If you’re thinking about going to Siem Reap with kids I’d seriously think twice about that unless your kids are older, like well over 10yrs old and/or have an unusual appreciation for Khmer history or temples.  My son’s 5 years old now and I don’t have any older kids so can’t really say exactly how old kids might start to appreciate something like this but personally I wouldn’t consider going to Siem Reap with kids until Grobbler was at least 10 or probably older.

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, there’s really not much else to see or do in Siem Reap other than the temples, and this applies to adults.  I like to try and bring Grobbler to most places but this one of the few places that I don’t think he’d enjoy.  It’s stinking hot, like 35-40 degrees in the hot season and Angkor Wat and the other temples are not really places you can let the kids run around and let off steam.   They can’t climb up on the ruins or anything like that. I guess you could have a pretty good game of Hide and Seek within Angkor Wat, but to me, it’s not really a place you should be doing something like that.  For a day, some kids will be fine, but it’s not as if you can say, let Mum and Dad do their thing in the morning, and then we can take you to FunPark, Mega Adventure Zone or anything like that, because there’s nothing like that to do in Siem Reap with kids.

I guess if you are really keen on going to Siem Reap with kids, get a good hotel with a kids center and leave them there for half a day but my opinion on that, and getting baby sitters in general, is that if you’re going to do that, you might as well leave them at home. If I had of bought Grobbler, he probably could have lasted half a day, been amused at the goings on in the markets in the town, but he would have really just ended up spending all his time swimming in the hotel swimming pool.

For what I wanted to do (photograph Angkor Wat), Siem Reap with kids would have been impossible.  Not 5 year old is going to want to wake up at 4:30 to see a sunrise over some old concrete ruins and the temples became bit of a bore for me after half a day so imagine how long a 5 year old will last.  For sure, you can make up some games to play in the temples and keep them happy, but Angkor Wat is really a place to be taken in and appreciated without kids.

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