Nature and Outdoor Activities in Indonesia in 2026: The Best Ways to Explore

Indonesia's outdoor geography is the world's most extensive island arc system, 17,000 islands across 5,000 kilometres of ocean. Komodo National Park delivers a combination that exists nowhere else on earth: Komodo dragons (the world's largest lizard) on dry savannah and scrub island landscapes alongside coral-wall diving of world-class quality in nutrient-rich Flores Sea upwellings within the same day. Gunung Rinjani on Lombok (3,726 metres) is a multi-day volcano trek past a crater lake to a summit that looks over both Lombok and Bali. The Tanjung Puting National Park in Borneo delivers slow-boat wildlife watching for wild orangutan, proboscis monkey, and sun bear along jungle river channels. The Raja Ampat archipelago in West Papua carries the highest marine biodiversity ever measured on earth, accessible to live-aboard diving. Tours by locals often reveal the rhythm of the place in a more natural way. The hidden gems usually do the rest.