Flores Indonesia ULTIMATE Travel Guide (Watch before coming here!)

at the beginning of this year we spent 3 weeks in  Flores Indonesia we went from the capital city of   Labuan Bajo all the way to mamar and everywhere  in between the island boasts amazing views and   things to do but lacks a lot of infrastructure  that most tourists take for granted before we   got there we did do our research and found  that it was pretty tricky there wasn't much   information online and we were struggling to even  find how to get from City to City so in this video   we want to go through everything we learned on  the 3 week we were there as well as share some   helpful tips and tricks that we picked up along  the way where is Flores Flores is an island in   the East nusa tenggara region the capital city of  Labuan Bajo was a small fishing Village for most   of its existence it then exploded as a tourism  Hub with some incredible diving locations the   biggest attraction by far in the region is Komodo  National Park which is where you can see the only   living link to Dinosaurs the Komodo dragons  Dutch settlers that first got there literally   called them land crocodiles cuz they're so big all  flights to the island are smaller National flights   so if you are coming internationally you'll have  to go through Bali or Java to get there once you   get to Indonesia actually getting to Flores is  quite easy there are multiple airlines that fly   there multiple times a day those internal  National flights almost exclusively do not   include baggage so you'll have to be paying  extra for that baggage sometimes depending   where you book it from you can't actually pay for  that package until you get to the airport and it   can get pretty expensive one hack though if you  book through a third party try to log into like   Air Asia or City Link with your PNR cuz that's  how we ended up adding baggage at a cheaper rate   than we would have paid at the airport first tip  of the video yeah nice getting there our internal   flights routed through Bali and it cost us about  90 Australian per person including luggage to get   their one way one thing to keep in mind as well  is that the weather changes pretty quickly around   Flores so your flights may be cancelled like ours  was if you are at the Labuan Bajo airport and that   happens to you go outside go downstairs to where  there's like a food court thing and you can book   on with whichever Airline is still running for  the day Air Asia canceled on us twice City Link   canceled on us once and then we got on board  with Lion a with Lion Air which for some reason   booking it last minute at the airport actually  worked out cheaper yeah which is crazy so if all   else fails you might actually get a better price  than pre-booking traveling around Flores this is   probably the thing that was on my mind the most  when I was trying to plan our trip around Flores   because there's not really any information online  at all I would constantly be thinking what if   there's literally no transport between places and  all we could do is motorbike what if we get taken   advantage of we don't know how much things should  cost what if we have horrible weather that means   we can't go somewhere and what if we miss out on  some of the important things that we really want   to see I can say with confidence that if you  are stressing like we were you can stop Labuan   and Flores as a hole is one of those places that  you can't find much information about online but   as soon as you get there everyone you talk to is  like yeah that's no problem oh just wait till the   morning like everything is so chill and relax and  there is a good chance it's going to work out for   you some of the options that we did come across  when we got there was obviously the renting of   a motorbike or a moped pretty common because  you can get oneway fairs that take you from   one side of the island to the other generally  $6 to $12 per day depending who you go with be   mindful the roads are not great there's potholes  everywhere and it can be a little bit of a rough   ride if you're a beginner so we didn't even want  to attempt it one benefit of doing it if you can   is it allows you to go to accommodation that's a  little bit further out from the main drag so you   can drive up into the mountains and get a nice  view and and a cheaper accommodation maybe even   a better quality accommodation the second option  to get you around the island is to catch a bemo   these are the more cheap local sort of version  of transports across the island they kind of just   look like a converted van that has had the seats  ripped out and two rows facing each other put in   they can be jam-packed they painted really vibrant  colors you can't really miss them I think they're   more for inter city travel but they do kind of go  everywhere one of the biggest negatives is that   they don't really have any schedule that they run  on so it's kind of just like oh yeah enough people   want to go here I'll go there the option that  we took advantage of the most is a shared taxi   and it's basically exactly what it sounds like  it's either a car or a van there's pros and cons   to every option but the biggest pro of having  a shared taxi is that you get picked up at your   accommodation and you get dropped dropped off at  your accommodation the bus typically isn't an open   air like the bemo so you do get air conditioning  which is great in the summer they will probably   stop if you need them to as well this is more of  an option where you have a bit of control like if   you want to pull over and go to a supermarket just  ask if you need to get some cash out to pay them   obviously they're going to stop to let you do that  as well well this was the method we used the most   we were concerned about how we book them pretty  much until we got there and immediately we just   asked our first hostel hey we need to get to this  city on the date and they just said no worries   and they handed us a WhatsApp number everything is  pretty much done and organized through WhatsApp it   doesn't feel very official but it is official one  tip on this as well is if your hotel doesn't have   a contact for whatever reason or their contact  is wildly over priced just maybe reach out to   a different hotel in the area and see if they  have anyone going in the same direction bear   in mind with this share taxi option as well even  though they go as close to your door as possible   there are really tight roads around the Island  so sometimes they'll drop you maybe 100 m from   the door so just be mindful or if you've picked  a hotel that's like 20ks from the city center   they might just need an extra $5 - $10 bucks to  get you there I think that's reasonable the most   expensive and most luxurious option is of course  just to get a private car this is the option that   the locals typically assume that you're going to  want so they do sell it pretty hard when you land   it is a private air conditioned car usually a  nice one a personal driver who stays with you   the whole time and obviously you can customize and  make any stops you want to make but it's anywhere   from like $80 to $120 a day just to have them  which I know is really cheap compared to other   places in the world but it was just way over  our budget the final option is renting a car   and driving yourself I probably wouldn't suggest  this option just because I don't think I would   have felt confident enough driving through the  streets that we had to go on if you did rent a car   you'd be sort of restricted to like the highways  and the main tourist destinations we've rented   cars through heaps of countries and it is one of  my favorite things to do so we were really close   to doing it but like Emily said some of these  oneway roads that have potholes everywhere it's   just something that I didn't really want to tackle  plus there's no guarantee that your GPS is going   to work so actually getting to the place is going  to be difficult anyway and a third reason you're   not going to be driving anywhere near as fast as  those locals drive on those roads so it's going to   take you longer every day to get where you need to  go things to do in Flores we clearly can't cover   everything there is to do in Flores because the  list would go on and on and on but we are going   to talk about all of the activities that we did  a lot of the activities that people interested in   doing are quite focused around the Labuan Bajo  area which is great but we do encourage you to   get out and explore some other stuff some  of our favorite memories were from outside   of Labuan Bajo the first thing and the biggest  thing the Komodoislands from our research and   walking around the island we found that there are  basically three options that everyone tends to do   the first is a slowboat tour this is what we did  it's the cheapest but you see the least things   we did did make an entire video about it so if you  want to know what it's like go look at that that's   about $60 per person again we're not the best  hagglers so it could have been cheaper we did talk   to people that did get it a little bit cheaper  than us but roughly around 60 depending how you   go haggling the second option is a speedboat  so you basically get the whole day tour but   you see six sites instead of four the speedboat  tours do see more but they do cost you a little   bit more so you're probably looking at around the  $100 per person Mark the third option is the most   popular option it's the overnight Cruisers you  can do one or two night overnight Cruisers where   you join a bunch of other Travelers and you go on  the boat together a big plus about doing this is   that you're waking up on the boat right next  to the island so you're getting first access   before all the tourists get to Komodo Island you  also get like the boat Vibes and you get to bond   with the people that you're with which is quite  cool but you do pay the price another interesting   thing is that they do have like dorm hostel style  options so if you're traveling solo you could get   a single bunk in a room of and it's relatively  cheap the price we have is for a private room so   for two of us you'd be looking at $175 Australian  per person for a two night cruise the variations   are all over the place but you can use that as  kind of a benchmark tip as well is when you're   walking down the Main Street and talking to all of  the tour operators ask them for photos of the boat   because the variation in the quality I guess of  the boat is kind of insane the final option is of   course the most expensive one you can Charter your  own boat so if you you've got a decently big group   it could be worth paying and getting the boat to  yourself those prices vary dramatically but it's a   lot more one thing to remember about these prices  is that it does not include your entrance into   Komodo National Park when we traveled in early  2023 it cost us $ 40 Australian dollars for both   of us to get entrance into the park I do believe  there's been a lot of talk that that's going to   change whether it has or not it's anyone's guess  it was going to go up to an incredible amount it   was going to be a few $1 per person from what I'm  looking at now it looks like it did go up but not   so dramatically so you're looking at just under  about $100 per person which is super steep but   it's the only place in the world where you can  see the Komodo dragons one note on Komodo Island   is just to be prepared it might not actually be  what you're hoping for which was the case for us   I think I had in mind that it was this National  Park and like we were just walking around and   hopefully we would get to see one on this hike but  they're sort of all just laying around and it's   almost like they're trained to be here um I don't  know it's just not what I thought it's more of a   photo opportunity with Komodo Dragons it just felt  a bit fake a bit forced a bit unnatural it was a   bit disappointing unfortunately but once you're  ready to leave Labuan Bajo there is so much more   on the island you can see we took a shared taxi  from Labuan Bajo all the way to retang which is   a little Mountain Village kind of in the middle of  the island we stopped in Ruteng because ultimately   we wanted to to go to a town called moni where  the mount Kelimutu volcano is but it's such a   long drive we needed to break it up so retang was  the perfect option we opted to pay for a private   car in retang and he took us around to see Hobbit  cave the local market the spider web rice fields   which are just amazing you see the photos and if  I'm honest I was like oh give or take like I'm not   too fast on seeing them but once you're up there  it's kind of incredible to see it pretty cool we   also got to go to a traditional Village a lot  of people go to a town called wo which is a bit   further south that's really cool you have to hike  there so it's a little bit harder to reach but I   think the payoff would be awesome we couldn't  afford the time to get there so we went to a   traditional Village in retang which is really cool  very easy to get to so not quite the Majesty of   where but it was nice at least we got to check off  traditional Village yeah that driver we actually   got at our hostel so our host was awesome and  our host's husband was like yeah I'll take you   around and negotiated price and they were just  super nice so we did it it ended up costing us   $80 to have a driver for the entire day and then  we ended up having lunch with their family it was   such a nice experience and the good thing about  having your own private car like that is he gave   us heaps of facts and history about retang area  and he taught us some Indonesian words our next   big activity was Mount Kelimutu from Ruteng we  caught another shed taxi which took us to endday   endday is like this decently big city in Flores  we didn't really do that much there's not heaps to   see it is a cool City but we just hung out at our  beautiful hotel before making our way to Moni Moni   is the closest town that you're going to get to  be able to do the mount Kelimutu hike or see the   volcano which is why we decided to go there it's  literally the town at the base of the mountain   the plan originally was to get up for a morning  hike which is what most people do when they're   there the weather didn't look that good we were a  little bit tired so we decided to have breakfast   in our hotel and go up later on in the morning it  was awesome we again made a whole video about it   so you can definitely check that out if you didn't  know Mount Kelimutu is this famous volcano known   for its three Crater Lakes that change color like  they go from this really vibrant blue milky green   to brown white and red getting there you have  pretty similar options to getting everywhere   you can rent your own moped probably from your  hotel um or you can organize a share taxi or   we had to do a private taxi cuz there was no one  else that wanted to go at the same time as us so   we ended up paying $5 he took us up to the trail  head waited for us to go and hype for a couple of   hours and took us back so not a crazy price for a  few hours of having someone's time entry into the   park was about $15 per person and it was totally  worth it the hike itself probably only took us   about 20 minutes and it's relatively easy like  it's not a steep hard hike it's a slow gradient   up to the viewpoints hot tip don't have any food  out when you're at the top because monkeys are   crazy up there they are intense they stole this  other family's like hope lunch pack it was just   shoveling in all the chocolate and the rice it was  so cute but not good for the monkey not good for   the person who lost their lunch the other thing to  do in Flores and is also incredibly popular like   any holiday to Indonesia is just relaxing on the  beach we were lucky enough to do this twice two in   a row the first was in a town called mamare which  was another 2hour drive from Moni it's a Beachside   glamping Resort it was incredible they had like  vegetarian food made fresh this is one of my happy   places this Resort it was like a little beach hut  that we had the windows opened out right onto this   uninterrupted view of the ocean a 30second walk  away was the restaurant where you could get all   the delicious food that was cooked so fresh that  you had to order it a couple of hours before and   drinks and canoeing stand up paddle boarding yeah  water spots heaps of different water sports you   could do that and they just you can just take them  out whenever you feel like it it was really really   good once we finished there we took another  internal flight this one was cancelled this   was this was the one that was canceled and we had  to rebook that took us back to Labuan Bajo where   we got to go to Le Pirate Island if you're going  to Flores you've probably heard about or are going   to le pirate Island it is incredibly popular and  it's easy to see why we did a video breaking down   a few different options that you have when you go  to the island um if you are interested in going   there I think you should watch that first it does  give you a lot of insight as well as what happens   if you get stranded on the island turns out we're  staying another night whether we like to or not   there literally there is a storm between us and  Labuan Bajo and the currents are just too strong   the boat just said we not coming so the captain's  like it's not safe I can't get there we wanted to   finish the video with a few tips and things that  we learned along the way which we think would be   very very handy and wish we knew before we went  good to know tips and tricks if you don't have   WhatsApp downloaded and logged in and ready to go  get it before you get to the island everyone there   uses WhatsApp it's a very official way to organize  transfers and food and like everything is done   through WhatsApp your hotel will ask you for your  WhatsApp number not your mobile number to be able   to make sure your WhatsApp works you probably are  going to need a SIM card we had every intention of   buying a SIM card at Bali airport when we arrived  but we forgot so we had to wait until we were in   Laban bajo and we got a pretty good deal on the  Main Street there's a shop called Telcomcell go   in there they're probably the best they may not  be the absolute cheapest but you're going to be   spending a couple more for good coverage and a  professional sort of service that you can you   can trust we got two SIM cards just 6 gig each we  didn't need much and it only cost us $10 each we   did end up upgrading my phone to get an extra 50  gig halfway along the trip and that only ended up   costing us about $25 doing that upgrade however  was very very tricky for some reason the Telcom   sell website doesn't let you just pay with a  card you have to use like a third party which   we couldn't get to work turned into this whole  mess but we ended up finding a third party called   Ding and that was the easiest way that we could  upgrade the data honestly it feels so dodgy and   like you're getting scammed but it went through  instantly and if you're looking to do it that's   the best way because pelum cell tell you to go  to an ATM and punch in a code and deposit cash to   top up which I just thought was so weird we were  also like at a hotel away from ATMs there wasn't   one near us so that wasn't really an option  D really save the day drinking water drinking   water can be a little bit confusing you'll be  served drinking water in some restaurants and   most of the time people are a bit scared of that  if you're a foreigner you don't want to get sick   you don't want to get ice you know all the general  rules that you have for when you travel to Bali to   not get Bali belly obviously you should probably  bring all of those rules through to Labuan Bajo   mosquitoes I don't officially know if they're  more common than they are in barley but it feels   like it we were getting eaten alive and for some  reason we didn't think to pack any mosquito spray   or insect repellent so we had to buy it when we  were there almost every place you'll stay as well   apart from like the bigger hotels are going to  give you a mosquito net just make sure you put   that around you at night because it will make  a difference booking on to tours honestly don't   worry about it if you're wanting something really  specific yes you can book online you can pay with   visa and get everything up front before you even  get there but if you're kind of wanting to go   with the flow don't be worried about just walking  the main street of Labuan Bajo or talking to your   hotel and getting stuff booked in it's typically  a little bit cheaper because they don't have have   to worry about converting any currency and it's a  lot easier to haggle it's not just insert your car   details it's can you do this can you include this  that guy down the road said he could do it for   this price yeah ask if you are a Haggler obviously  ask a few different people play them off against   each other it feels like it's mean but they get  it our general rule for haggling is if we're happy   with the price we're going to pay it whether or  not it's a good price or whether we've overpaid   if we're happy we're happy yeah we find the nicest  person with with a price that we to pay and that's   good enough for us we were not there during peak  season though so you're just kind of going to have   to feel it out if things are getting booked out  maybe book on quickly if you're super worried   about it go ahead and book it the people the local  people across Flores are just amazing they're so   kind and happy to see you there's Endless Smiles  they'll all be yelling out hello Miss hello mister   it's so sweet oh if you hear them yelling out  Bule it means tourist or like vacation foreigner   something along those lines so I kept hearing  and I was like why do they think I'm a bully   I'm just saying hi but I am a Bule and it's not  said as like Foreigner Foreigner it's like oh a   foreigner a foreigner it's like they're yelling  it out to tell the person up the road like look   wave to them there's someone coming so you'll hear  bully bully bully everywhere some good phrases to   know Salam at Pagi that means good morning that  means good morning this is what we yelled at when   we were driving past people that were saying  Bule Bule we were like Selamat Pagi especially   obviously when it was in the morning you can  also shorten this so like we would maybe just say   morning just say Pagi yeah thank you is something  that you say all the time and that is Tera makassi   another interesting one that we learned is Hati  Hati and that means be careful yeah you get this   mostly when you're driving yeah Hati Hati Hati  Hati like they'll drivers will talk to each other   on the road and like Hati Hati or there'll be  a sign that says Hati Hati so if you've rented   a motorbike or a car and you see that just slow  down take it easy those are few things that we   recommend you knowing when you get to Flores  and you're exploring Labuan Bajo and rang and   Moni and Kelimutu and Maumare we did a few places  Flores was such an amazing place to visit it has   this awesome blend of like adventure fun things  to relaxing and luxurious things which is why we   thought it was the perfect holiday if you're  planning on going don't think twice just go!

Channel: Jordan and Emily

Views: 7,132

Keywords: travel vlog, indonesia, indonesia travel, indonesia travel guide, flores travel guide, how to travel indonesia, Indonesian travel destinations, flores indonesia travel guide, flore travel guide, labuan bajo, labuan bajo travel guide, Things to do in Flores, How to get around Flores, labuan banjo, flores indonesia, labuan bajo indonesia, travel indonesia guide, komodo island travel guide, travel guide flores indonesia, what to do in flores indonesia, what to do in labuan bajo

Id: IPQQmMlaY8g

Length: 20min 21sec (1221 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 29 2024