Jasmine Valley, Kep, Cambodia

Jasmine Valley is a remarkable place, and one of our all-time favorites.  Located in the small town of Kep, Jasmine and Owen, the owners, have set up a eco-lodge, built with local materials by people living in the area, in a valley surrounded by a national park.  You stay in either a cabin or a ‘tree hut’ – built on stilts. It’s not really walking distance to town, but there is a small but very good open-air restaurant.

You need to be comfortable with a certain amount of roughing it here – unheated showers, very limited (solar-powered) electricity, cabins open to the air, and a variety of visitors – lizards, bugs, or, as you’ll see in the photos, a frog who emerged out of a wall hanging every night to watch over us.

What you get for leaving the creature comforts behind is to spend time surrounded by the beautiful Cambodian jungle; excellent food (both local specialties and pizza from a genius bamboo-fired oven; very friendly staff, and some really interesting guests who overwhelmingly seem to be simply really nice people.  And you get quiet.

It’s one of the best examples of ‘responsible’ tourism development we’ve ever seen.  And one of the best places we’ve ever stayed.