First Trip to Cambodia: A 10-Day Itinerary for Americans

Days 5-7: the move south and Phnom Penh

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.

Day 6 — Royal Palace, National Museum, riverfront

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 7 — Tuol Sleng and Choeung Ek

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.

Days 8-10: the southern coast and slowing down

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.

The visa and arrival card you need before any of this

1. 1
   Lock your dates

   Confirm your ten-day window so the eVisa, valid 3 months from issue, comfortably covers your trip.

2. 2
   Apply for the Tourist eVisa

   Submit online about two to three weeks out — $80 USD all-in, approved in 3 business days.

3. 3
   Print the eVisa PDF

   It arrives by email as a printable PDF granting a 30-day single-entry stay; print it and pack it.

4. 4
   File the e-Arrival Card

   A separate step — 14 fields, $5, submitted online within 7 days before you land.

5. 5
   Fly into Cambodia

   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.

One more arrival fact that catches first-timers in 2026: all seven Thailand-Cambodia land borders have been closed since June 2025. If your wider Southeast Asia plan involved crossing overland from Bangkok, that route is off the table right now — fly into Cambodia instead, into Siem Reap or Phnom Penh. For a trip flown in and out, none of that touches you, but it is the question we field most from travelers stitching countries together.

Variations, and making your ten days count

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.