early, a long midday break, temples again from about 3 p.m. is the rhythm that works in any season.
Day three goes farther afield. Banteay Srei, about 45 minutes out, is the finest stone carving in the whole park — deep pink sandstone cut like lacework. Pair it with Beng Mealea, a vast, largely unrestored jungle temple about an hour beyond, where you clamber over collapsed galleries with almost nobody around. This is the day that gives you the adventure-movie version of Angkor, away from the crowds. Hire a driver for the day; it is the only practical way to reach both.
Day four is a flex day, and ten days earns you that luxury. Use it to slow down: a quieter outlying temple at dawn, a Khmer cooking class, the floating villages on the Tonle Sap, or simply the Old Market, a massage, and a long lunch before you move on. Your travel day to Phnom Penh is day five, so spend day four exactly how you wish you could on a tighter trip — unhurried, in one place, with nothing to catch.
Day five is your first travel day. The two cities are about 300 kilometers apart, and you have two sensible ways across. The fastest is a domestic flight — roughly 45 minutes in the air, which turns the day into a half-day and leaves you an afternoon in the capital. The cheapest and most popular is the express bus or minivan: comfortable air-conditioned coaches run the route in about six hours, usually leaving mid-morning. On a ten-day trip you can afford the bus and treat the window as the show — rice paddies, sugar palms, and roadside towns the whole way.
Whichever you pick, book the link a few days ahead in peak season, because flights sell out and the best bus times fill up. Our full breakdown of getting from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap and back lays out current prices, journey times, and which operators are worth booking, so you can lock the moves in your itinerary before you land.
Phnom Penh is a different trip from Siem Reap — a real, busy capital on the confluence of the Mekong and Tonle Sap rivers, with a heavier, more recent history. Two full days plus the arrival afternoon is the right amount. It is enough to cover the essential sights, sit with the harder ones, and still get a feel for the city over a riverside dinner before you head for the coast.
Start at the Royal Palace and the Silver Pagoda, ideally in the morning before the heat peaks — note the lunchtime closure and the dress code of covered shoulders and knees. Walk a few minutes to the National Museum, which holds the finest collection of Khmer sculpture anywhere and gives the Angkor temples you just saw a deeper context. In the late afternoon, the riverfront promenade along Sisowath Quay comes alive, and a sundowner over the Tonle Sap is the classic first evening in the capital.
Day seven is the hard, important one. The Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, a former school turned prison, and the Choeung Ek memorial — the best known of the killing fields — together tell the story of the Khmer Rouge years. The audio guides are excellent and humane. It is heavy, and most visitors find half a day is right, leaving the afternoon for something gentler: Wat Phnom, the Central Market dome, or the cafes and boutiques around the Bassac lane. Be kind to yourself with the pacing here, and let a slow river dinner close the city out.
This is what ten days unlocks over a tight week, and it is the stretch first-timers remember most. Day eight is your second travel day, heading south. You have three coastal options, and the right one depends on what kind of slow you want. Kampot and Kep, about three to four hours by road, are the low-key choice — a sleepy riverside pepper town and a tiny crab-market seaside village, all faded colonial shophouses and green hills. The islands off Sihanoukville — Koh Rong Sanloem above all — are the postcard beaches: a short flight or bus to the coast, then a ferry across to white sand and clear water.
For a first trip, Kampot and Kep are the gentler, more characterful pick, and the easier logistics back to the airport. The islands win on pure beach but cost you a ferry and tighter boat schedules at each end — workable, but plan the return with a buffer. Whichever you choose, days nine and ten are deliberately unstructured: a sunset river cruise on the Kampot estuary, fresh Kep crab with green peppercorns, a hammock and a book on a quiet beach, a scooter loop through the pepper farms. After Angkor and the weight of Phnom Penh, the coast is the exhale the trip is built around.
Plan the coastal leg with your flight home in mind: international departures all run through Phnom Penh now, so leave yourself a clear travel morning on day ten to get back. If the beach is the part you are most excited about, our guide to Cambodia beaches and islands for a first trip compares Kampot, Kep, and the islands in detail so you can pick the one that fits your ten days.
A pacing note for the whole trip: the heat is real, and the single best move on any of these ten days is to front-load the morning. Temples, palaces, and pepper farms are all better before 10 a.m.; the midday hours are for lunch, shade, a pool, or a long iced coffee. Build the day around that and you come home rested rather than wrecked. The travelers who try to power through the afternoon sun are the ones who lose a day to it.
Confirm your ten-day window so the eVisa, valid 3 months from issue, comfortably covers your trip.
Submit online about two to three weeks out — $80 USD all-in, approved in 3 business days.
It arrives by email as a printable PDF granting a 30-day single-entry stay; print it and pack it.
A separate step — 14 fields, $5, submitted online within 7 days before you land.
Land at Siem Reap (SAI) to start; with all 7 Thailand land borders closed, do not plan to cross overland.
A perfect itinerary is worthless if you cannot board the plane. Americans need a visa for Cambodia, and the easiest route by far is the eVisa, sorted online before you leave home. A Tourist eVisa is $80 USD all-in, approved in 3 business days, valid for 3 months from the date it is issued, and gives you a 30-day single-entry stay — comfortably more than a ten-day trip needs. It arrives as a printable PDF by email; print it, pack it, and you are set for immigration.
Two timing details matter. First, the tourist auto-extension ended in November 2025, so the 30-day stay is now a firm ceiling — not a concern for ten days, but worth knowing if your plans grow. Second, the eVisa is only half the entry paperwork. The Cambodia e-Arrival Card is a separate, mandatory step: 14 fields covering your flight, your first night, and a customs declaration, submitted online within 7 days before you arrive. You cannot file it earlier than that window, so the smart move is a phone reminder for the week you fly.
Sequence it like this: apply for the eVisa once your dates are firm — about two to three weeks out is the sweet spot — then handle the e-Arrival Card in the final week. If you are still weighing whether ten days is right for you, our guide on how many days you really need in Cambodia compares a week, ten days, and two weeks so you can commit before you book the flights.
This three-base plan is the cleanest version, but ten days is flexible. If history and city life pull you more than beaches, give Phnom Penh a third full day and the coast just two. If you would rather go deeper into the temples, add Battambang — the laid-back river town with its bamboo train and cave temples — as a stop on the way south instead of the coast. And if you are short on energy after Angkor, there is no shame in dropping a travel day and spending the saved time slowing down somewhere you already are.
Two things to lock in regardless of how you shuffle the days. First, the season: the dry months from November to March are the easy ones, with cooler mornings and clear skies, while the green season trades crowds for heat and afternoon rain — picking the best time of year to visit Cambodia makes those early temple starts far more bearable. Second, the small stuff that smooths a first trip — cash, SIM cards, dress codes, tipping, tuk-tuk fares — is worth a skim before you go.
For everything practical on the ground, our rundown of things to know before a first trip to Cambodia covers the habits and small surprises that catch Americans out, and if ten days starts to feel tight against your wish list, the same logic scales — a week-long version trims the coast, while two weeks adds Battambang or a longer island stay without rushing anything.
When your ten days are mapped, the visa is the simple part: a $80 USD Tourist eVisa, approved in 3 business days, delivered as a printable PDF by email, with free resubmission if Immigration flags a correction and US-timezone support if you get stuck. When your dates firm up, apply for your Cambodia eVisa, then set a reminder for the e-Arrival Card the week before you fly. If a week is all the time you have, our shorter 7-day Cambodia itinerary for Americans shows how to trim this plan down without losing the heart of it.
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