Raja Ampat Travel Guide: The Last Paradise 🇮🇩 (Staying On Rufas Island)

The Last Paradise on Earth. Located in the remote region of West Papua, Raja Ampat is an Indonesian archipelago comprising of over 1,500 different islands. Famously known as the Last Paradise on Earth thanks to its mostly untouched reefs and protective marine life, this is one of the most coveted places to enjoy the ocean. In this video, we'll take you along our entire journey, how we got there, the most incredible island we stayed on with questionable living conditions, and all the magical life we got to see in the water. Make sure to stay until the end of our video where we'll share how to best book your stays in Raja Ampat. As you guys can tell, we're not in the paradise of Raja Ampat quite yet. We're actually in Bali at the Denpasar airport and we thought it'd be pretty important to share with you guys how to actually get to Raja Ampat as it's a little bit complicated. It is currently about midnight and our flight does not leave until 1.40 in the morning. We feel like flights at a time like this should straight up just be illegal but technically this really weird flight time is a bit of a blessing. I'll explain why later. Before I pass out on this flight over to Serang, which by the way that is step one in getting over to Raja Ampat, you have to make your way over to the city of Serang and this flight's only about three hours. I don't sleep super well on these red-eye flights so hopefully I get a little bit of sleep and also we have no window here. I literally picked these seats and I happen to be the one that has no window. It's so sad. Either way, it doesn't matter. Cue to sleep. How much? How much is it? How much is it? 100. 100? Yeah. Okay, sounds good. That was so funny. He swatted the other guy's hand away. Oh, he's waiting here? He said to wait here. Okay, okay, that's funny. After landing in Serang, we hopped in a taxi over to the ferry terminal. It's the most common destination leaving the airport so all the cab drivers know where to go and it should cost IDR 100,000 for the ride. Now we are on the ferry and there are two different classes that you have to be aware of. There's going to be the economy class as well as VIP. Economy costs IDR 125,000 while VIP costs IDR 250,000. The main difference is that in VIP, you have an air-conditioned room as well as an adjustable seat so you can kick back, relax and actually get some proper sleep. Now for us, we did opt to go for the VIP because honestly, the price difference of IDR 125,000, we think it's totally worth it because on that flight, we barely got any sleep. Maybe like an hour or so. Yeah, I was like really in and out with the lights on so it was really tough. Yes, and there's also another fee you have to be made aware of which is the port fee which is IDR 13,000 per person. Oh, by the way, the taxi ride as well as the ferry including the port fee, it is all cash so make sure you bring lots of it. Alright, we're gonna go grab some sleep. I will catch you guys when we reach the port of Wasai which is the true entry point into Raja Ampat. It is raining like crazy out there so we're kind of hiding underneath this shelter right now. That ferry ride took about two hours long. We kind of slept the whole way through which is really nice. Now, we are here at the port of Wasai. Now, there are quite a few accommodations here and if you are staying over here, you can go take one of the taxis but most people like us are actually staying on a different island. So, right now, we're going to head over to the transport center which is right over there in order to catch your boat to Rufus Island. At the visitor center, we went through the process of paying for our entrance and marine park fees for Raja Ampat. It costs IDR 300,000 for the entrance fee and IDR 700,000 for the park fee. It's a hefty price tag but at least the marine park fee lasts an entire year for those of you who may want to visit more than once. To get to your home state, you can arrange this ahead of time directly with them so that they're ready to pick you up. The transfer fee is priced per boat so if you find more people to share the ride with, the cheaper it will be. To reach Rufus Island, it was two and a half million IDR and the ride was less than comfortable and left our butts sore for days. It was a tiny boat, very bumpy with some choppy waves along the way and took a whopping two-some hours to get to the island. There was unfortunately quite a bit of garbage we saw along the way which is becoming a major issue in Raja that comes with heavy rains in Serang but nevertheless, we made it safely to our home for the next several days and as soon as we pulled into the lagoon, the long-winded journey we took to get here became instantly worth it. Saying that that ride was uncomfortable would be an understatement. I don't know when my butt is going to recover from that. It was two and a half plus hours of bumpiness. At least we had a little bit of a towel to create a cushion on the boat but we did finally make it over to Rufus Island and it is so beautiful. It's the one homestay that's kind of hidden in this lagoon. It is gorgeous. The wind is coming through here and luckily, they actually did service lunch. It is 3 p.m and we haven't eaten since last night so Jason is serving up our basic lunch and I can't wait to eat and get settled in. Lunch is served and this is probably one of the most basic meals I have ever seen. To be honest, no matter which homestay you're going to be at, the food is going to be super rudimentary. We literally have some pickled veggie, rice, as well as one whole egg. If you're coming to Raja Ampat for the food, I think you're doing something wrong. After lunch, we were all settled in and this is our humble abode. As you can see, everything is super basic. Pretty much all of the homestays in Raja Ampat kind of look like this. Of course, there's going to be some that are elevated. Some even have air conditioning which we are so jealous of and a lot of them actually have private bathrooms. Now, fortunately here at Rufus, none of the rooms have a private bathroom. There's shared facilities right around the corner here. This is our room. You can see nice little bamboo slabs. We have a bed with a mosquito net. Really important. We have a little desk and a fan. So, one other key note to know about homestays here in Raja Ampat is that electricity does not run constantly throughout the day. Usually, they kick in the generator at night. That's when you can go ahead and charge all of your devices. Now, let's head outside because this obviously is our favorite part. Got a couple of chairs. This hammock is going to be so nice when it's hot and the breeze comes through. You can just lie there and just chill and look at that view. It's actually really stunning here and it's so quiet because it is a lagoon. But with that said, that water looks amazing. We are so gross and sweaty. It's time to hop in. Let me start off by saying that the footage does not do this place justice. It was the best snorkeling we've ever done. From the abundant marine life to the healthy vibrant corals, we could have easily spent hours out here. There was also a cute feisty clownfish that kept coming up to us as we passed over her home during low tide. After snorkeling, Jason popped the drone up the surrounding limestone islands of Pianemo, one of the most iconic spots in all of Raja Ampat. We would later be visiting in a couple of days as an excursion and it's even more beautiful in person. But for now, we end our first day in the archipelago with dinner over the lagoon, a step up from lunch, but nothing too special. Good morning guys. We were so tired after snorkeling yesterday, which by the way, was one of the best snorkeling experiences that we've ever had. We ended up just grabbing dinner with the other home guests and just chatted with them. It was great meeting them. One really cool thing about all these homestays in Raja Ampat is that all of your meals are included and they are at a set time. So in about 20 minutes or so, we're gonna go and grab breakfast and then we were told by the other guests that it's really amazing if you snorkel outside of the lagoon. You can swim around the entire island and apparently it's even better than what we saw yesterday. So we're gonna go eat and then go hop back into that water. We found that the best snorkeling was on the northeastern part of Rufus Island. Incredible visibility and so much marine life like the cutest hawksbill turtle and a reef shark lurking about. We would suggest bringing your own snorkel gear to the islands as not all homestays will have them for rent and if they do, they're often old leftovers at a high price. But after being in the water for over two hours, it's definitely time for us to grab a little snack. We brought these like saltine onion crackers from Sri Lanka. We also packed up some like meal replacements, granola bars, protein bars that we brought from Bali. That was definitely an important thing because being out here super active, we definitely get hungry as the food can be quite basic. We have a little guest coming with us on this excursion, the fresh prince himself. He fully stole my spot but that's okay. You know what? He looks fly. He looks good. He deserves it. Get the front row seat on this adventure. We just finished lunch and it is time for us to head off on a little excursion. We are gonna head to what is probably the most popular viewpoint in all of Raja Ampat which is called Pianemo or Pianemo. It's actually really close to Rufus. It should only be about a 15-minute boat ride and then a 20-minute trek up to the top. Now do know for every single homestay pretty much, they have a lot of excursions and all these excursions are priced per boat. So for us, it was 500,000 to get over to Pianemo and that is going to be shared by whoever's in your boat which is kind of nice. If you find some people to go with, obviously your cost will go down. Alright, we're gonna enjoy this boat ride and then we're gonna head up to the top. Good job. Literally the greatest little helper. Oh never mind, he left. He left his post. I'm ready to leave. Well that's the view. That's what we've been dreaming of babe and we get it all to ourselves. I can't get over this view. It's absolutely gorgeous with the limestone islands. There's so many individual little humps and the water is unreal. That color is impeccable and the water is so calm that I can actually see right into the corals. I can see a school of fish swimming down there and there are two kayakers out there swimming between the islands and it must be such a ball. I kind of wish we had more time up here. I wish this were a view every single day. We thought that we were only going to Pianemo but then our captain took us to a different dock up to a place called Tagalabintan which offers another viewpoint of these beautiful islands. It's not as impressive as Pianemo because you're so much higher up over here but honestly it's really cool being so close to the emerald green waters. We didn't realize it at the time but this was a major viewpoint of Pianemo called Star Lagoon. Let us know in the comments if you can spot the outline of a star. Right here on Rufus Island there's actually a free viewpoint that you can go and check out. Now we did hear from the guests that already went up to check it out that getting up there it's a little bit rickety. It's kind of like makeshift steps, a little bit of scrambling. So we're gonna go and check that out and see how it is. Apparently the view up there is amazing so we are super excited. It is a beautiful day out here. So you already know the sun hitting that water is gonna look amazing from the top. Even this makeshift dock is a little bit weird, hey? Yeah, it's a little makeshift but so far so good. No holes, right? I want you guys to see this. Look how clear the water is here. The coral and the abundance of fish just right here. Crazy. So awesome. Even though the climb up is a little bit difficult it literally takes two minutes for you to climb up to the top and wow you can already start seeing the views. Oh it looks beautiful up here. Wowee. It was a bit of a struggle to get over those steep steps but it was nice because they actually added concrete to create the flat steps on top of the limestone. Although some of them were over hip height so it was a bit of a struggle especially my flip-flops and skirt. But we made it up here in only two minutes so it's so worth getting up to the viewpoint. It's a massive deck. There are two levels and look at the view. It was so nice about up here in the morning because the wind is coming through, the sun is not too strong and the color is still popping out. The next morning we planned for a final excursion over to a coral reef called Napoleon for some snorkeling but the rain delayed our start. Once it did clear up we headed off with new friends from our homestay and hit the water. We had a great time snorkeling at Napoleon and making our way with the current to Gloria Beach. It was pretty much just our group too so we got to enjoy it as much as we wanted to. It was about two hours for the whole experience and the sun really came through at the right time so visibility was great. Based on our experience as well as speaking to many of the homestay guests here who did other excursions to other snorkeling sites the consensus essentially was that the house reef here in Rufus was honestly the best. So if you want to save some money and you didn't want to do a snorkeling tour you honestly don't have to just explore the reefs here and we saw so many amazing things but of course though we do recommend doing the Pienaimo excursion though. That was such a great experience. Now we are going to be checking out tomorrow which is so sad. We're going to spend the rest of the day just relaxing enjoy the sights one more time but we're so excited to bring you guys along to other parts of Raja Ampat. Booking your stays in Raja Ampat doesn't really work on any of the conventional third-party platforms you might be used to. Don't worry though it's pretty straightforward. You can head over to stayrajaampot.com to see the homestay options and request a book for the date you wish. It does take some time to hear back so feel free to send out more than one request for your top homestay selections. If you guys have any further questions about booking your Raja Ampat trip feel free to drop them in the comments.