I travelled to Sihanoukville without a hotel booking, hoping to find something on the spot. I had a list of budget guesthouses with me and planned to stay in one of them.
On arrival in Sihanoukville, our bus was surrounded by a crowd of tuk-tuk drivers offering to take people to their hotels. I wanted to stay near Serendipity Beach, so I quickly found fellow passengers who were heading the same way.
I had hoped to save money by splitting the fare between the three of us, but the tuk-tuk driver pushed the price from the bus station to the beach up to $3 per person — $9 for the ride! Unfortunately, my companions agreed quickly, before we even had a chance to haggle. That was in 2014; as of October 2026, the local guide sihanoukville-cambodia.com gives the following benchmark: tuk-tuk rides around town cost from $2 to $15 (agree the price in advance), and booking through the PassApp app usually works out cheaper.
My fellow passengers — a guy and a girl, both Australian — were travelling on to the island of Koh Pos, and were dropped off at some agency where they had already bought their boat ticket to the island.
I was driven on. In the reviews of various travellers the favourite was the Susadey guesthouse, which is French-owned, so that was where I wanted to go first. The tuk-tuk driver, however, assured me that this guesthouse had closed down. As I found out later, it had done no such thing and was very much open — but what can you expect, this is Cambodia after all. Anyway, the driver took me to a different hotel (presumably he had an arrangement with the owners). I can’t remember its name now, but I didn’t like it, and besides, I wanted to look at other guesthouses. After a long argument — he kept telling me I wouldn’t find anything better — he finally agreed to drive me round the guesthouses on my list for $1. He had asked for more, but I didn’t stand on ceremony and insisted on my price, especially as he had already earned far too much from the ride from the bus station.
I looked round four or five hotels; the standard price everywhere was $10 (in 2014). In the end I decided to stay at G.B.T. — I liked it inside, and the sea is very close.
If you would rather find a hotel in advance — for example, near the sea or on a particular beach — start with a selection of Sihanoukville hotels with prices for your dates. If your trip falls between November and March, it is the dry season on the coast (the driest months are December to February), so accommodation by the sea is best booked in advance.
For the current price of a night at GBT, check the guesthouse’s listing: as of October 2026 it is live on Agoda under the name GBT 3 Guesthouse (rated 6.1 out of 10).
The G.B.T. Guesthouse is almost opposite the Golden Starmart supermarket, where you can find all the essentials (though there is very little fruit); back then it even stocked a free map of Sihanoukville with useful information.
Hotel G.B.T. on the map of Sihanoukville (the Serendipity Beach area; neighbouring hotels are also shown on this map):
The view of the supermarket from the hotel:
Supermarket on Serendipity Beach
Besides rooms, the hotel has a restaurant and bike hire. It is best not to take a bike without a licence, as I have seen the police stopping riders and checking documents many times (on the road near the Golden Lions).
My room was on the first floor. Interestingly, the room numbers in this hotel are made up of three identical digits: mine was 555, for example, and the neighbours had 666.
The room is entirely wooden inside, like a bungalow:
G.B.T. Guesthouse hotel
The shelving unit:
G.B.T. Guesthouse hotel
There is no air conditioning, only a fan. The window looks out onto the courtyard and the staircase, and outside the door there is a small table and two chairs where you can sit and work.
G.B.T. Guesthouse hotel
The bathroom is lined with plastic sheeting, and the water is cold only.
G.B.T. Guesthouse hotel
G.B.T. Guesthouse hotel
On the ground floor there is a restaurant (quite popular with the locals — it is always busy, especially in the evenings), where you can pick up the free Wi-Fi.
I ordered a seafood curry and a mango shake there, and it all came to $5. Plenty of seafood and very tasty, though pricey.
A path to Serendipity Beach starts literally across the road — it is about a five-minute walk from the guesthouse. The path is full of little cafés, including the Russian Bamboo Bar with its vegetarian menu. Bear in mind that all of this is a snapshot of 2014: since then Sihanoukville has been heavily rebuilt, a strip of sand about a hundred metres wide has been added in front of Serendipity Beach, and a road has been laid along it, so today it looks different from my photos below.
And here is the beach itself:
Serendipity Beach
Serendipity Beach
The sunsets here are beautiful too:
So, here is what you get in a G.B.T. Guesthouse room:
- Double bed
- Fan
- TV
- Bedside table
- Two small shelving units
- Only two sockets (one for the TV)
- Shower with cold water
- Wi-Fi in the restaurant only
The main downside of this hotel is how well sound carries: you can hear the neighbours’ conversations as if you were in the same room.
The lack of internet in the room is not a problem, as the internet in Cambodia is cheap (back then I bought a SIM card for $2 and paid another $5 for 3 GB for a month — enough for browsing and Skype; as of October 2026 the operator cellcard has a standard plan of 8 GB for a week at $1, and a tourist SIM starts at $5 for 3 GB for 3 days).
I daresay you could find something better, but everything suited me — especially how close the sea is.
