Lying in the monsoon zone, Cambodia is warm/hot with two distinct seasons like other Southeast Asian countries. When is the best time to visit Cambodia? When is the peak season for Siem Reap? What to wear and what to beware of? You will get the answers from the following information…
Best Time to Visit
In general, Cambodia is hot for the whole year with an average temperature of 31 °C (88 °F). After October, the end of the rainy season, rainfall decreases dramatically, and the peak travel season for Cambodia starts. From November to February, visitors can enjoy the coolest breeze and the lowest rainfall of the year.
Phnom Penh
The temperature in Phnom Penh is high all year round and hardly varies between day and night. Monthly average low/high temperatures range from 22 to 35°C (72–95 °F).
The most comfortable time to visit the capital Phnom Penh is from November to February. At this time of year, you can not only enjoy the cool breeze after the rain but also the pleasant humidity.
From May to October, Phnom Penh is influenced by the moisture carried in the wind from the southwest sea, which brings rainfall and humidity.
From November to March, Phnom Penh is dry, influenced by the northeast wind across the land.






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Trip-of-a-lifetime
In addition, I want to specifically mention the guides provided in certain locations. Rum, in Siem Reap, made the most memorable experience possible. His positivity was contagious - even when it felt like 1000 degrees and we were tired. He brought it all to life, and created a couple days of Ankor Wat, etc. that we will never forget! He heard my daughter's request for specific Cambodian food, and changed our itinerary to go to a village and eat at a locally known shop. He brought the dessert she asked about to us in the car! Overall, he and his driver "Lucky" were a reason to go to Siem Reap. In addition, the other guides (minus one which was switched out immediately) were stupendous. Mon in Bangkok was friendly and provided a great day there; Eak in Chiang Mai gave us a world-class food-tour and day touring the city and its surrounding temples with lots of laughs; Tommy in Hanoi kept us from getting killed in the traffic and gave a stupendous food and architecture/history tour - so very friendly and funny; the fishing village tour in Hoi An, as well as the side-car tour in Saigon, were both unforgettable! Thank you Sharon, and Asia Highlights. Would definitely use again for future trips! More
Teri Simpson,
Apr 2023
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Cambodia and Vietnam adventure!
Our guide in Cambodia, Meas Darapolaith (Pol), was absolutely amazing. He was knowledgeable, friendly and so helpful. His English was excellent and he shared important insights about history and the magnificent sites we visited. We highly recommend him! More
Jennifer Roth Krieger,
Apr 2023
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My daughter and I wanted to discover SE…
My daughter and I wanted to discover SE Asia. Being the first in that region, we wanted to use a tour service company. We ended up using Asia Highlights. From the beginning we were impressed with their services. We left home with of mind because all the pre-travel arrangements were taking care and communicate to us efficiently. All our questions were answered promptly. Once in the countries, we were welcome by our excellent tour guides. Everything was taking care for us. We did not have one issue. They selected the right tours guides for us, they were highly knowledgeable and so much attentive to our needs. We had Dhat in Vietnam and Borin in Siem Reap, Cambodia. I highly recommend Asia Highlights. I came back home so much rested, and with plenty of wonderful pictures and memories. I will definitely use Asia Highlights again for my next trip to Asia. More
Isabelle Dessaux,
Apr 2023
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Fabulous tour and guide in Cambodia
We have been touring Cambodia, guided by Borin ( and driver 007) for the last 2 days. What a fabulous experience! Borin has been a wonderful guide, the best so far in Southeast Asia, explaining the history and culture of Cambodia through his tours of the temples in and around Angkor, as well as the Landmine museum. He has answered all our questions, made sure we were comfortable, and that we have had great food. 007 made sure we always had enough water and cool towels for our face/neck.We highly recommend Borin as a tour guide for Cambodia!! More
Monica,
Mar 2023
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Best Travel Service for Asia Travel
Alisa Liu was in charge of making the arrangements and she helped us from the start to make all of the arrangements and also helped us when we had questions and requested some adjustments. Her service is of the highest professional level. We are 100% confident that our trip will be perfect. We’re also 100% confident that, if anything comes up during our trip, that Alisa will be there to guide us through and take care of us. We won’t even consider using another agency for travel around Asia and we would like to have Alisa work for us again. More
Leo Pospichal,
Mar 2023
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Tour of Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Thailand
The tour guides and drivers were another high point. All were very good, friendly, knowledgeable and spoke English well. There were two that I want to call out for their excellence. Chan Sovannarith in Siem Reap was our guide in Cambodia. He really made the experience special. His knowledge, willingness to answer all my questions, helpfulness and general attitude made him fun to be around. In order to praise the second exceptional guide I have to explain about an unfortunate occurrence that I had. I'm normally a very active senior, but after leaving Cambodia for Laos I was suddenly struck by the most intense back pain I've ever experienced, couldn't even roll over in bed (turned out to be sciatica). The guide, Mr. Sonophet, really went the extra mile. He went with my traveling companion and bought a back brace and medications for me. When that didn't help much he took me to a clinic where I was seen by a doctor, given a shot and pain meds. He hand-made a walking stick for me that I'm still using! He made it possible for me to somewhat participate in the activities, i.e. a bed on the boat down the river. When it was time to move on to Bangkok he got me a wheelchair at the airport. I can't thank him enough for these kindnesses! This problem lasted for the remainder of the trip, through Bangkok and Phuket and these guides were also very helpful getting wheelchairs, etc. It was a terrible disappointment to have this wonderful trip disrupted, but it would have been SO much worse without the great help that I received from the guides and my poor travel companion! More
Deb M,
Mar 2023
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In good hands with Sam
Sam Ol took very good care of us - lots of information, listened to and answered all our questions, was passionate about the places we visited and about his people and country. He was kind, had a great sense of humor, and made sure we felt safe and comfortable at all times. He helped us to fall in love with Cambodia in 3 short days. More
Carol Jones,
Feb 2023
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Best tour guide in Cambodia
When we first arrived at the airport in Siem Riep it was so nice to be greeted by Mr Sam Ol. We instantly fell at home when we saw his friendly smile. We were impressed by his great English and knowledge of the temples. On the tour to the temples Sam took care of us every step of the way. He took awesome pictures of us. It felt like we were on a tour given by our brother who is also a professional photographer. Also, we appreciate his humor as well as the fact he had an answer for every question we had. I give Sam 5 stars, best tour guide ever :) More
Len S,
Feb 2023
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Mr. Sam
Mr. Sam our guide in Cambodia, he and the driver out standing service they went above and beyond touring, my wife so amazed beautiful country, we're planning back here near the futures. Thank Mr. Sam,We'll feedback the whole trip next week when we be home in US More
Pho Lover,
Feb 2023
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Vietnam/Cambodia/Thailand
We are still in the middle of our trip, but we are just finishing up our time in Cambodia and our guide, Borin, has been AMAZING!!! He has truly made our time here unforgettable and I plan on referring all of my friends and family to come visit this beautiful country! Thank you, Borin, for everything you did to make our trip so fantastic! More
Danielle Blount,
Feb 2023
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Excellent service and Wonderful Guides
All of our guides have been terrific. Mr. Sam in Siem Reip was especially wonderful. Both he and our driver were polite, safe knowledgable and informative. Sam made our trip memorable and enioyable. We will definitely recommend Sam and Asia Highlights to our friends. More
Kaaren,
Feb 2023
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Great tour guide Charity at Siem Reap
Our experience in Siem Reap could not have been any better thanks to our outstanding and cheerful guide, Charity. Her very good English speaking made it so easy to learn so much from her. She understood and answers all of our questions.She was relaxed and very knowledgeable. She went out out her way to help us make amazing pano photos of the cotton trees at Siem Reap and on our sunset cruise. She also advised us on Chanrey Tree restaurant—what we found to be the very best vegan restaurant on our first three weeks of our Asia tour. So glad to have vegan meals with very little oil!!! We are not supposed to have oil and is very hard to find vegan with no oil. Went went back the next night. More
Barbara Cornyn,
Jan 2023
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Best guide and driver in Cambodia
Mr Rum takes his profession very seriously and enriches the visits with his depth of knowledge and his interesting and relevant stories. He is a great story teller. More importantly, he is a nice person who we very much enjoyed getting to know in our short time together. Both he and Thary have winning smiles. They are easy to be around and fun to spend time with. It’s not surprising that Mr Rum has maintained contact and friendships with many previous clients. More
John Mullin,
Jan 2023
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Charity and Cambodia were amazing!
We had a fantastic time in Siem Reap. Charity was our tour guide and was the best! She brought knowledge and enthusiasm as she took us around. She was friendly, warm and open making our tour and experience in Siem Reap so wonderful. She gave us awesome suggestions for us to do at the end of the day such as go see a dance performance or visit the night market as well as an early morning activities like watch the sunrise from a hot air balloon. It was magical and we are so grateful to Charity for making this such a memorable trip. She also gave us great suggestion for food and went far and beyond to make sure our vegetarian and food requirements were met. Our driver and car was fantastic as well. We had the best time in Cambodia and would love to visit again. We recommend visiting and having Charity as their tour guide to anyone who has the opportunity to come! More
Prema,
Jan 2023
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Amazing tour of Cambodia with excellent…
Amazing tour of Cambodia with excellent guide Luch.. Luch was very knowledgeable and took an extra mile to explain us the Angkorwat sculptures.. the private car was very comfortable.. well planned .. we loved Cambodia and would definitely recommend my friends.. Asia highlights are the best More
Koustuv Sarkar,
Jan 2023
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Our rep in Cambodia Chan Sovannarith…
Our rep in Cambodia Chan Sovannarith was very attentive and accommodated my daughter not feeling well by taking us to a chemist to get medication for her. I highly recommend Chan as a rep with Asian highlights he did an excellent job when taking us back to the airport he literally waited to make sure we were all set for our flight to Chang Mai in Thailand. I felt safe knowing he was there incase there were issues. Again, great rep. Thank you!! More
Karen Brooks,
Dec 2022
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We enjoyed our trip VERY much
We enjoyed our trip very much. Our guide, Mr. Polrith is very knowledgeable and provided insightful information about the history, culture and religions of the country. Temples of Cambodia are amazing. They are more beautiful than you can imagine. Thank you so much Mr.Polrith and see you next time More
Tugba Balc,
Dec 2022
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A truly magical experience
You measure the quality of a tour company with how they handle the bumps along the way. Encountering unexpected baggage fees from Cambodia Angkor Air in Siem Reap.Albee without hesitation agreed to cover this cost. More
Bob Bosshard,
Mar 2020
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Great trip with Asia Highlights
We had already booked two trips in China with China Highlights. Both trips were a great experience. So when planning our trip to Cambodia we immediately thought of Asia Highlights because they offer a trip to Vietnam More
Frank & Nadia,
Nov 2019
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Asia Highlights is perfection
My husband and I just returned from an 8 week trip thoughout China- Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam and also Singapore and Phuket. I worked with Ruby of Asia Highlights for months designing my dream independant private trip. More
Barb,
May 2019
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Siem Reap (Angkor Wat)
Siem Reap has a dry and wet season. The average high temperature in Siem Reap is always up to 31 °C (88 °F), and the temperature during January and February varies greatly between the daytime and nighttime with a change of more than 11°C (20 °F).
Angkor Wat should be on your itinerary when traveling to Cambodia. If you go to Siem Reap in January or February, you should have the most pleasant weather of the year.
If you want to explore Angkor Wat from a different perspective, and to reduce your expenses, going there in the rainy season is another option. After being washed by the rain, the moist trees and stones have a more primitive color and texture.
The rainy season in Siem Reap starts from May and ends in October, and about 88% of the rainfall for the whole year is concentrated in these months. During the dry season from November to April, the rainfall decreases greatly and the humidity is much lower.


Recommended Itinerary
Sihanoukville
Sihanoukville, a beautiful coastal city of Cambodia, provides you with a totally different experience from Siem Reap and Phnom Penh.
In Sihanoukville, the relative humidity is high throughout the year. From December to March, you can have the finest weather and the cleanest sky to enjoy your beach vacation.
In Sihanoukville, the temperature only varies very slightly throughout the year, with changes of 3 to 8°C (5to 14 °F).The average low temperature is always higher than 24 °C (75°F).
The wet season arrives earlier than it does in Phnom Penh and Siem Reap, starting in April and ending in November. Rainfall reaches its peak in August, influenced by the southwest monsoon and tropical cyclones.


What to Wear
Since the temperature in Cambodia is always high, you can wear summer clothes all year round.
But to show respect, miniskirts, shorts, vests, and slippers are not allowed when you visit Angkor Wat.
Sun protection: In the dry season, the daylight hours are always long. To prevent your skin from being directly exposed to the burning sunshine, you need to take some light clothing with long sleeves and always put sunscreen and sunglasses on.
When you go to Cambodia in the rainy season, besides summer clothes, a pair of waterproof sandals and other waterproof gear should be on your list.
Continue to read more information on Best Time to Visit Cambodia
What to Beware Of
In order to avoid the sudden change of temperature and bacteria exposure, and to adapt your stomach to the food in Cambodia, you should always eat cooked food rather than raw food during the first few days to avoid diarrhea.
The high occurrence of mosquito-borne dengue fever in Cambodia tends to happen between the months of May and October, and the prevalence of dengue fever in Cambodia has increased in recent years. Suffers usually recover in a week, but is potentially fatal if severe bleeding develops. There's no vaccine yet.
Malaria, a mosquito-borne potentially fatal disease, has a high risk of incidence in Cambodia during the rainy season, as the temperature and humidity increases the breeding rate of the mosquitoes. There is no vaccine for malaria, though preventative drugs are recommended for short term visitors, taken from 2 weeks before to 4 weeks after a trip.
The risk of catching malaria and dengue can be reduced by preventing mosquito bites, by using mosquito nets and mosquito repellent.
Every year there is severe flooding around Tonle Sap and large rivers during the rainy season: August, September, and October. Be careful if you plan to go to Cambodia during these months.
Cambodia Weather By Month
Learn about the weather in Cambodia for 12 months and the best places to visit each month.
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