Nusa Penida Travel Guide

Thailand

Nusa Penida Travel Guide

What an amazing island! Nusa Penida is a must when visiting Bali or just Indonesia in general. It is a perfect place if you are on a search for those perfect scenic views!

How to get around Nusa Penida

Depending on how much time you have will help determine whether or not you should do an organized tour and what transportation method to use.

I only had two days and one night on the famous island. With multiple spots to see I chose to do an organized tour with a car. Other possibilities range from group tours to private ones via cars or going fully independent and renting a bike on your own.

A good tip that I found out later was it may be more budget-friendly to not do an organized tour and just hire a driver for the day ($5 – $10/ per day).

My tour was about $120/per person and included:

Private Driver/tour guide for two full days
snorkeling excursion (4 sights)
Lunch on both days
Hotel stay (breakfast included)
Entrance fees to all sightseeing spots
Return fast boat tickets
Return transfer to and from hotel in Bali

There were some parts of the tour that I felt could have been improved for the price. On the other hand, we most likely would not have had time for all the spots we hit in those two days.

Day 1

We stared with a 6:30 am wake-up call and made our way to Sanur Harbor, which was about a 2-hour drive from Canggu. At the harbor, there were multiple vendors selling fast boat tickets. If you don’t book a boat seat before or a ticket online, you’ll need to get here at least 30 minutes earlier.

It depends on what time a day and the tides, but most likely you may have to trek through some muddy water in order to get on to the boat. This is something I did not expect but got lucky that I was wearing some slip-on sandals that were easy to remove. Another helpful thing to know is that you may have to walk through water that can go up to your knees, or even higher so prepare yourself to get wet!

Stop 1

When we arrived on Nusa Penida, we were greeted by our tour guide and taken to the office to get ready for our snorkeling excursion. I was extremely excited to go snorkeling at the famous Manta Point, but unfortunately, the swells were too big to see this specific spot. I was pretty bummed since it was the entire reason that I had chosen to do the snorkeling excursion, but the other sites we hit were still amazing!

We got to see some amazing coral reefs which was a highlight!

Stop 2

The next stop was at Angel’s Billabong and Broken beach. This was was a two in one stop. These spots were high on the cliffside and were perfect to see the blue water down below.

Angels Billabong was a pool of perfect, crystal clear water. It’s great for a good picture and makes you want to jump in.

Here are some examples of the pictures I took.

Broken Beach

Stop 3

The next stop was about an hour away but worth the car ride for the famous Kelingking Beach! This is a well-known spot so expect double the crowds for this one. A great thing about this place was no matter the number of pictures I saw from social media, I was still amazed by the view! The famous T-Rex cliff was jaw-dropping!

Stop 4

To end our long, hot day the last stop was at Crystal Bay for a swim and to watch the sunset. This was a perfect last stop and we also discovered a hidden stairway along the left side of the beach. We climbed up and got an amazing view of the beach. A really cool thing about this location was that if you go all the way up, there is another beach on the other side of the mountain. Next time I go back to the island I will definitely plan to hit this beach with some snacks and chill on a basically private beach for the day.

Crystal Bay

Day 2

After a short nights rest and a quick breakfast we were off to the next day of adventuring.

Stop 1

The first stop was at the Teletubbies hills! It sounds funny but if you ever watched this show as a kid the area really does look like from the show. Talk about memories from the past. If you haven’t seen the kids show then the hills are still a beautiful site to see!

Stop 2

After a quick look around we headed to the famous Nusa Penida Treehouse view, this spot over looks diamond beach from a very rustic treehouse. Apparently you can even stay the night in the tree as well. We did have to pay for a picture at the treehouse – 50,000 IDR which is only about $4 USD!

Here’s one of the photos that I got at the treehouse

Stop 3

After a quick bite to eat we headed to Dimond Beach. This was my favorite stop of the whole two-day tour! This is another site that I have seen multiple times on social media but seeing it in person was incredible!

Diamond Beach

We decided to go all the way down the beach (which you must do if you have time!). This was about a 10-15min walk down and a lot of the steps were pretty unstable making the hike in sandals for me quite slow. Near the bottom of the stairs, it became more of a rock scaling than stairs. You definitely should be committed when on this journey, but I promise it was so worth it!

It is a perfect beach and was an amazing chance to cool off in the water. I should also mention the beach can be quite dangerous as well. The day we were there the swells were huge and very strong, so it is important to really pay attention when getting into the water.

After spending some time on the beach and drinking coconuts we made our way back up to the top.

Stop 4 – The end of Nusa Penida

Unfortunately, the next stop was to the pier to head back to Bali. Our boat was around 5 pm and we made it back to our accommodation just in time for the sunset!