Cambodia from Bangkok

Entry rules

Both routes give you 30 days, according to Smartraveller's advice checked on 26 October 2026. Longer stays need a visa arranged through an embassy or consulate before you travel.

The e-visa is more expensive than visa on arrival, and that's the trade: you pay a premium to have the paperwork settled before you reach a counter. At an airport, arrival is easy enough that the premium buys little. At a land border, it buys a lot.

Overstaying is treated seriously here. Cambodian immigration can stop you leaving until fines are paid, and excessive overstays can lead to detention. This is not a country to be vague about your exit date.

Who needs a visa, by passport

Cambodia is the same for everyone on this page: a visa is required, and there is no exemption for Western passports.

Two routes, both 30 days. The e-visa is applied for online at least four days before you travel. Visa on arrival is available at airports and land crossings, and you need a passport photo and US dollars in cash.

One thing that catches everyone regardless of nationality: since 1 September 2024 Cambodia requires an electronic Arrival Card if you're flying into Phnom Penh, Siem Reap or Sihanoukville. It's free, and you submit it within seven days before arrival.

Getting there from Bangkok

By air, Phnom Penh is roughly an hour and ten minutes and Siem Reap about an hour. Both have direct flights from Bangkok, so Angkor is genuinely a weekend trip rather than an expedition.

By land, the route is Bangkok to Aranyaprathet on the Thai side, cross to Poipet, then road transport onward — usually a shared taxi or bus to Siem Reap, around two to three hours depending on the road and the season.

The train from Bangkok to Aranyaprathet is cheap and slow and leaves early. It's a good way to do the crossing once, and a tiring way to do it twice.

When to go

The wet season is underrated here. Rain arrives in the afternoon and stops, the temples are quiet, and the light is better than in the dry months. What it does disrupt is rural roads, so if you're heading to remote temples or the coast, add slack to your plans.

What I haven't covered

What things cost

These are scraped from Numbeo on 26 October 2026 and converted at the rates in the sources. Numbeo is crowd-sourced, not a price list, so treat each figure as the level you should expect rather than a quote. It's the best independent comparison available, and it's honest about being an average.

Compare against Bangkok on the Southeast Asia hub — it's the baseline most people reading this site are working from.

The cost table above is crowd-sourced, not first-hand — I've labelled it that way because this site's other pages quote our own receipts and this one can't. What's still missing is accommodation and flight pricing, and I'd rather leave that gap visible than fill it with numbers nobody can check.