Useful apps for Cambodia: transport, maps, translation

Set up before you fly. Download the Cambodia map in Google Maps (offline areas), install your ride-hailing app and Telegram, and add a translation app with Khmer downloaded for offline use. Do this on airport or hotel Wi-Fi rather than burning your first data bundle.

A ride-hailing app is the single biggest quality-of-life upgrade. It shows a fixed price before you accept, so you skip the negotiation that otherwise starts every tuk-tuk ride. PassApp is the long-standing local option and Grab also runs in Cambodia; both work on foreign phone numbers, and both take cash — useful because card acceptance is uneven. Coverage is strongest in Phnom Penh and Siem Reap; in smaller towns you may wait longer or fall back to a street tuk-tuk.

Google Maps is good enough for cities and the main temple routes, but rural roads, new bridges and some guesthouses are missing or misplaced. Download the offline map, and treat any route outside a town as approximate. For walking, the map is often more optimistic than the actual footpath.

Telegram is how Cambodian businesses, guesthouses and drivers actually communicate — many will reply there rather than by SMS. WhatsApp is the fallback for talking to other travellers and for international contacts. Keep both.

For money, your own bank or card app matters more than any local one: turn on travel notifications and check your card's foreign transaction fee before you arrive. KHQR (Bakong) QR codes are everywhere, but paying them usually needs a local bank account or a supported foreign wallet, so check before you rely on it. Carry cash as the default.

Translation apps handle menus and signs reasonably; spoken Khmer is harder, and few drivers read Latin script fluently. A screenshot of your destination in Khmer, plus the map pin, solves most communication problems faster than voice translation.

Screenshot everything that matters: your hotel address in Khmer, the map pin, your booking confirmation and your driver's plate number. Screenshots work when data does not.

Keep a small cash float. Ride-hailing apps in Cambodia are usually settled in cash, and small notes avoid the change problem.

If an app cannot find your pickup point, walk to a landmark — a market, a temple gate, a named hotel — and set the pin there.

Data is cheap but not unlimited: buy a tourist SIM at the airport or a phone shop with your passport, or use an eSIM on an unlocked phone. 4G is fine in towns and patchy in remote provinces.

Do not hand your unlocked phone to a stranger to "set up" an app; install and log in yourself.