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Banggai islands of sulawesi is 10x better than bali in Indonesia!

Posted by (Brisbane, Australia) on

bali was 100% the plan. had everything half sorted and then one week before i just... didn't. scrapped it all and booked Banggai Islands in Sulawesi instead. my girlfriend was ready to kill me lol. she is not going to anymore
Luwuk Banggai and Sulawesi. please write those down.
we did the 6 days banggai island tour with asik travel and it still wasn't enough, not even close (you can do the tour self guided too but its a hassle and you wont save too much money in the end. but yes doable like 60-70%).

swam with whales. the water looked fake it was so clear. locals were so genuinely warm that it actually threw me off a little because i wasn't used to it lol. zero hustle, zero hey friend special price for you energy.
she's already sent me multiple so when are we going back texts and honestly same.
but what's actually driving me a little crazy was WHY does nobody talk about this place. like i genuinely don't understand it. you'd think somewhere this beautiful with this much to do would be all over instagram and travel pages but it's just... not. i feel like i'm losing my mind. how is Bali at maximum capacity while Banggai Islands is just sitting there being stunning and unbothered. makes no sense to me.
anyway i haven't done Bali so i won't fully clown on it but every post i see gives off "paid $30 to look at a rice field with 400 strangers" vibes. maybe one day.

maybe we should keep this place a secret? but people will discover it anyways as I did see mainly fellow germans/italian tourists on the airport so majority from europe.
anyways who cares, just try reading about it and consider it if you want to explore something hidden before it goes mainstream :)

Posted by
1196 posts

Sounds great and thanks for sharing.

On Bali, I'd say probably because it's cheap and easy to get to - it's a quick and direct flight on a budget airline from Singapore, KL or Australia. If you've come a long way anyway (ie from Europe) you're probably more willing to spend more time and explore. From Singapore it's a long weekend destination.

The three biggest sources of international arrivals for Indonesia as a whole are Malaysia, Australia and Singapore.

It's not really my cup of tea, but for what it's worth, the north is much quieter and really quite nice.

Posted by
1892 posts

I just viewed some photos of Banggai on the web. It's amazing. Was it difficult to reach there? I am interested in finding out more!

Posted by
4 posts

@Simon - oh well that makes more sense then. if i was in Malaysia, i wouldn't think twice before booking a flight to bali as it would be cheap and short. perfect weekend haha
I get now why it would be popular for people from nearby countries.
and you are absolutely on point about Europeans being more of explorer kinda people since the few I met in Banggai were europeans like Germans/italian and french iirc

@Barkinpark - well by difficult if you are asking about direct flight - then yes. you have to transit via Makkasar and book flight in advance. But once you are there in sulawesi (luwuk banggai), you don't have to worry much as you get picked from airport, get pre booked speedboat/ferry and boats for your whale tour, diving etc. But that's if you book a guided tour.
if you want to be even more of an explorer and want to relive the backpacker life then you should be ready to do a lot of stuff yourself, it can be fun though as I had in my younger days haha
But know that if you want to do that just to save money it wont be too significant as you will have to book each thing yourself and won't get the low price which local operators get. could be worth it if you are ultra budget, just plan everything in advance to be safe and you will be golden :)

what else you would want to know, am all ears and love to help

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