Transportation in Indonesia

Despite being broken up into over seventeen thousand islands, Indonesia is an incredibly easy country to travel around. From planes, boats, and private vans or busses, the country is really well organized when it comes to moving from point A to point B, even though it may look a bit chaotic on the outside. Here’s a little look at what it’s like traveling around Indonesia on one of our snorkeling safaris.

Ground Transport

When we need to move as a group from an airport or hotel to our snorkeling resort or liveaboard, we always have several private air-conditioned vans organized in advance and waiting for us. To maintain as much social distancing as possible in the vehicle, we always book several extra vans to spread people out a bit which also helps free up space for people’s large bags. Also, because you’ve shared your travel information with us prior to your trip’s start date, we will have private cars waiting to pick you up when you first arrive in Indonesia to transport you to wherever it is you need to be, whether it be the resort or to the hotel we are all meeting at. Unless of course, it’s the airport hotel in Bali or Jakarta which can be found inside the airport. No need to worry about hot crowded busses with chickens, we make sure all ground transportation is air-conditioned, comfortable, and private.

Boats

Outside of the daily snorkeling trips which will in one way or another involve a boat, there may be a boat ride or two involved to get us from one island to another when flying or driving is not an option. Boat trips can vary from 20 minutes to up to 4 hours in the case of Misool resort. Generally, trips will be around 30-40 minutes. Like our ground transportation, all the boat trips will be organized in advance and always chartered exclusively for us or by the resort. All the boats we use are covered, well maintained, comfortable, and fully kitted out with the necessary safety equipment.

Flights

airplane wing and coral reef

Many of our Indonesia snorkeling safaris will involve at least one round trip domestic flight. If you are doing a multi-destination snorkel safari with us it could mean several domestic flights. The nice thing about flying around Indonesia is that most of the airports are brand new, or just recently built and really quite comfortable. Where available we always book the lounge access so we have a nice quiet area to relax and eat in before the flight. With the exception of the flight to Raja Ampat (Sorong), most flights are only one to three hours long and offer great perspectives of the islandscape below as well as a birds-eye view of some seriously awesome volcanoes.

About Author

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Alex Lindbloom
Alex is a Snorkel Venture and Dive Safari Asia guide as well as the video and photo pros for both companies. Alex is also a field editor for a popular underwater photography magazine. Prior to joining Snorkel Venture in 2018 Alex lived and worked all over the world working as an underwater cameraman, with five of those years living/working on a yacht in Indonesia. Alex's images and videos have garnered many international awards such as Underwater Photographer of the Year and can be seen on NatGeo, Discovery Channel, the UN Building, and various magazines.