Let’s get wanderlusted in Nusa Penida, Bali!
Wait, do you even know where it’s located? It’s an island, still part of Bali located in the south-east of Bali mainland. It’s a developing island, even Nusa Lembongan and Nusa Ceningan are more developed than this island. In case you’re also planning to go to Nusa Lembongan and Nusa Ceningan, you definitely need to check out the travel guides and tips here also the Instagrammable places to visit here. Nusa Penida is great for adventurous Bali holiday, it is so worth it to go here and I’ve always wanted to come back.
How to get here from Bali mainland:
If you’re coming from Bali mainland, go to Sanur port then go to the left side and you will see a lot of vendors offering tickets to go to Nusa Penida while the right side filled with vendors offering tickets to Nusa Lembongan. The sailing takes around 45 minutes.
Ticket price:
Rp75.000 (US$5) per person for locals
Rp200.000 (US$14) per person for foreigners
(Price for one way, round-trip prices may differ)
If you’re coming from Lombok or Padang Bai, Bali, there are plenty of boat transportation providers to choose from. You can also book your transportation ticket online, hassle-free with free cancelation. There’s a chance that you’ll get cheaper a price online compared to buying directly offline.
CLICK ME | Ferry from Sanur, Bali to Nusa Penida
CLICK ME | Ferry from Padang Bai, Bali to Nusa Penida
CLICK ME | Ferry from Lombok to Nusa Penida
How to get here from Nusa Lembongan:
I actually arrived in this island from Nusa Lembongan, departed around Yellow Bridge. We ended up renting the boat because we got scammed even though our plan was to get into the public boat transport. We didn’t even have the boat all ourselves, we shared with two other families, we felt so scammed. Actually, you can bargain if you decide to rent a boat. Anyway, sailing only took us about 15 minutes.
Ticket price:
Rp200.000 (US$14) for boat renting
Rp30.000 (US$2) per person by public boat
(Price for one way, round-trip prices may differ)
How About One Day Trip?
There many travel tours to Nusa Penida for only a day, perfect for you who have limited time. If you have a flexible time in your travel, my suggestion is to stay for at least 2 nights because you will be able to enjoy Nusa Penida and its tourism destinations. Also, in Nusa Penida, you will find fewer tourists and cheaper yet good foods. My best food experience was eating yummy sauced octopus menu in a quite good portion for only about Rp 35.000 (US$3) including taxes, it’s located in a good cafe with good wi-fi (when it’s not crowded) called Artrolling Bistro.
Where to stay?
I really recommend staying in the shoreline area around the north up to the northeast side since you will easily find a place to eat also shops where you can get snacks or toiletries. You can even spot some of the restaurants on the map I show above. I know it’s far from the tourism spot but believe me, you don’t want to stay nearby the tourism spots.
Unfortunately, I stayed in the wrong location, it’s quite secluded, hard to find places to eat, no signal, and the accommodation has bad wi-fi which basically has no connection to the internet. Another bad luck, I only had time about 2 nights to spent in Nusa Penida because we had to continue to go to Gili Trawangan. If I had more time, I would’ve definitely moved from that accommodation but then I remembered that I couldn’t just move right away because we booked the place already for 2 nights.
Important tip: don’t rely on booking.com or other online booking sites because I found out that there are better places in better locations to stay, but they just don’t have an online booking system. In case you want to try using booking.com, you can click here to enjoy a 10% refund on your first book.
Where to go?
There are so many destinations I wanted to visit but I didn’t have enough time but please check out my other blog posts here to see the tourism spots I visited in one and a half-day. I’d like to inform you that finding the signal here is hard and you won’t be able to access the internet almost all the time so you can’t rely on Google Maps directions or Waze. You will only find signals around coastal areas and it’s not even in every coastal area. Also, you need to plan on where to go and how many tourism spots you want to visit in a day. Believe me, it’s going to make your journey easier since as I stated before, the distance from one to another is far. I might spend like about 1-2 hours to move from 1 spot to the next one and even more, time-consuming coming back to your accommodation location.
How to get to my itineraries without internet:
Important tip: my trick to reach the destinations is by marking them with “Want to go” marks on Google Maps. After that, I navigated offline from my current location based on the GPS (thank God, it can work offline) to the itinerary I was going for. So, I basically had to have my phone on almost all the time and keep zooming in – zooming out the Google map to see which turn we should make. This will be easier when you don’t go alone because you will have to stop here and there just to look on the map. I went on the scooter with someone and I was the passenger also the map reader.
Sometimes the GPS doesn’t really do its job well and you are left confused. You can either see the road sign or just ask the locals even though they mostly don’t speak English. So I also suggest you to keep the photos of the itineraries you want to visit then you can ask the local by showing it.
Why should I show the photo instead of asking the tourism spot name? Because first, the locals don’t really speak English as I stated earlier. Second, the tourism spots here usually have 2 different names, one in English and one in Indonesia. The English ones are famous while the Indonesian names are usually only known by the locals.
The first photo above is showing you my itineraries (the green labels). I searched them when I had the internet then I saved them into my “Want to go” list in Google Maps. The second photo is the zoomed-in map. You can see where the streets are going so you’ll be able to navigate offline by reading the map aiming the saved destination.
My tips to wander in Nusa Penida:
- Learn to navigate offline. Read “How to get to the itineraries” above.
- Bring and wear your sunscreen.
- Wear your sunglasses and mask since the dust from unpaved roads can irritate your eyes. It’s bad for your respiratory system too.
- Some parts have paved roads but as you get close to the spot, usually no paved roads. I saw people falling from their scooters because of the off-road situation is quite hardcore. So, be careful!
- Only press the left brake when you drive the slippery downhill road, pressing the right brake might get you falling. If you have a passenger, better to let the passenger walk while you’re driving the hard road.
- Switch off the engine once you fall. The reason is you may accidentally gas your scooter when you try to lift the scooter into a standing position.
- ATM is hard to find, bring enough cash.
- It’s hard to find a place to eat on the way to itineraries. So, eat when you find one.
- Wear your sports shoes because most of the itineraries require hiking up or down.
- Less hustling, book the 1-day trip from Bali with private car and driver/guide included.
That is all the information that I can provide for you, guys! Nusa Penida has a special place in my heart and I’m sure it will do the same to you. Thank you so much for visiting my blog and reading this blog post. Keep in mind that the fees I listed above may not 100% correct, there might be some changes or differences. Happy travel!
Hi, I’m Luna. Welcome to my blog! You will find helpful travel guides and tips on my blog posts, all are written by me and based on my experience. I hope you enjoy reading my blog posts!
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