Indonesia Travel: Best Things To Do in Indonesia 2026 4K

What's going on everybody this is IslandHopperTV and today we're going to show you the best places to visit in Indonesia. We've got 15 different areas to go around plus some bonus information. If you're looking to visit this beautiful country of over 10,000 islands then this video is for you. Located here in the Ring of Fire, first up is Raja Ampat located in West Papua. Known as the last Eden on planet Earth, Raja Ampat is 1,500 small islands right here in this archipelago and it's one of the most biodiverse marine regions in the world known as the Coral Triangle. Home to 75% of the world's known coral species, 1,500 fish, 10 species of manta ray, and 700 species of mollusks. This place is amazing. They call it the Amazon of the ocean. Getting out here is a bit of a challenge but if you're up for the challenge and you want to see one of the most spectacular places in Indonesia then it's worth it. Just remember out here in West Papua it's not as developed as the rest of the country and honestly that's what people love about it. You'll have these over water bungalows that are like tiki huts, not like the ones you get in Maldives. These are like real indigenous type tiki hut hotels that you'll be staying at at the homestays so just be prepared. You fly from Jakarta or Bali to Sorong and then you take a boat to Wasai. Next up here we are in Bali, one of the most famous destinations in Indonesia. In fact, one of the most famous in the world especially with digital nomads, remote workers, and people who are looking for a unique cultural experience. Bali has been a victim of its own success over the years suffering from what some would say is mass tourism where a tropical island has turned into more of a city than it is a paradise that people have been going to for the last 50 years to enjoy surfing. Also going up to Ubud, enjoying the volcanoes. Last time I was in Bali I really enjoyed my time on the north side of the island away from places like Lagian or Kuta. I also like going down to Uluwatu but either way what a great time. Nearby Bali is the Gili Islands. You have Gili Air and several different islands here. These are very small. Nearby Lombok which we'll be talking about in a moment here but the Gili Islands have become a popular place with tourists who are looking to go outside and beyond Bali and they found places like the Gili Island and here it's known for some of the party scene but the laid-back chill vibes with the beaches. Also known for its marine biodiversity with the green turtles, hawksbill, reef sharks. If you wanted to get out here you would actually come in from Lombok which is a 15 minute speedboat over here since both Lombok and Bali have international airports. If you wanted to come to Lombok from Bali it's about a 1.5 to 2 hour speedboat ride just depends on the weather conditions but Lombok is becoming the new hot spot actually with a lot of biodiversity here. They've got pretty much everything the Bali island has minus some of the temples but as far as nature goes Lombok has it going on. As you can see just so many white sand beaches, beautiful volcano mountains, lush tropical rainforests. Really a special place. If you can get over here and do Bali, Lombok and the Gili Islands you could spend two weeks in this area just exploring and having a great time. Some people even spend more than two weeks they do a whole month. Since Indonesia actually gives you 30 days and you're allowed to extend online if you wanted to we actually made a full video talking about everything you need to know when you visit Indonesia. I'll put a link down below or on the end screen at the end of this video so you can watch that. Highly recommend watching that if you're coming to Indonesia. Now we're heading a couple islands over. This here is Flores Island in East Nusa Tenggara here in Indonesia. It is actually west of Timor and it's part of the Sunda Islands. Most famous for Komodo National Park where the Komodo dragon is. We'll be talking about that in particular but Flores Island is a place you don't want to overlook even though most people come here for Komodo and some of those islands in that national park. Flores Island is quite spectacular. They've got volcanoes with these super colorful lakes. Actually one of those is Mount Ineri. So this one here is on Flores Island. It's about 7,300 feet. It's a strata volcano. It's got a really symmetrical pyramid shape making it very clearly a volcano. It's hard to get up here. It's a hike. It's not for everybody but if you get up here people come up during the sunrise. They also come up with guides. It's recommended if you go that you hire a company to take you up there. Try not to go by yourself. A popular starting point is going to be the Watumeze village about 15 kilometers from Mahawa. But like I said when you come to Flores Island the big ticket in town is Komodo and here you're going to see a pink sand beach in the Komodo National Park and you can see it's a bit desert or arid type climate with beautiful colored beaches and water here. I'm surprised that it's not as lush as some of the other islands in the area considering it's still in the tropics. It almost looks like a desert right but Komodo known for the Komodo dragon. You can't forget that. Coming out here and experiencing Komodo for one or two days should be enough and then doing a couple days around Flores Island and you'll be pretty satisfied. As you can see exploring around Indonesia is truly an adventure, isn't it? I mean look at all of the things you can do here whether it's underwater world or above ground, the temples, the culture, so much to see and do and we haven't even shown you all of it. We're about to get even deeper into this as we show you more of the animals that actually live in Indonesia like the apes, the orangutans, and so much more. On the islands of Borneo and Sumatra coming up next now we're actually on Flores Island here at Kelamutu. So this is the special special volcano that you've probably seen many pictures of and you were wondering where it's at. Well it's on Flores Island and you can see it's got these beautiful colorful lakes at the top. Absolutely spectacular up here. Indonesia sitting in the ring of fire has many volcanoes but you can see it's kind of broken down into categories of islands and these archipelagos. It just depends on what archipelago you want to explore. Just like another famous volcano on Java. Now Java is obviously one of the most famous places in all of Indonesia and we're still halfway through the video and you can see Mount Bromo. Definitely awesome. People like to come over from Bali. It's about a two to three hour hike getting over here. You know it's kind of complicated because you got to take a ferry but getting out to Bromo probably is best if you're going to go to places like Yogyakarta or Surabaya. When I was in Surabaya that was when I went to the Mount Bromo area and so you usually wake up around like midnight or two in the morning and then you arrive up there for the sunrise. That's the special time to be up there on Mount Bromo. And staying on Java we're here at Yogyakarta. It looks like Yogya but it's pronounced Jogja. So Jogja is actually home to Borobudur which is the world's largest Buddhist temple. Now before Indonesia became a Muslim country it is one of the largest Muslim country populations in the world. It was actually Buddhist and or Hindu and so that's why you'll see all across Indonesia many Hindu or Buddhist temples like Borobudur or Premliland temples. There is some nightlife here in Jogja like Malaya Borough which is this area I went around on one of these horse-drawn carriages. I would say the best time to come down to Malaya Borough is going to be in the evening. It's just so hot in the daytime to walk around here really. But we're going to now the largest city in Indonesia. This here is Jakarta. Jakarta is probably worth about 48 hours of your time. I would say anything more than that is unnecessary but it just depends on what you want to see here. It's an old Dutch colony that has now been turned into the largest mega city in Indonesia. I mean I would say this is one of the largest cities in the world. It is truly huge and because of that it does have a lot of traffic. They are known for traffic jams. They say in Jakarta traffic is atrocious but it's still worth checking out if you wanted to see the capital. By the way the capital of Indonesia is actually moving to Kalimantan in Borneo soon. I went down to the old town where the Dutch East India Company actually had its headquarters. It's not one of the best preserved old town areas that you would find around the world but I mean it's still an old town. The cool thing about down here is they have Jakarta Kota which is the train station and from here you can get to Bandung, you can get all the way to Jogja. So trains in Java are quite efficient and modern so that's a great way to get around Jakarta or even Java in general. Now Java isn't really known for its beautiful beaches but there is an island just north of Java called Keraman Java and this is a beautiful tropical island. You can get out here by ferry. I would say you'd probably depart from Surabaya or somewhere around there and you could see beautiful tropical paradise. There's so many different islands. I believe there's around 17,000 islands in Indonesia total with one of those special islands being Sumatra and we're going to check out Lake Toba. So this is near Medan. That's one of the large cities on Sumatra. Sumatra is a very unique island. It's actually parallel to the Malaysian peninsula. The difference between Sumatra and the Malaysian peninsula, lots of biodiversity still on Sumatra and Lake Toba is just absolutely spectacular. This is one of the best places to go in all of Sumatra and remember Sumatra is where they have orangutans which we're about to start talking about a little bit more. But here in the Lake Toba area it sits on a super volcano caldera formed from a massive eruption 74,000 years ago and the eruption is said to have caused global cooling, ashfall across Asia and a volcanic winter that lasted years. So again another super volcano here in Indonesia. But staying out here in Sumatra we're actually going to Bukit Luang. This is the best place to find Sumatran orangutans. That's why people come out here to do trekking is to see these orangutans and there's also other types of animals you'll see out in these jungles but orangutans in the wild are so unique. There's actually two species in Indonesia. One called the Sumatran orangutan and the other one called the Borneo orangutan. You can tell the difference but you can tell the difference because of their face. Actually the Borneo orangutan has a more round circular face and is a bit bigger but they're both endangered species and there are conservation efforts being taken to help these apes stay wild. All right from Sumatra we're actually headed to another one of the major islands. This one here is Sulawesi. Now there are five major islands in Indonesia. Java, Sumatra, Borneo and obviously Sulawesi. We've shown you those but this one here is amazing. This one is a wild adventure. I mean you've got North Sulawesi, you've got Central Sulawesi, West Sulawesi. So many areas of Sulawesi to explore. It's rugged landscapes with mountains, rainforests, coral reefs, deep bays, beautiful beaches. I mean this place is amazing. There's also 40 plus different ethnic groups here. So very diverse in people as well as in terrain. So very amazing to explore here and you can explore Toraja or one of Indonesia's most fascinating cultures. Famous for its villages where they build these Tongkonen houses that are shaped like a boat on the roofs and this is actually one of the top cultural attractions. Also known for their funeral ceremonies. They do buffalo sacrifices, cliff burials. This is the island that attracts people far and wide just to see what it is they're up to with the way that they're doing the funeral process. And now here we are in Borneo. So Borneo is one of the largest islands in the world. I think it's either number two or number three. Another large island in the region is Papua New Guinea. That's West Papua and Papua New Guinea. But Borneo is a huge island and the south part of Borneo is Kalimantan. That's where they're building the new capital, Nusantara. And Kalimantan is Borneo, Indonesia side. Lots of things to see and do here. I mean this is an impressive island. If you go to the north that's Malaysia. Along with the orangutans they also have proboscis monkeys and they have the hawksbill bird. I've seen the hawksbill bird all across Southeast Asia actually. But Borneo in my opinion is definitely up and coming. This is the place to keep an eye on. I would say because they're building the capital here you can see Indonesia's got big plans for Borneo. You have to realize Indonesia has the largest economy in all of Southeast Asia and Southeast Asia is rising quickly. So with Indonesia being the economic powerhouse and the capital moving to Borneo here in Kalimantan expect big things. And we'll see you on the next one with everything you need to know about visiting Indonesia. Click right here on this video.