Sumba Island, Indonesia

This island had been engrained in my memory ever since I first saw an image of it. By the sounds of it, it had everything I would enjoy in a location - insane beaches, minimal development, friendly people and rich in culture, with a bonus of a lot of horses. I felt like I was on a short timeline to visit Sumba before it completely blew up so when I had a couple weeks free, I prioritised visiting.

How to get there

A short 1.15 hour flight from Bali via a relatively small plane. So if you have a fear of small planes, like my friend Briella, then I advise giving them something to calm their nerves.

Accommodation

Now the origin story of Sumba Island’s success on social media started with Nihi Resort, a hotel that’s ranked as one of the Worlds 50 Best. You probably have seen on your feed the famous photo of a couple in the pool with horses bolting past. From what I’ve heard, Nihi lives up to it’s expensive price tag, but unfortunately I can’t comment on it because I can’t afford to stay there with its $6k a night price tag. Their guests don’t even have to wait for their luggage to come out on the belt like the rest of us peasants sweating in the heat of Sumba’s Airport, their bags get individually tagged in Bali and it goes direct to their staff.

Now if you want something luxurious but with a better price-tag, the Sanubari is 10/10. This is where I splurged to stay and for its price tag of $700 - $1k AUD for a 1-bed oceanfront villa with a private pool, it’s incredibly well priced for what it is. Flagging though, I think the prices will increase as Sumba becomes more popular. I highly recommend the Sanubari as a honeymoon spot if you’re looking for somewhere stunning that is a little less popular. The property itself is stunning and the service is incredible. To be honest, it also looks better than Nihi given it’s right on the beach. But I’m going solely off looks. Food is also surprisingly very well priced given it’s a 5-star hotel. We paid about $20 AUD per person per main. The hotel can organise drivers for you to visit the villages and waterfalls as well as horse riding and swimming with the horses. The horses are also very well looked after, which is important to note.

There are a few homestays scattered around the island, I didn’t stay at any so can’t comment. But I assume, they are similar to other homestay’s I’ve stayed at in Indo, meals would likely be included and you’ll probably just get a bed on a floor with no aircon and possibly no running water. Will do the job though.

Activities

Sumba is famous for its surf, so a lot of people visit the island chasing the best waves. You can do surf lessons if you’re not amazing but I didn’t see any “baby waves”.

There are plenty of waterfalls to visit, their clarity depends on how much rain the island has received so it can vary from blue to brown water quickly.

My highlight though was spending time in some of the villages. The island is incredibly rich in culture and tradition, so seeing it first hand was a highlight. Also, seeing how integral horses were in Sumba’s culture was very cool. The kids ride horses around and all meet up with their friends at the beach with their horses and let them swim. The breed of horses on Sumba are a lot more lean and skinny though. Apparently, also has to do with the lack of nutrients in the grass on Sumba verse other Indonesian islands.

Getting Around

The island is very undeveloped, apart from the few luxury hotels scattered around. It’s also decently sized, so often to get places it’s a minimum 2-hour drive. There’s obviously no grab or taxis and you get around either via renting a scooter from your accommodation or getting a driver. I had a driver a couple of the days when I was staying at Arya in Kodi, and my driver Van was incredible. He also had a lot of family in the traditional villages, which made it a much more personal experience.

Wrap-Up

An incredibly beautiful island but I am concerned it will become another victim soon to over-development for tourism. From what I gathered via conversations, a lot of the hotels work closely with the local villages to provide solar panels, electricity and clean water, as well as jobs, which allows the children of the villages to be able to go to school. The whole tourism industry is based on mutual respect with the villages. Some hotels seem to do a better job than others at nurturing the culture and creating a sense of community. Given a lot of your tourist dollars go direct to a hotel, it’s important that the hotel you’re staying at feeds some of those dollars back to the community. Always worth asking the owner of the hotel. If more tourists show it’s a priority to them, then the hotels will also prioritise it.