Secret Gili Islands 🏝 | A hidden paradise in Lombok

By Roberto (Updated Nov 22)

⏱ 4 min

Traveling to Lombok soon, eh? 😗 In this post we detail all the info you need to visit the Secret Gili Islands in Lombok. These paradisiacal islands are starting to appear in tours again, after a long break of visits during COVID, and we think they are well worth the visit. In our trip to Lombok, we wanted to explore both mountains and beaches, and we found these little gems thanks to other blogs.

What are the Secret Gili Islands?

While they are far from hidden or really secret, the Secret Gili Islands are islands next to the Southwest coast of Lombok that remain quite pure. The different Gilis are Nanggu, Tangdok, Sudak and the super small Gili Kedis.

They are far less known than the other Gili Islands of the North, and these are much smaller too. They are so small that they can be visited in just one day by going island hopping and snorkelling. Only some locals sleep there.

In my opinion, each island has something to offer and the variety is what makes the tour interesting. Our friends Meg and Ian from Effortlessly.Earpy made this wonderful video about the experience in case you prefer to watch with more detail.

A good company to visit the Secret Gili Islands

Usually we provide some recommendations about the companies we travel with, but only when we really like them for something specific. For this concrete tour, we went with Adventure Divers Lombok and the services were good, yet nothing we can rave about.

The trip we did cost 750K Rupiah per person (group discount available) including the hotel pickup/drop-off. We reached Guillermo (the Spanish manager) for the reservation via WhatsApp: +62 813 39336418 and he managed everything for us. They picked us from Kuta, where we were staying at Lara Homestay, a nice hostel by the way. After 1 hour and 30 minutes approx. by car, we arrived to the port where the boats launch to the different Gili Islands.

Gili Nanggu | Coral and snorkel

The first Secret Gili island to stop is the furthest, Gili Nanggu. The island is quite small but gives you the chance to snorkel along corals observing tons of fish. Our guide was super fast and feeding the fish with bread, something we disliked, and we went at our own pace. In case you’re not a big fan of snorkelling, don’t worry! The landscape with blue water, islands and boats gives you stunning views from the beach, where you can lay down on the sand to chill, or fly the drone!

Gili Sudak | Lunch

After one hour and a half or so, we went to the next island: Gili Sudak. For some reason we skipped Gili Tangkong. Apparently, many tours do that. Probably because it is the less impressive and they save time for the last and cutest island. In Gili Sudak, we had lunch by the shore.

The lunch is not included in the tour and the food options are limited. It gave me the same vibes at the local places in the Philippines, something I liked. The tour gives you around one hour to have lunch and to relax. From the shore, you can also spot a paradisiacal island right in the middle of the sea. And that’s going to be the next and final destination.

The Super cute Gili Kedis

Could this be the cutest island we’ve been to? Well, we can say it’s the cutest mini island we’ve been to. ☺️ This island can be … 500 sq meters? Having barely nothing, it has all you need: EPIC waters, a bench, some rocks, some trees, a small hut and a swing and… that’s it! It’s by far our favourite and we stayed here more than one hour. Flying the drone was simply marvellous.

Once we were done, the guys drove us back to the port and then back to the hotel. For us, commuting almost three hours was a bit too much for some hours of island hopping, but nevertheless, we really enjoyed the experience. We would recommend staying close to the port in order to have more time to relax and worry less about commuting. Besides that, it’s a recommended visit in Lombok!

Don’t miss these other plans and adventures in Indonesia!