Islands of Indonesia

Known For : Tanah Lot Uluwatu Bali Swing

Clearly the most famous island in Indonesia, Bali is the best place for any tourist who needs a week of absolute relaxation, fragrant cuisine, scenic beauty, and a galore of culture and tradition. It lies west of Java in the Lesser Sunda chain, and is known for terraced rice fields, elaborate temples, an almost unbroken coastline and some of the world's best coral reefs offshore.

Best Time: April to October

302 Bali Attractions

Known For : Selong Belanak Beach Kuta Lombok Pink Beach

Located east of Bali, Lombok is a more laidback and slow-paced alternative to Bali's raucous disposition. Promoted as "an unspoiled Bali", Lombok is what people expected Bali to be before it became crowded and a mainstream travel destination. It is known for its waterfalls, pearl farms, rice paddies and white-sand beaches, and for Mount Rinjani, Indonesia's second-highest active volcano, with a lake inside its caldera.

Best Time: April - October

33 Lombok Attractions

Known For : Kelingking Beach Atuh Beach Diamond Beach

The largest of the three Nusa Islands, Nusa Penida is chock-full with dramatic cliff-faces, beaches, and dive sites that offer some of the best snorkelling, scuba diving, and surfing. Known for preserving the endangered bird Bali Starling, the famous attractions in this island of Indonesia are the Crystal Bay sand beach and the sunset panorama from the island.

Best Time: April - October

27 Nusa Penida Attractions

Blessed with rugged tropical terrain, ancient rainforests, and smouldering volcanic formations, Sumatra is the world's sixth-largest island. Sumatra houses some of Indonesia's richest oil fields, coal, gold and silver reserves. Its rainforests are among the last places where orangutans, tigers and rhinos share a habitat, and inland lies Lake Toba, the crater lake left by one of the largest eruptions in the planet's history.

Dotted with volcanic mountains, unspoilt rainforests, cosmopolitan cities and coasts, Java Island is home to some of Indonesia’s busiest culture and eco-tourism destinations. Java is Indonesia’s heartland of performing arts, royal ceremonies, tea farming and batik handicrafts.

Nusa Lembongan is one of the three islands located in the south-east of Bali. This beach escape untouched by commercialism and remains a top draw for visitors aspiring for a bit of solitude. The area around Nusa Lembongan has an abundance of marine life, including colourful corals that are perfect for diving and snorkelling.

Known For : Relax at the Beach in Gili Trawangan Snorkelling in Gili Trawangan Swim With Sea Turtles in Gili Trawangan

Located just off the northeastern coast of Lombok and to Bali's west, Gili Trawangan is a part of the Gili Island archipelago comprising Gili Trawangan, Gili Meno, and Gili Air and more than 20 other smaller islands. It is also the most developed and tourist-friendly among them.

Best Time: May - September

16 Gili Trawangan Attractions

Komodo Island has been named one of the new seven natural wonders of the world. Along with Rinca and the other islands of Komodo National Park, it is one of the only places on earth where Komodo dragons are found outside captivity, and it shelters some 25 other endangered species besides. Around 2,000 people live here, largely on fishing and goat breeding. Use one of the official guides rather than looking for the dragons on your own.

Best Time: September to November

Padar Island is the third largest island in Komodo National Park, located in between its two sibling islands- Komodo Island and Rinca island. Padar is surrounded by beautiful rugged hills that offer a splendid panoramic view. It is a perfect place for hikers that love a challenge.

Best Time: April to November

Gili Gede lies on the southwest coast of Lombok and is small, rugged, and isolated from the other parts of Indonesia. The island is vastly popular as a surfing destination, with Desert Point being renowned as one of the best surf spots in the world, with one of the longest left-handed surf breaks being found here.

Best Time: May to September

Known For : Barelang Bridge Nagoya Hill Shopping Mall Water Sports in Batam

Batam lies in the Riau Archipelago off eastern Sumatra, close enough to Singapore that the ferry crossing takes under an hour, and it is the most industrialised island in the country, built up as a free-trade zone. Resorts, golf courses and spas serve the weekend traffic from across the strait. Of everything on this list it is the one you go to for convenience rather than for the island itself.

Best Time: May to September.

15 Batam Attractions

Known For : Scuba Diving in Gili Air Swings in Gili Air Sunset in Gili Air

Gili Air is the Gili island closest to Lombok and the one where people actually live, so alongside the beach bars there are villages, coconut plantations and a mosque whose call to prayer carries across the sand. No cars or motorbikes run on any of the three. It sits between Trawangan's nightlife and Meno's silence, which is why most first-timers pick it.

Best Time: April - October

15 Gili Air Attractions

Gili Meno is the middle and smallest of the three Gilis, roughly two kilometres by one, and by some distance the quietest: a handful of bungalows, a salt lake inland and a turtle hatchery on the beach. Nothing is more than a twenty-minute walk away. Where Trawangan has the bars and Air has the villages, Meno has neither, which is the whole point of going.

Nusa Ceningan is the smallest of the three Nusa islands off Bali's south-east coast, joined to Nusa Lembongan by a narrow yellow suspension bridge that only scooters and walkers cross. The Blue Lagoon cliffs, a seaweed farm in the channel and a couple of cliff-jump spots are most of what there is. It works as an afternoon from Lembongan rather than a destination on its own.

The landscapes in Indonesia are so much more than lush rainforests and smouldering volcanoes. The country is replete white-sand beaches, and with an archipelago of six islands, the Derawan Islands are a perfect escape for those who love beaches, caves and adventure. There are lavish resorts and hotels with views of the white-sand beaches.

Known For : Waingapu Waikabubak

Sumba is a beautiful and untouched island which is situated to the East of the country; however, it amazingly distinguishes itself from the Northern volcanic part of Indonesia. The visitors that do make it to Sumba are usually surfers as Sumba has an surf scene that remains under the radar.

Best Time: April to November

2 Sumba Attractions

An archipelago that consists of 27 islands that form a marine park, of which only 5 are inhabited by people, the Karimunjawa Islands are the archetypal castaway island escape. The water over most of the reef is shallow and clear, which makes this one of the easier places in Indonesia to snorkel with no experience. Reached by boat from Jepara or Semarang on Java, the islands stay far quieter than Bali or Lombok.

An island group that consists of 4 islands that are situated to the southeast of Sulawesi, Wakatobi is fast gaining a reputation for being amongst the world's premier destinations for diving and snorkelling. The name is a contraction of the four main islands, Wangi-Wangi, Kaledupa, Tomia and Binongko. They sit inside the Coral Triangle, and the reefs of Wakatobi National Park are among the richest anywhere for coral species.

Also known as Sabang, after the largest town on the island, Weh is located north of Sumatra and is typical of the tropical escape. Palm trees swaying in the wind, azure blue waters lapping up the white sand beaches of the island, Weh is popular amongst divers for the diversity of marine life that include manta rays, whale sharks, and dolphins.

Comprising several long peninsulas radiating from a mountainous centre, Sulawesi Island is the crux of Indonesia’s Dutch colonial history. Listed as a UNESCO Marine Biosphere, the island is a geographical tapestry of epic coral reefs, tropical jungles, highlands, trekking and dive sites such as Bunaken National Park, Togian Islands and Wakatobi National Park.

Touted for its idyllic rainforests, resident orangutans, and traditional Dayak riverside longhouses, Kalimantan is an Indonesian island in Borneo. It is the world’s third-largest island. Kalimantan boasts museums, Islamic establishments and historical relics of Indonesia’s war-stricken history, bazaars and malls, turquoise ocean waters and reefs for snorkelling.

Raja Ampat Islands are an Indonesian archipelago comprising 1,500 smaller, primarily uninhabited jungle-covered islands. These islands are known among underwater enthusiasts for turquoise waters, beaches, lagoons, historic caves, and biodiverse coral reefs for snorkelling.