Phnom Penh is a relatively new tourist destination which is growing in popularity with each year. The Cambodian capital blends French colonial history and architecture with unique but sometimes harrowing tourist attractions. Phnom Penh is great value and makes for a good tourist destination but a capital that can be very rough round the edges. It is well worth the journey from either Siem Reap or Bangkok but how long should a visitor plan in their itinerary to spend in Phnom Penh?

As with so many travelling questions there is no one definitive answer as it more depends on your style of travel. The easier way to indicate a suitable length of stay in Phnom Penh is to state the minimum number of days needed to see the main tourist attractions and absorb the atmosphere of the capital. The recommended minimum length of a visit to Phnom Penh is two and a half days.

The colourful skyline of Phnom Penh

If you enjoy spending a large proportion of the day relaxing in the many bars and prefer to see only one site in a day this could be extended further. Most visitors staying in Phnom Penh for more than four days will be scratching around for things to do or visit.

The art-deco Phsar Thmei central market

Another very rough method of gauging how long to spend in Phnom Penh is by saying that it has half the tourist attractions and activities of Bangkok (and thankfully this also includes traffic). If you thought five days was plenty in Bangkok, two and a half days will be suitable for Phnom Penh but if you embraced Bangkok and stayed for 10 days you may wish to spend much longer in Phnom Penh.

The following is a suggested two day itinerary and tour for Phnom Penh.

• Half Day - Afternoon on day of arrival spent exploring the French Quarter and river front.
• Day One - The best of Phnom Penh: Royal Palace, Central Market, Independence Monument and National Museum.
• Day Two - Phnom Penh's horrific past: Tuol Sleng S21 Prison and the killing fields.

The barbed wire was to stop prisoners from committing suicide