My name is Artur. I live in Kampot, Cambodia. I have been here long enough to know which side of the river road gets the afternoon light and which mechanic to call when the scooter dies on the way to La Plantation.
kampot.life exists because most of what was written about this town was written by people passing through. The visitor guides were authored in three days. The cost-of-living breakdowns were copied from other cost-of-living breakdowns. The visa information was out of date before it was published. I wanted something different: a publication written from inside the place, by someone whose daily life is shaped by it, for people who are thinking seriously about coming here - whether for a long weekend or for the rest of their lives.
The site covers six things. What to do in Kampot and the surrounding area, written as field notes rather than itineraries. Where to eat and drink, edited rather than ranked. Where to sleep, organised by neighbourhood with honest trade-offs. The practical realities of living here - rent, healthcare, banking, scooters, schools - with real numbers from real people who have been paying bills here for at least a year. The mechanics of moving to Cambodia - visas, residency, the things nobody tells you until you are already here. And occasional essays on what this place is and what it is becoming.
The editorial approach is simple. I write what I would want to read. I do not publish things I cannot verify. I do not rank things I have not tried. I do not use the words hidden gem, must-see, or off the beaten path. I try to write the sentence I would actually say out loud at a riverside café to someone I respect, who has a limited amount of time and a specific decision to make.
The reference points for the publication are Monocle Travel, the NYT 36 Hours series, AFAR, and the kind of long-form magazine journalism that assumes its reader is intelligent and busy and does not need to be persuaded that the subject is interesting. If you are reading this, you have already decided Kampot is interesting. My job is to give you something specific and true.
I am available by email at hello@kampot.life. If you have a correction, a tip, or a piece of information that would make any article on this site more accurate, I want to hear from you.
For a sense of what this publication is, start with the three-day visitor guide - it is the piece that most completely represents the editorial voice and the kind of knowledge the site is trying to put into the world. If you are already living here or planning to move, the perspective essay on why Kampot is not Chiang Mai is probably the more useful starting point. And if you want to stay close to what gets published here, the newsletter goes out when there is something worth saying.