Angkor is having its quietest year in a long time. Foreign visitors to the temples fell by about thirty percent in the first eight months of 2026, and ticket revenue dropped by more than a quarter. Here is why it happened, what it feels like to stand in front of Angkor Wat at dawn without a wall of phones, and how to get there on a motorbike now that the land border with Thailand is still closed.
The numbers from the temple gates
Angkor Enterprise, the state body that sells the entry passes to the Angkor Archaeological Park, publishes its figures every month, and 2026 has been a sobering read. In the first seven months of the year, the park received 428,223 international visitors, against 618,771 over the same months of 2025. That is a drop of almost thirty-one percent. Ticket revenue fell from 28.6 to 20.3 million US dollars. By the end of August, the count stood at 474,933 foreign visitors, still around thirty percent down, with revenue of about 22.5 million dollars.
To put that in perspective, the whole of 2025 brought just over 955,000 foreign visitors to Angkor, and 2025 was already not a great year. Cambodia as a country received about 5.57 million international arrivals last year, a fall of almost seventeen percent. The government set a target of 5.6 to 5.8 million for 2026, but the country as a whole has done even worse than the temples: between January and August, Cambodia received about 2.25 million international arrivals, down more than forty-four percent. Angkor, painful as its numbers are, has held up better than the rest of the kingdom.
Why the visitors stayed away
Analysts in Phnom Penh point to a combination of causes rather than a single one. The border dispute with Thailand, which turned into armed clashes in 2025 and closed every land crossing between the two countries, cut off the classic overland route from Bangkok and made some travellers nervous about the whole region. Thai visitors, once one of Cambodia’s biggest markets, fell by more than half in 2025. South Korean arrivals dropped sharply after scam-related travel warnings, and a general fear of online scam operations in the region has put off some visitors from East Asia.
Then came the oil shock of 2026. The conflict in the Middle East pushed fuel prices up and disrupted flight schedules, and the Gulf airlines that connect Europe with Southeast Asia were hit hard. Cambodian tourism officials have estimated that the suspension of some Gulf services cut off around thirteen thousand travellers a week. For a destination that relies on long-haul visitors, that is a big hole.
What a quiet Angkor feels like
Here is the part the statistics do not show. If you have been to Angkor in a busy year, you remember the sunrise at Angkor Wat as a crowd event: hundreds of people lined up along the edge of the pond in the dark, phones raised, elbows out, waiting for the towers to turn pink. You remember Ta Prohm, the temple wrapped in the roots of giant trees, as a queue to stand in front of one particular root for a photograph. You remember the Bayon’s stone faces as a background to other people’s selfies.
In 2026, it is different. Not empty, because Angkor is never empty, but calmer in a way that changes the experience. There is room to stand by the pond at dawn. There are moments in the galleries of Angkor Wat when you can hear birds and your own footsteps. At Ta Prohm, a little patience is often enough to get the famous corner with nobody else in the frame. For anyone who has been told that Angkor is ruined by crowds, this is the year to find out that it is not.
Sunrise and sunset, without the scrum
If you have a few days, try the alternatives to the famous spots. Sunrise over Srah Srang, the great royal reservoir east of Angkor Thom, is quieter than Angkor Wat even in busy years, with the light coming up over the water and fishermen already out in small boats. For sunset, the hilltop temple of Phnom Bakheng is the classic viewpoint over the forest towards Angkor Wat, and the authorities limit how many people can be on top at once, so arrive early and expect to wait in a busy season. With fewer visitors this year, the wait should be shorter.
Some of the most memorable moments at Angkor have nothing to do with the famous views: a monk in an orange robe crossing a courtyard, children swimming in a temple moat, the smell of incense in a dark corner of a gallery, a thunderstorm rolling over the treetops in the late afternoon. A quieter year leaves more room for exactly those moments.
The temples beyond the main circuit
The quiet year is even more striking at the temples most visitors never reach. Banteay Srei, the small pink sandstone temple with some of the finest carving in the Khmer world, is about an hour’s ride north-east of Siem Reap. Beng Mealea, a jungle-covered ruin that looks as if it was discovered last week, is further out along the same direction. Beyond that lies Koh Ker, an old Khmer capital in the forest of Preah Vihear province, with a seven-tiered pyramid rising out of the trees.
These places were already quiet in busy years. In 2026 they are quieter still, and on a weekday morning you may share them with just a few guards, a family selling cold drinks at the gate and the sound of insects in the trees. For a rider, they are also the reason to come by motorbike rather than by coach: the roads out to Koh Ker and the north run through rice fields, small villages and dry forest, and the ride is half the pleasure.
A day at Angkor, done properly
The park is enormous, more than four hundred square kilometres of temples, moats, forest and villages, and the best days there follow a simple rhythm. Be at Angkor Wat before dawn, watch the towers take shape against the sky, and then go inside while most people head back for breakfast. The galleries of bas-reliefs around the outer wall, more than half a kilometre of carved battles, gods and demons, are at their best in the soft light of early morning. Then ride to the walled city of Angkor Thom, through the south gate with its row of stone giants holding a serpent, to the Bayon and its more than two hundred serene stone faces.
Visitors usually talk about a small circuit and a big circuit. The small one links Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom, Ta Prohm and a handful of others; the big one loops further out to temples like Preah Khan, Neak Pean and Pre Rup. Passes are sold for one, three or seven days, and for anyone who cares about what they are looking at, one day is not enough. Dress with your shoulders and knees covered, because the guards at the most sacred parts of Angkor Wat will turn you away otherwise, and carry more water than seems reasonable. By eleven o’clock the stone radiates heat like an oven, and the sensible thing to do is retreat to the shade until mid-afternoon.
Timing the trip around the seasons
Cambodia has two big seasons and a brutal one in between. From November to February the weather is dry and, by local standards, cool, with pleasant mornings and hot but bearable afternoons. From March to May the heat builds until the middle of the day becomes something to hide from, and riding long stages becomes hard work. From June to October the monsoon arrives, the moats and rice fields fill, the landscape turns an extraordinary green, and the dirt roads of the north-east become rivers of red mud.
The wet season is also when Angkor is at its quietest in a normal year, and when the photographs are often at their best, with dramatic skies and reflections in every pond. For riding, though, the dry months are the right choice, particularly for the remote provinces where the roads are unpaved or partly paved.
What operators on the ground are seeing
From the point of view of a tour operator, 2026 in Cambodia has been a year of adjusting rather than cancelling. The border closure killed the old multi-country loops that crossed from Thailand into Cambodia by land, and every operator in the region had to redesign routes. Some dropped Cambodia altogether. Others, including us, built a ride that starts and ends in Phnom Penh, with flights in and out, so that Cambodia is a destination in its own right rather than an add-on to a Thai loop.
The quiet year also changes the practicalities in small but useful ways. With fewer guests, hotels in Siem Reap have more reason to be flexible, good temple guides are easier to book than in a busy year, and restaurants are not rushing a table of hungry riders out of the door. None of this is a reason to celebrate a bad year for Cambodia, but it does mean that the riders who come this season get a very good version of the country.
The border problem, explained simply
Every official land crossing between Thailand and Cambodia has been closed since the middle of 2025, and as we write at the end of September 2026, there is still no reopening date. For riders, this is the biggest practical change in Cambodia in years. The old dream of riding from Chiang Mai or Bangkok across to Siem Reap, or finishing a Cambodian loop with a ride back into Thailand, is simply not possible right now.
The short version is simple. For now, Cambodia has to be ridden as Cambodia, entered and left by air. That sounds like a restriction, and in a way it is. It also turns out to be a better way to see the country, because a trip designed around Cambodia alone goes to the places that an add-on from Thailand never had time for.
Flying in: the new airports
The good news is that Cambodia’s airports have improved enormously. Siem Reap’s new international airport, which replaced the old one near the temples in 2023, is a proper modern gateway to Angkor. Phnom Penh’s Techo International Airport, which opened in 2025, is the country’s new main hub, and it has been adding long-haul routes, including a direct service to Abu Dhabi and a Turkish Airlines route to Istanbul that started in December 2025. For riders coming from Europe, that means more ways to reach Cambodia without passing through Bangkok.
For a riding holiday, the usual pattern is to fly into Phnom Penh, ride the country and fly out again, with Angkor as the centrepiece somewhere in the middle. The capital is also where the bikes, the mechanics and the parts are, which matters in a country where a village workshop can weld a pannier frame but will not have a tyre in the size a big touring bike needs.
Riding to the temples
Arriving at Angkor on a motorbike after days on the road is a different experience from arriving in a coach from the airport. The approach from the north or the east brings you through the countryside that fed the ancient city, past rice fields and palm trees and villages where the houses stand on stilts, and the first sight of the moat and the towers of Angkor Wat comes as the end of a journey rather than the start of a day trip.
Inside the park, the roads between the temples are flat, shaded and slow, perfect for a relaxed day of exploring. Speed limits are low, there are cyclists, tuk-tuks and pedestrians everywhere, and stopping at every temple that catches your eye is the whole point. The main thing to plan is the heat: start at dawn, visit the big temples in the cool of the morning, rest in the middle of the day, and go back out in the late afternoon when the stone turns gold.
The people who live off the temples
A thirty percent fall in visitors is a disaster for the people of Siem Reap. The town exists largely for tourism: hotels, guesthouses, restaurants, tuk-tuk drivers, guides, artisans, the women selling scarves and the children selling postcards at the temple gates. Cambodia’s tourism ministry has said plainly that the decline is hurting businesses that depend on foreign visitors, and the people who drive tuk-tuks, guide at the temples or run small restaurants feel it first.
For a visitor, that has two consequences. The first is that you will be very welcome, and the service in quiet hotels and restaurants is often excellent. The second is that your money matters more than usual. Hiring a local guide for the temples, eating in family restaurants, buying crafts from the people who made them: in a year like this, those choices make a real difference to real families.
Is Cambodia safe to visit right now?
It is a fair question, and the honest answer is that for a visitor, the Cambodia most people will see is calm and welcoming. The fighting in July 2025 was along parts of the northern border with Thailand, around the disputed temple sites, and when clashes flared again in December 2025 they also reached the coastal border between Trat and Koh Kong. Siem Reap, Phnom Penh, Kampot and the eastern provinces are well away from those areas. Several governments advise caution near the Thai border itself, and a sensible itinerary respects that advice.
The scam compounds that have made headlines across the region are a real problem, but they target people lured with fake job offers, not tourists visiting temples. The ordinary precautions of travelling anywhere apply: keep an eye on your belongings in crowded places, use reputable transport, and be wary of anyone offering work or investment opportunities out of nowhere. For a group of riders with a local team, the risks are the usual road risks, not anything more exotic.
What a quiet year means for the season ahead
The dry season in Cambodia runs roughly from November to April, and the cool months of December and January are the most comfortable for exploring the temples and riding. If current trends continue, the coming season will be one of the quietest high seasons at Angkor in many years. Hotels are already competing for guests, and the famous sites are calmer than they have been for a long time.
Nobody in Cambodia wants that to last. The government is working to bring visitors back, including a visa-free pilot for Chinese tourists and new air links. When the border with Thailand reopens, the overland traffic will return quickly. For a rider who wants to see Angkor as it was meant to be seen, with space and silence, the window may be short.
The rest of Cambodia, while you are there
Angkor is the headline, but a riding trip in Cambodia is about much more. The Mekong at Kratie, where rare river dolphins still surface in the shallows. The red-earth hills of Mondulkiri and Ratanakiri in the far east, with waterfalls, coffee plantations and villages of the indigenous hill peoples. The quiet north through Preah Vihear province. Battambang, with its colonial shophouses and its bamboo train. The Cardamom mountains, the south coast, the old French hill station at Bokor and the pepper farms of Kampot.
Riders who come for the temples often leave talking about the roads and the villages. That is the nature of Cambodia: the big monuments bring you in, and the countryside keeps you.
Riding Cambodia for real
The 15-day Real Cambodia Ride was built as a Cambodia trip from the start, beginning and ending in Phnom Penh, so the closed border does not touch it. It takes in Kratie and the Mekong, Mondulkiri and Ratanakiri, the empty north and Koh Ker, a full rest day at Angkor, Battambang, the Cardamoms and the south coast. It is a guided tour with a licensed road captain and a support van, and a motorcycle tour of the whole country rather than a quick visit to the temples. For the wider picture, see our Cambodia motorbike tours page.
Want to see Angkor in its quiet year? Ask us about dates on WhatsApp or at info@bigbiketours.com. A big biking tour in Cambodia this season may be the calmest way you will ever see the temples, and there is no better excuse for a motorbike tour in the kingdom.
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