Sihanoukville
Sihanoukville is the port for Koh Rong and Samloem, and one night here the evening before the ferry is the honest use of it. Ream National Park, eighteen kilometres east, is the one thing recommended without caveats.
Sihanoukville in a nutshell
Sihanoukville: what to expect
Our own data here is 164,000+ stops planned across Cambodia on Stippl.
Sihanoukville is a deep-water port with an airport attached, and the honest reason to be here is the ferry. Seven in ten of the trips that carry the town also carry Koh Rong, and four in ten carry Koh Rong Samloem. Ream National Park is eighteen kilometres east with mangrove forest and more than 150 recorded bird species, and it is the one thing nearby that gets recommended without a caveat. The dive schools are in town and their sites are an hour or two offshore.
Sihanoukville is the only Cambodian destination the plans read as transited rather than chosen. It turns up on fewer trips than its share of the country's stops would predict, which is true of nowhere else here, and travellers write it down twice on the same trip more often than any other stop: out to the islands and back again.
So plan the night here around the boat rather than the beach. The practical case for sleeping in Sihanoukville is arriving the evening before a ferry that leaves early, and that is what most people are doing. Do not plan on swimming: every guide says the same thing, which is to wait for the islands. Give the town an afternoon only if the story interests you, because a purpose-built port that boomed and crashed in four years is genuinely worth looking at.
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Anyone catching a ferry
Sihanoukville is the port for Koh Rong and Samloem, and most people give it 1 night on the way to the boat.
Anyone who missed the boat
The practical case for a night here is a missed connection: arrive the evening before your ferry and it stops being a problem.
Birders with a spare day
Ream National Park is 18 km east with mangrove forest and over 150 recorded bird species, and it is the one nearby thing recommended without caveats.
Divers heading offshore
The dive schools are based in the town and the sites are one to two hours out by boat, deliberately far from the coastal water.
Travellers arriving by air
The international airport has regional routes, which makes it a reasonable entry point to the islands even if the town is not the destination.
Maybe not for you: swimmers, who should wait for the islands; solo travellers at night; families; anyone looking for the beach town in an older guidebook, because it is gone; and anyone who would rather not spend money in a place with this recent labour and land record.
The best time to visit Sihanoukville
Dry season
November to April
Calm sea, running ferries and the only season any of this works. The town's season is the islands' season; nobody comes here for the town.
Wet season
June to September
The wettest stretch anywhere in Cambodia, with crossings cancelled and the town at its least appealing. A transit night, at most.
The shoulders
May and October
Usable and cheaper, and a weekly gamble on the sea. Check the ferry the morning of, not the week before.
- January is the month most travellers plan Sihanoukville for on Stippl, about 79 days ahead. 19.4% of Sihanoukville plans are made inside a fortnight, less seasonal than either island, which is what a transit point looks like.
- Sihanoukville's year has two dates and both are national ones. Khmer New Year in mid April fills the beaches with Cambodian families and Bon Om Touk in October or November passes with a boat race; there is no local festival to plan around.
- The ferry is the reason to be here and the ferry decides the day. The fast boats to Koh Rong and Samloem leave from the port in the morning; in the wet season a cancellation means a night in town, so book the room and the boat together.
- Khmer New Year in mid April turns the town into a domestic resort. The beaches fill with families from Phnom Penh and the island boats sell out; the week either side is normal.
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Things to do in Sihanoukville
The ferry to the islands
Take the fast boat to Koh Rong or Koh Rong Samloem from the port, about €20 return, forty-five minutes, the thing the town is for. Morning departures in the dry season; check the sea the day before in the wet.
Ream National Park
Take a boat through the mangrove forest and along the quiet beaches eighteen kilometres east, with over 150 bird species, about €25 with the ranger, the one thing near the town recommended without qualification.
Kbal Chhay waterfalls
Ride thirty minutes out by motorbike to the tiered falls, about €1, best in the wet season and rarely in guidebooks. A swim in the lower pool, and the local families at weekends.
Diving the offshore sites
Dive from the schools in town on sites one to two hours out, deliberately beyond the coastal water, about €80 for two dives. The visibility improves with the distance.
Otres and the beaches south
Take a tuk-tuk to what remains of the beaches south of the port, Otres and Ream, for a swim before the boat, free. The town's own beaches are not the reason to be here.
Looking at what happened here
Spend an afternoon walking the purpose-built casino city that boomed for four years, lost its licence and crashed, leaving over 1,200 unfinished towers; it is a legitimate reason to look. Free, and unlike anywhere else in the country.
The neighbourhoods of Sihanoukville
Otres
The old backpacker strip
Three to five kilometres south: historically the backpacker strip and now a building site with the surviving guesthouses among the cranes, with the beach still usable. For budget travellers who must stay a night.
The remaining cheap beds by the sand, and construction on every side.
Serendipity
Casinos, hotel towers, the piers
The casino and hotel district around Serendipity Beach: high-rise, Chinese-oriented, with the ferry agents, the banks and the bus arrivals. For a night before a boat and for nothing else.
The piers and the buses at the door, and the town every warning is about.
Independence Beach
Big hotels, private sand
The beach west of the centre where the large hotels keep private, cleaned strips of sand, the exception to the town's beaches. For a hotel with a pool and a clean beach the night before the islands.
A clean beach and a pool, and a resort's prices in a town nobody stays in.
Ream
Mangroves, quiet beaches, the park
About eighteen kilometres east: the national park's mangrove forest, quiet beaches and a few lodges, outside the town entirely. For the one good reason to have a spare day here.
The park and the quiet, and a taxi to the piers.
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Where to stay in Sihanoukville
Book near your ferry and for one night: Serendipity has the ferry agents, the banks and the bus arrivals, and that is the only reason to sleep here. 58.8% of Sihanoukville stops planned on Stippl are a single night. If you must stay longer, pay above your usual tier for a walled property with a pool, away from the construction; availability is never the problem.
Otres
The surviving low-rise guesthouses among the cranes, €10 to €40, with the beach still in front of some of them.
Serendipity
High-rise hotels built for package groups, €20 to €60, cheap, plentiful and next to the ferry agents.
Independence Beach
Large hotels with pools and private cleaned sand, €60 to €150, the exception to the town's beaches.
Ream
A few lodges and bungalows by the national park, €25 to €80, outside the town entirely.
What to eat in Sihanoukville
The coast's default: grilled fish, squid and prawns, historically on the sand
Amok, lok lak, fried rice, on the English menus that remain
The largest category in town by some distance, and oriented to Chinese tourists rather than Western ones
Where sources send people who are staying one night, the recommendation is explicitly to eat where you sleep
Local and cheap, in the parts of town visitors do not usually reach
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Sihanoukville customs and what not to do
Cambodians largely lost here
In their own town: local businesses were bought cheaply and demolished and the work went to imported labour; the people still here are the ones who stayed, and they will say so.
Locals call it Kampong Som
The pre-1950s name for the area is still the everyday one; use it with a tuk-tuk driver and the conversation changes.
The domestic trade stayed
Cambodian families still use the beaches, particularly at Khmer New Year, and Otres on a holiday weekend is theirs; a shirt on and a greeting is what a guest does.
The settlements are homes
The tarpaulin camps of construction workers are people's houses, not a sight; do not photograph them, and do not treat the reporting about them as an invitation.
Do
- Confirm your pier and your ferry the day before
- Arrange transport after dark rather than walking
- Take a day at Ream National Park if you are stuck here
- Withdraw cash here; there is none on the islands
Don't
- Swim at the town beaches; wait for the islands
- Walk alone at night, especially on the road between Otres beach and Otres village
- Come expecting the beach town in an older guidebook
- Buy drugs here
What a Sihanoukville trip costs
Budget
€12–22
A dorm near the ferry, market food, one tuk-tuk.
Mid-range
€40–80
One of the resort-style properties with a pool and a wall around it.
High-end
€80+
A high-rise hotel room, most of them built for a different market.
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Fun facts about Sihanoukville
Sihanoukville has no older town underneath it. It was purpose-built as Cambodia's deep-water port after independence in the late 1950s, with French technical help, and named for the reigning king.
The number of casinos halved in a single year, from more than 70 to 36. The August 2019 ban on online gambling emptied them, and at least 7,000 Cambodian jobs went with it.
Over 1,200 unfinished buildings were still standing in the province in 2025. A building-safety review flagged them as a serious risk from poor materials and weather exposure, and the ghost towers are the town's defining view.
Sihanoukville records 3,217 mm of rain a year, 70% more than Kampot. Its weather station is also the one used for both Cambodian islands, so an island forecast is really a mainland one.
Sihanoukville is the only Cambodian stop travellers pass through rather than choose. On Stippl it appears on fewer trips than its position on the road would predict, while every other destination in the country does better.
Around 80,000 Chinese nationals moved in between 2016 and 2019. Most worked in online gambling, and most left within months of the ban, which is why the town changed twice in five years.
Local tips for Sihanoukville
Plan around the ferry
It is the reason to be here. The piers differ by operator and not every boat serves both islands; check the pier on the ticket and take the morning sailing.
Leave Phnom Penh in the morning
If the timings do not line up, take a night here rather than risk missing the boat. From Kampot it is two hours by road or rail and a same-day transit.
Most people do not stay
58.8% of stops are a single night and a third are none at all; the town is a transit. Otres and the beaches south are the swim before the boat.
Do not walk Otres road late
The stretch between Otres beach and Otres village is named specifically as one not to walk after midnight. A tuk-tuk through PassApp, not a walk.
Drugs carry an unusual risk
Travellers have been imprisoned, assaulted and killed over them in this town, and cheap heroin has killed. The nightlife is not the reason to be here.
The water is not for swimming
Run-off and rubbish on the town beaches are described consistently; wait for the islands. The crime has changed with the population and is mostly between the casino operators now.
Sihanoukville questions, answered
As a transfer rather than a stop. Sihanoukville ranks 7th among Cambodian stops planned on Stippl, and nearly all of that is people catching a boat: the Koh Rong ferries leave from here. Kampot is two hours away, so put it into Stippl as a connection rather than a night.
Not for its own sake. 31.00% of Sihanoukville stops planned on Stippl carry no night at all, the highest share in Cambodia by a wide margin, which is what a place people pass through looks like. The islands off the coast are the actual destination.
One night, and only if the bus and the ferry refuse to connect. 58.8% of Sihanoukville stops planned on Stippl are a single night, the highest share in Cambodia. There is very little here that a second night would improve on.
A casino and construction boom remade it in a few years, then a ban on online gambling pulled the money straight back out and the building stopped mid-frame. What is left is a town of half-finished towers and wide empty streets, slowly being finished again. Genuinely interesting, and not a beach holiday.
It carries the strongest warnings of anywhere in Cambodia, and the consistent advice is not to walk alone at night. Most reported crime sits inside the resident casino community rather than being aimed at travellers, but that does not change the advice. Take a tuk-tuk after dark and stay near the port.
Ream National Park, a short drive east: mangrove channels, empty beaches and serious birdlife, and the one thing near the town that gets recommended without a caveat. A boat trip through the mangroves fills a morning nicely if you are stuck waiting on a ferry.
Every guide is written by the Stippl editors and checked against the trips our travellers actually plan. Spotted something out of date? Let us know.
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