Leveraging your travel budget: A socially-responsible Siem Reap itinerary

Siem Reap, Cam­bod­ia is an ever-grow­ing travel des­tin­a­tion. After years of gen­o­cide fol­lowed by 20 years of instabil­ity and civil war, the coun­try has sta­bil­ized and has become a darling of the ASEAN region, with a fast-grow­ing eco­nomy, bet­ter infra­struc­ture, and an over­all improve­ment in the human devel­op­ment index and qual­ity of life.

The tour­ism eco­nomy con­tin­ues to play a crit­ic­al role. Accord­ing to the World Travel & Tour­ism Coun­cil, rev­en­ue gen­er­ated from the travel industry alone accoun­ted for 28.3% of Cambodia’s total GDP. In addi­tion, tour­ism accoun­ted for 25.9% of total employ­ment in the coun­try. The major­ity of this is in Siem Reap province, the home of Angkor Wat.

How­ever, while tour­ism rev­en­ue is up, it tends to be dom­in­ated by inter­na­tion­al, group tour com­pan­ies from emer­ging Asi­an eco­nom­ies. Called Zero-Dol­lar Tours, these pro­viders con­trol and extract as much of their cus­tom­ers’ spend­ing as pos­sible, return­ing it to the pro­vider in the tour­ist’s coun­try of ori­gin. As a res­ult, many loc­al busi­nesses are left out, with Cam­bod­i­ans in the ser­vice and trans­port­a­tion sec­tor bear­ing the brunt.

Due to this, it is import­ant for con­scien­tious tour­ists to try to make up for this short­fall. By lever­aging their travel budget and choice of tour pro­vider, back­pack­ers, fam­il­ies, and even lux­ury trav­el­ers can ensure their tour­ist dol­lars are used in an envir­on­ment­ally and socially respons­ible man­ner, pri­or­it­iz­ing the well-being of residents.

To help you along the pro­cess, we have put togeth­er a respons­ible Siem Reap itin­er­ary, allow­ing you to max­im­ize your impact while vis­it­ing the King­dom of Cambodia.

Experiencing the Temples & Countryside with Lavender Jeep

 When in Cam­bod­ia, choos­ing the means by which you travel plays a vital role in your over­all impact. Trav­el­ers have options in Cam­bod­ia — from fancy, Lex­us tax­is to tuk-tuks (rick­shaws) and moto­dops (moped tax­is). When get­ting around town, the obvi­ous choice is by tuk-tuk. Drivers tend to be lower-income res­id­ents that come from the coun­tryside and bene­fit immensely from fares. In addi­tion, it is a one-of-a-kind exper­i­ence and this meth­od of trans­port­a­tion is typ­ic­ally unavail­able back home. 

There are many ways to vis­it the Tonle Sap lake, both on your own or with groups, but no mat­ter your pref­er­ence, con­scien­tious trav­el­ers know it is best to choose com­munity-based tour pro­viders when possible.

How­ever, if you are look­ing to vis­it the temples or inter­ested in more rur­al tour­ism, con­sider a tour with Lav­ender Jeep Siem Reap. This com­pany offers tours of fam­ous sites (includ­ing Angkor Wat) in a mil­it­ary jeep. The com­pany is unique in that it is the only trans­port­a­tion pro­vider struc­tured as a cooper­at­ive. Women entre­pren­eurs who drive the cars are share­hold­ers in the busi­ness, with profits shared between them and a loc­al NGO edu­cat­ing Khmer women. Anoth­er bene­fit is that drivers come from the vil­lages vis­ited, allow­ing you to exper­i­ence these com­munit­ies in a more per­son­al, authen­t­ic way.

A Day Out on Tonle Sap Lake

After the temples, the most vis­ited site in Cam­bod­ia is Tonle Sap Lake. It is con­sidered the lifeblood of the coun­try, as its two bil­lion dol­lar fish­ing industry is respons­ible for feed­ing tens of mil­lions of people in Cam­bod­ia and the great Mekong region. Tonle Sap is a UNESCO Bio­sphere Reserve, home to endangered birds and oth­er wild­life. It is also home to hun­dreds of thou­sands of Cam­bod­i­ans who live on the lake in stil­ted and float­ing homes. For this reas­on, it is a favor­ite day trip for trav­el­ers vis­it­ing Siem Reap as well as a site Cambodia’s Tour­ism Min­istry hopes to expand and sup­port.

There are many ways to vis­it Tonle Sap, both on your own or with groups, but no mat­ter your pref­er­ence, con­scien­tious trav­el­ers know it is best to choose com­munity-based tour pro­viders when pos­sible. For vis­its to Kom­pong Khleang, con­sidered the largest and least vis­ited float­ing vil­lage, go with Com­munity First: Kom­pong Khleang Float­ing Vil­lage Tours. This tour com­pany was foun­ded and is staffed by loc­als from the vil­lage. Profits from the tours are donated to an NGO that provides com­puter classes, a kinder­garten, and a sew­ing cooper­at­ive in Kom­pong Khleang.

If you have more time in Cam­bod­ia, you can also spend a few days with Osmose. They were one of the first eco­tour­ism pro­viders in Cam­bod­ia and work in Prek Toal, sev­er­al hours by boat from Siem Reap. There they have helped pro­tect endangered birds and cur­rently provide med­ic­al, social, school­ing and employ­ment oppor­tun­it­ies for res­id­ents on the lake.

Vis­it­ing Phnom Kulen makes for a great day trip. It allows you to see an ancient pagoda, Linga statues, and a massive waterfall.

Discovering Cambodia’s Origins with Kulen Revealed

Phnom Kulen Moun­tain is a nation­al park loc­ated about 55 km from Siem Reap. For many years it was nearly for­got­ten due to the focus on the excav­a­tion and res­tor­a­tion of Angkor Wat, the largest reli­gious site in the world. More recently, archae­olo­gists have pivoted to Kulen, and mod­ern LIDAR tech­no­logy has allowed research­ers to see the scope of this ancient site.

Vis­it­ing Phnom Kulen makes for a great day trip. It allows you to see an ancient pagoda, Linga statues, and a massive water­fall. It also trekking and climb­ing oppor­tun­it­ies in Siem Reap. Kulen Revealed is an eco­tour com­pany focused solely on provid­ing Phnom Kulen tours. Fea­tur­ing guides from the area, these tours go bey­ond sight­see­ing, intro­du­cing guests to Kulen’s eco­logy, wild­life, reli­gious and his­tor­ic­al pur­pose as well. These tours sup­port Angkor Centre for the Con­ser­va­tion of Biod­iversity, an edu­ca­tion and con­ser­va­tion centre, as well as Bridge of Life School, which provides edu­ca­tion­al pro­gram­ming near Kulen.

In Summary

There truly has nev­er been a bet­ter time to vis­it Siem Reap and Cam­bod­ia, nor a bet­ter time to do it in a pos­it­ively impact­ful way. Cam­bod­ia has come a long way since the Khmer Rouge and sub­sequent civil war, but, as you will see dur­ing your travels, it still has a way to go. Plan­ning your itin­er­ary with this in mind can help you have a more authen­t­ic exper­i­ence and be part of the Good Tour­ism movement. 

This is a SPONSORED POST by Lav­ender Jeep Siem Reap, which was foun­ded to cre­ate employ­ment oppor­tun­ites for women and fund edu­ca­tion­al pro­gram­ming primar­ily bene­fit­ing young women and moth­ers. Lav­ender is unique in that it is the only tour com­pany in Siem Reap struc­tured as a co-oper­at­ive. Staff mem­bers are share­hold­ers in the com­pany, earn­ing a base salary and 30% of the profits. The remain­ing profits are trans­ferred to Bridge of Life School, a not-for-profit organ­iz­a­tion provid­ing free edu­ca­tion­al pro­gram­ming in the coun­tryside — to pay it for­ward and edu­cate the next gen­er­a­tion of women.

Lav­ender par­ti­cip­ates in socially-respons­ible travel by mak­ing women’s rights and empower­ment a core part of its mis­sion. They do this by choos­ing to train and employ women from back­grounds that are tra­di­tion­ally stig­mat­ized in Cam­bod­ia. This may include single moth­ers, women who did not fin­ish school, fam­il­ies with large debt loads, and oth­er issues. Lav­ender does not dis­crim­in­ate based on col­or, reli­gious beliefs, sexu­al ori­ent­a­tion, age or mar­it­al status — we wel­come all and, in doing so, encour­age soci­ety to do the same. Learn more about Lav­ender at www.lavenderjeepsiemreap.com.