Gili Trawangan information

“Gili” is Indonesian for “island”, but “the Gilis” are a trio of tiny patches of land off the northwest shore of Lombok. The largest is Gili Trawangen, and this is where we offer our Divemaster programme.

You find the Gili Islands East of Bali and just off the north west coast of Lombok. There are about 700 people living on Gili Trawangan and it is 3 by 2 km small. Small enough to cycle around it in 45 minutes, big enough to have lot’s of fun and do activities like diving, surfing, swimming, snorkeling, horse riding, play tennis and chill.  The welcoming people of the Gillis make them the perfect destination for holidaymakers, offering many different restaurants and bars.

On Gili Trawangan (as well as the other two Gillis), there are no motorized vehicles. The main means of transportation are bicycles; you can rent them from locals. The other way of transportation is by cidomo (a small horse drawn carriage). For traveling to and from each of the Gillis, locals usually use motorized boats and speedboats.

Gillis are manly known for its diving. Diving here is great although some coral is very dead we are involved in the Bio Rock project growing new coral. Also the deeper dive sites still have a lot of coral. The visibility is normally around 20 meters or more and there is lots and lots to see, from giant turtles to manta shrimps.

Although known as mainly a diving destination the Gili islands now also offer visitors a variety of other activities like snorkeling, golf, horse riding, massages and chilling and everything you would do on a perfect tropical holiday – walks along white sandy beaches, swimming in crystal clear waters, seaside BBQs, poolside cocktails, dancing by moonlight at crazy beach parties….But be aware, you might not want to leave!

There is one ‘down’side to the island and that are mushrooms. Magic mushrooms are openly available. Watch out with this stuff.

Let us tell you about the beautiful island…

Read here about this island life do not dream away too much as you might still have to work or study.. On the island you’ll find there is a really nice balance between being busy enough so there's enough going on, but not so busy that it's hectic.

Get around by foot, bicycle or horse

It is quite weird when you first arrive, but actually brilliant! There's no motorized transport on the island, so that really helps to keep it chilled. If you want to get around the best thing is to hire or buy a bike, but everything can be done by foot too, as the island is very small and the dive school is in the area with the bars and restaurants.

What about food & drinks

For such a small island there's a great choice of restaurants, selling good western and local food. There's a sushi bar, a tapas bar, and even an Indian restaurant and also a great coffee shop selling proper coffee, cakes, baguettes and quiche which is really unusual in Asia! To keep your costs down you can eat at the night market. Here you find noodles, rice chicken, fresh fish and vegetables, and Bintang, a great beer.

While you're here on the island your cost of living can be very low. You can eat local food e.g nasi campur (mixed rice) which consists of rice, vegetables, some sort of meat, and tempe, all of which makes a good lunch for Rp15,000. However if you want splash out you can spend up to about Rp80,000 on a main course in any of the western restaurants. The most expensive thing here though is the booze and this is where most people’s budgets get blown away. A large beer, more than a pint, is about Rp30,000, which although is fairly cheap in comparison to European standards, does start to add up. Obviously you wouldn't be doing that much drinking anyway, so I don't know why I even mention this....

Doing it Alone

85% of Xtreme Gap customers travel alone and all of them are a bit afraid to be alone, well trust us, that will be terribly hard on this great little island. The thing you'll get here is a real sense of community. There's a really nice group of people that live on the island, and if you're here for a long time you'll really become part of the community.

Party or Chill

Trawangan is known as the 'party island' amongst the Gilis, and this is a little unfair in some ways as some people are put off by this, expecting it to be like Thailand, which it really isn't. There are parties, which are great fun. The party night rotates round different venues on a weekly basis. There are generally three each week. However if you don't fancy the party scene, there's loads of chilled bars and other stuff to do. We have a very friendly and professional crew at the dive school. We're mainly European, and we have a strong team of people who are really passionate about diving, and are always sitting round the dive shop in the evening. It's really relaxed, and we tend to attract the younger more chilled out tourists as well, which is nice! Our local team is also great; they're very professional and good fun. In fact, most of the locals on the island are really friendly. It hasn't been spoilt by tourism to the extent that everyone is trying to rip you off, and Indonesians in general are a really friendly nation.