Planning a family trip to Cambodia? TripNest turns it into its own app: 10 narrated story podcasts about Cambodia for the drive, games and a quiz for the kids, an audio phrasebook, and the day-by-day plan and map the whole family shares.
Made by TripNest's own "Plan my days for me" for a family with kids aged 5 to 12 who love castles and history, animals, food and nature. Start from it as it is, or let the planner build one around your family.
Route: Siem Reap, Tonlé Sap lake and Beng Mealea
Cambodia works best for kids from about six up. Older children love scrambling over the fallen stones at Beng Mealea and spotting the tree roots swallowing Ta Prohm, and they can manage the steep temple steps. Toddlers are harder. Strollers are little use on uneven sandstone and dirt paths, so bring a carrier and keep temple visits short, with plenty of shade and snack breaks.
Aim for November to February, when it's dry and a bit cooler. December and January are the busiest months at Angkor Wat, though. March to May is very hot, and April is the hardest month for little ones. The rains run roughly from June to October, often as afternoon downpours. In those months the countryside turns green and Tonlé Sap swells. By the end of the dry season, the lake is much lower.
In Siem Reap you'll mostly ride tuk-tuks. These are open-sided carriages pulled by a motorbike, and kids tend to love them. They have no seatbelts, though, and little room for big bags. For Beng Mealea, the temples north of town and Tonlé Sap, it's easier to hire a car with a driver for the day. You get air conditioning, room for naps and somewhere to leave your things between stops.
Cambodians are very warm with children. Strangers may want to hold your baby, pinch cheeks or take photos. If your child isn't keen, it's fine to smile and say no. Plan your days around the heat the way locals do. See temples early in the morning, take a long lunch and rest through the hottest hours, then head back out in the late afternoon.
General guidance for planning - check current conditions and official travel advice before you book.
Inside Angkor Wat
Nine hundred years ago, thousands of workers floated sandstone blocks down canals to build a temple so big you can see it from space. There are no cranes in this story - just rafts, ropes, elephants and a lot of patience. Find out why its towers are shaped like lotus buds, and why it faces the wrong way.
The faces of the Bayon
Walk into the Bayon temple and you get the strange feeling you're being watched - because you are, by more than 200 enormous stone faces. Nobody is completely sure whose face it is. We'll look at the best guesses and let you pick your favourite.
Ta Prohm and its giant trees
A tiny seed landed in a crack in a temple roof, and 300 years later the tree is holding the building up and pulling it apart at the same time. Should people cut the trees down to save the stones, or leave them? Even the experts argue about it.
Tonlé Sap, inside out
Twice a year a whole river reverses, and Southeast Asia's biggest lake swells to five times its size. Whole villages float on the water, with floating schools, floating shops and floating basketball courts. We'll meet the fish that made it all possible.
The secrets of apsara dance
Dancers spend years learning just four hand shapes, and every curve of a finger means something: a leaf, a flower, a fruit. The same dances are carved into the walls at Angkor, so you can compare a stone dancer with a living one. Try the hand positions while you listen.
What's cooking in a Khmer kitchen
In Cambodia, plenty of people start the day with num banh chok - rice noodles under a pale green fish curry, piled with raw leaves and banana flower. Then there's amok, steamed inside a folded banana leaf like a little parcel. We'll explain what to try first and what the lime-salt-pepper dip on your table is for.
Cambodia's wild side
Round-headed Irrawaddy dolphins surface in the Mekong for about one second at a time, so you have to watch very carefully. In the eastern hills, elephants that used to haul logs now spend their days eating bananas and splashing in rivers. Here's how to spot wildlife without bothering it.
Giant leather puppets and old stories
Some Cambodian puppets are taller than a grown-up and take weeks to cut out of leather. At night, behind a white screen and a fire, they come alive as monkeys, princes and giant birds from the Reamker story. One puppeteer moves and dances the whole puppet with two sticks.
Pagodas, monks and Khmer New Year
Before the sun is properly up, lines of monks in orange robes walk through town with metal bowls, and people step out to offer rice. We'll explain what's happening, how to be a polite visitor at a pagoda, and why April means water fights, chalk powder and village games.
Markets, river and city life
A huge yellow dome, a maze of stalls underneath it, and somewhere in there a man selling fried crickets. Phnom Penh sits where two great rivers meet, and the riverside fills up every evening with kites, football and street food. We'll plan the perfect city day - tuk-tuk included.
Siem Reap / Phnom Penh / Battambang / Kampot
It has no colours / It is the only one showing a building / It is square / It changes shape
Hinduism / Buddhism / Christianity
The Cambodia podcast has 10 narrated story episodes for the car or the plane: The City That Took 30 Years to Build, Two Hundred Smiles in the Stone, When the Jungle Won, The Lake That Changes Its Mind, Fingers Like Flower Petals, Breakfast Is a Bowl of Noodles, Dolphins, Elephants and Hornbills, Shadows on a Bedsheet, Orange Robes and Morning Bells and A Day in Phnom Penh.
"អរគុណ", said or-kun. It's one of the phrases in the Cambodia audio phrasebook, recorded so the kids can hear it before they try it.
112 (Europe & much of the world) and 911 (US, Canada & parts of the Americas). TripNest puts it in your trip's contacts page next to your own contacts.
Every trip starts free: the day-by-day plan, map and contacts. Premium adds the Cambodia podcasts, kids' games and the audio phrasebook for $24 (£19 in the UK, A$36 in Australia), once per trip - no subscription.
No. Your trip is one link that opens on everyone's phone, grandparents included, without an account. You can add it to your home screen so it works offline once you land.