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East Nusa Tenggara · Indonesia

Sumba

An hour east of Bali and a world away: limestone cliffs, empty surf, and villages where the old rituals are still the calendar.

Plan a trip here

Sumba is large, dry, poor and extraordinary. It has none of Bali's infrastructure and almost none of its visitors, and the coastline on the west of the island is among the most beautiful we have stood on anywhere.

Inland, the clan villages are built around stone tombs with peaked thatch roofs forty feet high, and the ritual year is real rather than performed. We visit with a Sumbanese guide who is from one of them, on the understanding that some things are not for photographing.

This is a trip for travellers who want water, space and a strong sense of somewhere, and who will not be upset by a two-hour drive on a road that is a road in name only.

Best time
May to October
Why then
Dry season. The surf is most consistent from June to September; the island is greenest in May and again in early November.
When not to
January and February. Heavy rain, difficult roads, and several of the best beaches become inaccessible.
Getting there
Fly to Bali, then 75 minutes to Tambolaka on the west of the island. Transfers to the south-west coast take a further one to two hours on rough road.

What it is for

Highlights

  • The west coast beaches

    Mostly empty, often with nobody else on them. Strong currents; swim where you are told to.

  • Clan villages and stone tombs

    Visited properly, with a Sumbanese guide, and only where we are welcome.

  • Weaving in Kodi

    Ikat dyed with indigo and morinda root, on looms, taking months per cloth.

  • Waikuri lagoon

    A limestone pool connected to the sea. Go early and you will have it.

Sumba in six frames

Dry gold grass hills rolling down toward the sea, with a horse grazing on the slope
A woman sitting on a split-bamboo floor tensioning an indigo warp on a low backstrap loom
Peaked thatch clan houses and megalithic stone tombs in a Sumbanese village
Tall dry grass bent by wind over pale limestone outcrops on a hillside in low evening light
A reef seen from above, pale green shallows giving way to an olive crest and deep turquoise water

From the advisor

The stone tombs of Wainyapu

In the south-west of the island, above a beach with nobody on it, there are megalithic tombs that people are still buried in. Not a site. A village, with washing on the line between them.

Going there with someone who belongs to the place changes it entirely: what you are allowed to ask, where you can walk, whether you take a photograph at all. We will not send you alone, and we will not send you in a group of twelve.

Journeys

Trips that go to Sumba

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Experiences

Days here worth flying for

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Stays

Where we put people

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Practical

Things worth knowing first

  • Distances are in hours, not kilometres

    Forty kilometres can be ninety minutes. Plan two things a day, not four.

  • Bring cash from Bali

    There are ATMs in Tambolaka and Waikabubak and almost nowhere else.

  • Malaria prophylaxis is a real conversation

    Sumba is not Bali. Speak to a travel clinic, and do it six weeks out.

Who plans it

Your advisor for Indonesia

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