Things to Do in Kampot: The Alternatives Guide
Kampot has more going on than most visitors ever discover. Here's where to look.
Search Kampot online and you’ll find the same list of attractions from ten years ago: Bokor, La Plantation, Kep. The famous spots are worth doing. But there’s a lot more here than anyone’s telling you.
Here’s what’s worth finding.
Kampong Trach: The Best Day Trip from Kampot
Most people who rent a motorbike in Kampot make it to Kep and stop. It’s twenty-five minutes down the road, there’s a crab market, a beach, a small national park to walk around in. But just fifteen minutes further is some of the most striking scenery in the region. Popular with Cambodians, but largely undiscovered by Western tourists.
Kampong Trach has dramatic limestone hills, cave temples, rice fields full of water buffalo, traditional wooden villages. Some of the most picturesque scenery in the region. Before the wars it was a popular destination in its own right. Then the Khmer Rouge came, the region was devastated, and it quietly disappeared from the tourist map. It’s only now starting to find its way back. The caves that were used as shelters during the American bombing campaigns of the early 1970s are now full of temples, shrines and Buddhist statues, many with guides waiting at the entrance. The kind of place you can easily lose a full day in.
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Kampot Pepper Farm Tours: BoTree and Sindora
La Plantation is the well-known one, and for good reason: a large, beautifully run farm with guided tours, a restaurant, and some of the best Kampot pepper you’ll find anywhere. If that’s on your list, it’s absolutely worth it.
But if you’re looking for something a little smaller scale, family run, and personal, here are two worth considering. Both offer the same core experience: a guided tour, an explanation of the different pepper varieties and how they’re grown, and a tasting. The difference is the scale and the atmosphere.
BoTree is a small, fully organic family farm growing certified Kampot pepper alongside mango, jackfruit, mangosteen and more. Everything is made on-farm: fertilizers from cow dung, bat guano and rice paddy crabs; pesticides from the leaves of locally growing trees. Just turn up at the visitor centre for a free tour. No booking required. Stay for lunch if you can. Their Khmer chef Malish cooks with pepper fresh from the farm, and it’s the best possible way to experience it. Visit botree.asia.
Sindora is a different kind of operation. As much a forest restoration project as a pepper farm, Sindora has planted over 200 native tree species across its 10 hectares, with pepper growing on just one of them. It’s regenerative agriculture at a small scale, run by a small family team. Visit sindora-kampotpepper.net.
How do I get there?
Both farms are about 15km out of Kampot down mostly well-maintained dirt roads, and there are signs along the way pointing you in the right direction. BoTree and Sindora are both easily found on Google Maps.
If you don’t want to ride a motorbike, you can go into The Kampot Pepper Shop in town and they’ll organise a tuktuk for a fair price.
Sunset River Cruise in Kampot
A few years ago, Kampot’s riverfront, where the seahorse statue is now, was famous for the dozens of riverboats parked along the riverside, filling up with tourists for Kampot’s famous river sunset cruise. When the riverside was renovated, they had to move. But they’re not far. And if you know where to find them, you can still enjoy one of Kampot’s classic experiences.
You’ll find them just past the new bridge. Show up around 5:30pm, get on a boat, and for as little as $5, including a free drink, take a relaxing cruise up the river as the sun goes down over Bokor, watching longtail fishing boats heading home for the evening, and if you’re lucky, fireflies flickering along the palm-lined shore on the way back.
Koh Tonsay: Rabbit Island near Kampot
Koh Rong and Koh Rong Sanloem are exactly what they promise: beautiful islands with beaches, bars, parties and a reliable Southeast Asian good time. If that’s what you’re after, they deliver.
But if you’re looking for something quieter, somewhere that still has that deserted island feel, somewhere you can quietly relax, Koh Tonsay is worth knowing about. Known as Rabbit Island, it’s a short ferry ride from Kep, which is itself only twenty-five minutes from Kampot. Far closer and easier to reach than the Koh Rong islands, with none of the Sihanoukville bus journey required.
Bungalows on the beach, hammocks, fresh seafood. Power runs for a few hours a day, which is either a drawback or the whole point depending on how you feel about switching off. If you genuinely need electricity, the operators will run a generator for a small fee.
The kind of island that hasn’t seen mass development yet. A great place to disconnect, catch up on a book, and remember what a quiet beach actually feels like.
Rock Climbing and Caving in Kampot
Every Kampot itinerary includes the waterfall hike. The waterfalls, however, have almost no water in dry season.
If you want a physical activity that gets you into the best of Kampot’s scenery, Climbodia is hard to beat. Climb to viewpoints with some of the best scenery in the region, or descend into caves filled with stalactites and Hindu shrines that predate the Khmer Empire. Either way, you’ll see parts of the mountain that most visitors never get near.
Climbodia has been running tours out of Kampot since 2013 and operates the largest climbing site in Cambodia. All climbs are top-roped, meaning the guides hang the ropes for you, so you’re focused on the climbing rather than the rigging. Plenty of beginner routes for first-timers, enough variety to keep experienced climbers busy. The site is cool, shaded and dry all year round.
Every guide is a local young person, trained over many years with first aid certification. Climbodia runs a fair-wage operation and takes the cave’s ecosystem seriously.
Book via climbodia.com.
Kiteboarding in Kampot
Cambodia’s dive sites pull a lot of people down to Sihanoukville and the islands. But if you’re the type who wants to try something physical and a little different, you’ll be surprised to find out that Kampot is one of the best areas around for kiteboarding.
Cambodia Kiteboarding has been running IKO-certified lessons out of Villa Vedici riverside resort in Kampot for twelve years. Lessons are held on the Kampong Bay estuary, 7km downriver from town: a wide, shallow bay with warm water and enough space that you’re not worrying about other kiters while you’re still figuring out what you’re doing. On a clear day you can see Bokor Mountain in one direction and Phu Quoc island in the other. Most kiteboarding destinations in Southeast Asia have one wind season. Cambodia has two, running from December through to early October with a change of direction in between. Which means whenever you’re visiting, there’s likely wind.
Beginner packages through to advanced. Book via cambodiakiteboarding.com.
Kampot is changing fast. New operators, new experiences and new reasons to visit are appearing all the time, and the online resources rarely keep up. The best things to do here are often the ones you won’t find on the first page of Google.
And we haven’t even mentioned the food. For the best places to eat in Kampot, check out our guide to eating in Kampot.
Frequently Asked
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