Backpacking Tips in Indonesia

Backpacking Tips in Indonesia

Hello guys! As you know, I’m an Indonesian Travel Blogger, so I want to write post about backpacking tips in Indonesia. I’ve been planning itinerary for years now, so I always split my budget into four elements.

H.E.A.T. = Budget for Backpacking

To make easier to remember, I make this short cut H.E.A.T. that stands for:

H – Hotel

E – Eat

A – Attraction

T – Transportation

So, this is the H.E.A.T. Budget for Backpacking Tips in Indonesia! 🙂

Backpacking Tips: Hotel in Indonesia

For now, there are a lot of budget hotels in Indonesia. Several budget hotel chain in Indonesia, like:

• Fave Hotel
• Pop Hotel
• Whiz Hotel
• Ibis Budget Hotel (Accor)
• Hotel 88
• Amaris Hotel

For the cheaper hotels, maybe more like motels or guest house, you can find in the apps:

• OYO
• Zenrooms
• Airy Rooms
• RedDoorz

You can install booking apps to get the best price or promotion for budget hotel in Indonesia. Famous hotel booking apps in Indonesia, like Traveloka or Tiket.com. But you can always use international booking engine like Agoda or Booking.com. It works just fine. The promotion price for budget hotel is as low as USD 14 (200 thousand rupiahs) per night, for 2 persons. You can get cheaper price in hostel or guest house.

Cheap Eats in Indonesia

It’s a little bit tricky. But you cannot miss street food while in Indonesia. It’s really delicious and different taste in each island. You must ask the price before buying, so you won’t be scam by the street merchant. Even place like Beijing, there’s a lot of scam near the Forbidden City. So, eventhough many Indonesians people are so nice, you still must be careful with the price. Always ask price before buying. That’s my number 1 rule in everywhere I go 🙂

For the location, is a whole lot easier right now. Almost all of the famous street food vendor are already listed in Google Maps. So you must buy local Indonesian SIM Card, and you’ll be just fine. Price range for street food, as low as 5 thousand rupiahs (30 cents) to USD 1,5 (20 thousand rupiahs)

Attraction in Indonesia

Sadly for attraction, just like in Taj Mahal India, you have to pay much higher price for tourist ticket. For example, one of our best tourist attraction in Borobudur. For domestic tourist, entrance fee is USD 3 (40 thousand rupiahs). For overseas tourist, you have to pay USD 25.

But like Taj Mahal, I think Borobudur as listed in UNESCO World Heritage, is one of the attraction that you must visit while in Indonesia. It’s really amazing work of art for temple, with amazing view from above. So you must choose wisely if you’re on budget, which attraction that suite your budget 🙂

Backpacking Tips: Transportation in Indonesia

Public Transportation (Inside the city)

There’s not much public transportation that easy to use in Indonesia. Maybe you can find MRT in Jakarta city, or Suroboyo Bus in Surabaya. But I think you still cannot reach the whole city, just like in Singapore.

For taxi, I think the most trustworthy taxi is BlueBird. You can find Bluebird especially in big city like Jakarta & Surabaya. Just like in Asian big cities, except Singapore, Japan & maybe Korea, you must be careful with fake meter in taxi.

Tips for transportation, maybe you can install Gojek or Grab apps in your smartphone. It’s easy to use, and the price is consider cheap, even for us Indonesians. If you know Uber, Gojek & Grab is similar to Uber. But in Indonesia, you can choose a ride with car, or motorcycle. Off course, if you’re solo traveler, Gojek or Grab with motorccyle is a whole lot cheaper than car. Price for transport inside city start from 10 thousand rupiahs to 100 thousand rupiahs (70 cents to USD 7), or a little bit more.

Gojek is available almost everywhere in Indonesia’s big city. There are 167 cities in Indonesia and more than 2 million Gojek drivers around the country. Grab is available in 222 cities.

Transportation to another city

If you’re going from Jakarta to Bali, or Jakarta to Medan (in different island), you can get many kind of transportation. Because, you know, Indonesian is very big, and consist of many island. There are 5 big main island, and totally 17 thousands island in Indonesia. The famous island in Indonesia, you all must know Bali & Komodo Island. But I think there are many beautiful island in Indonesia, that people don’t explore it, yet.. 🙂

So, transportation to another city or island in Indonesia, you can check many kind of transportation:

• Bus
• Train
• Ferry / Cruise
• Airplanes
• Rent a car

If you traveling to Sumatra island to Java island, and then to Bali, you can ride your car non stop. Sumatra & Java connected with ferry, also Java to Bali. And you can take your car to ferry.

The cheapest one, I think it’s bus ride, combine with Ferry. For train, I think for the meantime you can only ride train around Java island. Depends on how far you go, it starts from 50 thousand rupiahs (3,5 USD) for Surabaya city to Malang. You can also book train ticket from Tiket.com or Traveloka apps.

For airplanes, you must check occasionally for flight promotion in apps above. Or you can check AirAsia apps. Yes you’re right! There’s also Air Asia in Indonesia, that run several flight from Jakarta, Surabaya and other big cities, to Bali, Labuan Bajo, and even Sorong in Papua island. Beside Air Asia, you can check another budget airlines like Lion Air & Citilink.

Backpacking in Indonesia is Safe

So, what do you think about our Backpacking Tips in Indonesia?With better Indonesia tourism right now, I think scam in Indonesia is very low. Not like in the old days. You can book everything online, from bus, train & flight transportation (except taxi), to hotels booking. For the scenery, I think Indonesia with many islands, is one of the place with the most beautiful scenery in the world. Daily budget? I can go as low as 20-30 dollars per day, if I’m traveling solo, lives in a hostel & always eating street food.

Any comments will be apreciate 🙂 Please don’t hesitate to ask me anything about traveling in Indonesia. Thank you!