Everybody flies into Siem Reap for the temples and books two nights. Then they spend one sweaty morning at Angkor Wat, realize they’ve got a day and a half to fill, and start frantically googling things to do in Siem Reap that don’t involve more 12th-century sandstone. I’ve lived here long enough to tell you: the town itself earns the extra days. The temples are the headline, but Siem Reap has a circus, a sprawl of night markets, free botanical gardens, give-back projects, floating villages, and some of the cheapest massages on the planet.
This is my honest local’s list — twelve things to do in Siem Reap beyond the temples. Some I’ve done a dozen times. A couple I’ll admit upfront I still haven’t gotten around to, because that’s the truth of living somewhere: you save the tourist headliners for “someday.” I’ll flag which is which, so you always know when I’m speaking from experience and when I’m passing along what everyone here swears by. If you haven’t sorted the temples yet, my complete Cambodia travel guide sets up the whole trip — then come back for everything else.
Free and Cheap Things to Do in Siem Reap
1. Wander the Siem Reap Botanical Gardens
This one barely makes the guidebooks, which is exactly why I like it. The Siem Reap Botanical Gardens are free, quiet, and a genuine break from the heat and the hustle — a patch of green where you can actually hear yourself think. I spent an easygoing afternoon here wandering the paths with nobody trying to sell me anything, which in this town is its own kind of luxury. It’s a great reset between temple days. I wrote up the full visit in my Siem Reap Botanical Gardens guide if you want directions and what to expect.
2. Get Lost in the Old Market (Psar Chas)
Psar Chas, the Old Market, is the beating heart of the town center. It’s part wet market, part souvenir maze, part lunch spot — fresh fruit and fish on one side, scarves and elephant pants and knockoff sunglasses on the other. Come hungry and grab a bowl of noodles from a stall. Haggling is expected and good-natured; start at half the asking price and meet in the middle. Even if you buy nothing, it’s the best free people-watching in Siem Reap, and it’s a two-minute walk from Pub Street.
3. Get a $7 Massage (and Then Another)
Siem Reap runs on cheap, excellent massage. A one-hour Khmer or oil massage costs around $7–10, and a foot massage after a temple day is the single best money you’ll spend all trip. Spots cluster around Pub Street and the Old Market — the slightly nicer places with air-con run a few dollars more and are still a steal. Skip the fish-spa gimmick unless you want the photo. This is the kind of thing locals do constantly, and you should too.
Things to Do in Siem Reap After Dark
4. Do a Lap of Pub Street and the Night Markets
Love it or hate it, Pub Street is the after-dark engine of Siem Reap — neon, 50-cent draft beer, sizzling street food, and a crowd from everywhere on earth. I’ve walked it more times than I can count. Do one proper lap, eat something off a cart, then duck into the adjoining Angkor Night Market and Made in Cambodia Market for the better souvenirs and a calmer vibe. It’s loud and unapologetically touristy, but skipping it entirely would be like skipping Bourbon Street in New Orleans — you go once, on purpose.
5. Catch a Show at Phare, The Cambodian Circus
I’ll be straight with you: eight-plus months in town and I still haven’t booked Phare myself — file that under “lives here, assumes he’ll always have time.” But I’ve watched the crowds spill out grinning, and I’ve yet to meet a single person who went and didn’t rave about it. This isn’t animals-and-clowns; Phare is a Cambodian social enterprise where graduates of a Battambang arts school tell Khmer stories through acrobatics, theater, and live music, and ticket sales fund the school. Shows run nightly at 8 p.m. You can book a Phare circus ticket here — it’s near the top of my own list.
Cultural and Give-Back Things to Do in Siem Reap
6. Slow Down at Heartprint Hub
Not every afternoon needs a temple. Heartprint Hub is the kind of social-enterprise café that does Siem Reap proud — good coffee, a calm space, and a model that puts money back into the local community instead of just into a till. I posted up here to work more than once and never regretted it. If you want a break that does a little good, my Heartprint Hub write-up has the details on what they’re about.
7. Visit a Grassroots Project Like ABCs and Rice
Siem Reap has a complicated relationship with “voluntourism,” and plenty of so-called orphanage visits are best avoided. But there are legitimate grassroots projects doing real work, and visiting the right ones respectfully is one of the more meaningful things to do in Siem Reap. I spent time at ABCs and Rice, a community education project, and came away genuinely impressed by how it’s run. Do your homework, go with the right intentions, and read my ABCs and Rice visit first so you know what you’re walking into.
8. Meet the Landmine-Detection Rats at APOPO
I haven’t done the tour myself yet, but the APOPO Visitor Center is one of those only-in-Cambodia experiences I keep sending people to. APOPO trains giant African pouched rats — “HeroRATs” — to sniff out landmines left over from decades of conflict, and the center on the road to Angkor lets you watch a demo and learn how the clearance work actually happens. Tours run around $10 and take maybe an hour. It’s a sobering, smart counterpoint to the temple selfies, and the cause is the real deal.
9. Take a Self-Guided Audio Walk of the City
If you’d rather explore on your own clock than trail a guide’s umbrella, a self-guided audio walk is a smart way to actually understand what you’re looking at downtown. One good option threads from the Royal Independence Gardens through the Old Market, the colonial-era buildings, and the working monasteries like Wat Bo, with narration feeding you the history as you stroll. You can grab the self-guided Siem Reap audio tour here and go at whatever pace suits you — pause for coffee, double back, linger where you want.
Day Trips and Festivals Around Siem Reap
10. Take a Boat Out to a Tonlé Sap Floating Village
The Tonlé Sap is Southeast Asia’s largest freshwater lake, and the stilt-house and floating villages on its edge are a completely different Cambodia from the temples. One honest warning before you book: skip Chong Khneas, the closest village — it’s the most touristy and has a reputation as a bit of a trap. Kampong Phluk and the more remote Kampong Khleang are the real deal. I haven’t taken the boat out myself yet, but it’s high on my list, and a sunset cruise comes up constantly when people talk about their trip. You can book a Tonlé Sap floating village tour here — just go with the right village.
11. Learn to Cook Khmer Food
Cambodian food is criminally underrated next to Thai and Vietnamese, and a cooking class is the fix. You’ll usually start at a market picking out lemongrass, galangal, and palm sugar, then cook a few classics like fish amok or beef lok lak and eat the results. I keep meaning to do one and keep not doing it, which is a shame given how good the food is. If you’ve got a free afternoon, you can browse Siem Reap cooking classes and other activities here — it’s the kind of thing you’ll actually use back home.
12. Time Your Trip With a Local Festival
If you can line your visit up with a festival, do it — this is where Siem Reap stops performing for tourists and just becomes itself. I’ve been lucky enough to catch a few: the Siem Reap Kite Festival, with its handmade khlaeng ek kites humming in the wind, and the wonderfully chaotic Giant Puppet Parade rolling through town. Khmer New Year in April turns the whole place into a water fight. These aren’t on a fixed tourist schedule, so check the dates — but if one lines up with your trip, it’ll be the thing you remember.
How Many of These Things to Do in Siem Reap Will You Tackle?
Here’s the takeaway: don’t book Siem Reap as a temple stopover. Give it three or four days and let the town breathe. Do the temples, sure — but also wander the gardens, eat at the markets, catch the circus, get the massage, and if a festival lands while you’re here, drop your plans and follow the noise. The temples are why you come; the town is why a lot of people, me included, end up staying — and it’s worth picking the right neighborhood to stay in. For the wider region beyond the city, my guide to Cambodia’s cultural attractions beyond Angkor picks up where this leaves off.
What’s on your Siem Reap list — and which of these would you bump for something else? Drop it in the comments. And if you’ve done Phare before I have, tell me what I’m missing.
