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There were several things I expected in anticipation of my unaccompanied trip to Siem Reap, Cambodia in hopes of finishing my senior independent study research. I had read about the breathtaking view of the lotus-shaped towers of Angkor Wat as you see them peeking through the tops of the trees for the first time. I had done over a year and a half’s worth of research on both ancient Khmer culture and modern-day Cambodian history. And I fully expected to come into my own as a more adept solo female traveler on my first jaunt to Asia alone. The unexpected part came in the form of grappling with the fact that while I was traveling with studious, pure intentions, I was still a part of a larger overlying problem. The issue of overtourism is a glaring predicament in many popular travel destinations, and Cambodia is no exception. In 2018 there was a significant increase in foreigners visiting the small town of Siem Reap at over 2 million tourists coming with the sole purpose of seeing Angkor Wat; twice the amount that normally come in a calendar year. The rise in visitors from other countries is one of the most predominate sources of income for the town, but with that comes a slew of issues. Hotels and resorts crowd the city, cars and tour buses clog the small dirt streets, sewage is being dumped in rivers and streams, and tourists have depleted the local water table to such an extent that city officials fear the ground beneath the ancient sites could begin to collapse. In addition, from my time there it is painfully obvious how uneven the wealth distribution is. Siem Reap puts money towards building upscale resorts in order to make foreigners comfortable while local children gather water from dirty ditches along the highways. It is somewhat difficult justifying your stay in a flashy hotel at a fraction of the cost of normal luxury accommodations, knowing that your actions contribute to the toll being taken on local infrastructure. Additional problems arise with being or wanting to be a researcher in this region like myself. Studying ancient sites in any country is a double-edged sword. You want to be doing the most to learn more about and contextualize these magnificent sites with good intentions while also trying to preserve the archaeological record, but your environmental and social impacts are very well no better than any other tourist’s may be. In traveling to Siem Reap to conduct my research, I was still contributing to the mass tourism that is damaging the local resources and infrastructure, as well as adding to the damage and deterioration Angkor Wat and other surrounding temples are suffering due to allowing visitors to walk and climb all over them. I can tell myself that I am there for the right reasons, I am there with an educational and research-based background, I am there to further the understanding of the past, but does that make me inherently better than anyone else? The message I want to convey is that the pursuit of understanding ancient civilizations comes with pitfalls even at the hands of those who want to see those sites conserved and protected. For the average tourist who is just interested in seeing a UNESCO World Heritage Site, or visiting a cool, new place they have never been before, there are ways to limit the effect of your visit. Be conscientious of your daily water usage, be knowledgeable of the fact that every time you stray off the protective wooden staircases and walkways at many sites, you are accelerating their decay, and be aware that running your sweaty hands over every bas-reliefs you pass may not be worth the price of those carvings ceasing to exist in the future.