About Mad Monkey.
Who are we and what do we do?
At Mad Monkey, we pride ourselves in creating meaningful and sustainable travel experiences for our guests. Find out how we promote responsible travel to reshape the tourism industry into a mutually beneficial relationship for our guests, our team, and the local communities in which we are located.
- 15
- Years in
- 7
- Countries
- 400+
- Water wells funded
- 2,400
- Students backed
Since 2011, with the Cambodian Children’s Fund, CBAVC and the Trailblazer Foundation.
2011 — 2026
One bad idea that worked.
The job of every Mad Monkey
The purpose of every Mad Monkey hostel is to provide the best customer experience in the most sustainable way for the benefit of the customers, team members, and the communities where we are located.
Fifteen years ago, three backpackers were taken by the charm of Cambodia and its people and found themselves continuously extending their stays. As they got to know the locals and discovered the underrated beauty of this often overlooked country, they were also faced with the immense poverty of Cambodia.
Wanting to contribute something positive and lasting to the community they had quickly learned to love, they had the idea to create a substantial and sustainable business that would help other travelers experience the wonders of this country. And thus, Mad Monkey was born and has quickly expanded since.
Today, Mad Monkey has presence in Cambodia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, and Australia, with rapid expansion planned across the region.
Mad Monkey is the hostel group that accelerates adventure, facilitates impactful connections, creates transformative moments, gathers the best people, creates life-long memories and makes guests feel alive.
What we run on
Five core values.
01
Curiosity
Every day is a school day.
We back education first. Our first community partner was the Cambodian Children’s Fund in Phnom Penh — food, medical care, vocational training and school for kids lifting their families out of poverty. We fund the Kampong Cham classroom and sponsor a child’s education every year.
2,400 students · 64 programmes02
Positivity
We’re positive about our future, work and life.
Good times for guests is the easy half. The other half is a workplace people actually want to be in. When it gets hard we stay optimistic and get our staff, our guests and our communities out the other side stronger.
03
Courage
We embrace the unknown, even if it seems ‘mad’.
When we started in 2011 people told us we were mad. Fifteen years on we’re still here and still pushing — into places most chains wouldn’t touch.
50 more communities · 3 years04
Sincerity
We do right by people and we’re true to our word.
Every Mad Monkey picks a local project. Our longest partnership is with the Cambodian Buddhism Association for Vulnerable Children, who build wells in rural Siem Reap where people walk 2km a day for drinking water. Four million Cambodians have no safe water; six million have no proper sanitation.
400+ wells funded05
Family spirit
We’re committed to the wellbeing and growth of our people.
We hire local, pay fairly and promote from within. Language courses, learning programmes and a real route up — because a job in a hostel should be a career, not a season.
The team at Mad Monkey Nacpan, El Nido.
In the foundations, not bolted on
Diversity, inclusion & sustainability.
Not a value we added later. These have been in the foundations since the first hostel in 2011 — from killing single-use plastic to child-safety training for every team member. We’re not done, and we’ll keep saying so.
Show your working
We publish what we spend and what it changed. No rounding up.
Read our CSR reports →Our 10 year plan
We have big plans.
for the next 10 years at mad monkey
- 01
The goal to remove all single-use plastic at every Mad Monkey property.
- 02
Sponsor a class of students at Cambodian Children’s Fund every year and provide them with healthcare and food and enable them to graduate from high school and continue on to higher education or find a job.
- 03
Continue to offer first job employment to members of disadvantaged communities. Continue to offer employment for people with special needs and disabilities.
- 04
Offer English language classes at all properties, free of charge to local team members.
- 05
Provide 2,400 families with safe drinking water by funding a further 500 clean water projects in our local communities.
- 06
Continue to support Childsafe as an organisation and to implement a continuous education program relating to children’s issues at each of our hostels.
- 07
Organize at least 2,600 beach / city cleanups by 2031, which is 5 cleanups a week, removing over 5000 kilos of trash from our oceans and beaches.
- 08
Maintain socially responsible employment, increase employee benefits, and continue to actively employ people with disabilities.