Want to visit Bali but you are afraid you will end up on a crowded beach or taking a selfie in a rice field full of tourists? Then consider visiting less commercialized Lombok instead. It is just 2 hours’ ferry ride away from Bali. Or just fly in directly from Singapore, Jakarta or Kuala Lumpur. Lombok can offer you stunning beaches, very clean seas, lush green inland, lively waterfalls, friendly monkeys and an impressive Mt Rinjani – an active volcano with breathtaking views of the lake inside its crater. We visited Lombok in September, only a month after the terrible earthquakes, so a lot of places we wanted to see were closed or had limited access. Which was actually just […]
Indonesia is much more than just beautiful beaches
“Oh, you’re going to Indonesia? I’d love to visit Bali, Lombok and the Gilis; they look amazing!” When people find out you’re heading deep into the Pacific, they’ll assume you’re going to one of the “holiday islands”. Sure, Bali, Lombok and the Gilis are excellent places to visit and travel – there’s nothing quite like lying on the beach all day and drinking in the nearby shacks all night. However, Indonesia is so much more and it has plenty to offer regarding exclusivity. In fact, there might not be a nation on the planet which has as many experiences that are only found in one place. So, if there is at least one shred of adventurous spirit in you, check out what you […]
Lombok after the earthquake
Many of you are still asking whether it is safe to travel to Lombok after the series of earthquakes which hit the island in August 2018. The first main shock with 6.9 magnitude, flattening the whole villages, happened on August 5th, just 3 days after I had booked our Lombok vacation. The other big one struck just a few days later – there were reports of even bigger damage and over 500 people killed, with thousands injured. The grounds had been shaking every day, there were also some landslides around Mt. Rinjani, some hotels had been completely destroyed and forums were flooded with travelers asking for new updates about the safety on the island. The answers were different: from “please […]
Hotel review: Jeeva Beloam beach camp (Lombok, Indonesia)
Lombok is quite big and if you want to feel its pulse you need to move around the island. Due to relatively bad roads and heavy traffic it is quite tiresome to be on the road daily, so we decided to stay a few days in the South first and spend the rest of our Lombok vacation on the West coast. While I was searching for hotels in Kuta beach, I ran into this small spot in Sunut peninsula, which seemed to be quite isolated. The photos and the reviews of Jeeva Beloam beach camp were very promising – I am a sucker for beaches and the fact that the camp owns an entire bay was the first green light […]