Kuta — no relation to its namesake in Bali — is a small, sandy-footed town on a wide bay about half an hour from Lombok’s airport. A decade ago it was a surfers’ village with a few homestays; today it has good cafés, yoga studios, boutique hotels and, just to the east, the Mandalika resort zone and its MotoGP circuit. It remains relaxed, cheaper than Bali and surrounded by some of the finest beaches in Indonesia.
Those beaches are the reason to come. Tanjung Aan has two crescents of sand and water of an improbable blue. Selong Belanak is a perfect arc with gentle waves that have taught thousands of people to surf. Mawun is a horseshoe bay between two hills, often nearly empty. Above them, the grassy hump of Bukit Merese is where everyone goes for sunset.
Inland, the thatched hamlets of Sade and Ende and the weaving village of Sukarara are the most accessible introduction to Sasak culture, and further north the rice terraces of Tetebatu climb the lower slopes of Rinjani. All of this is two to three hours from the Gili harbours — a different island, in effect, and well worth the transfer.
Highlights
- A first surf lesson on the soft, sandy-bottomed waves of Selong Belanak
- Swimming in the turquoise shallows of Tanjung Aan
- Sunset from Bukit Merese with the coast folding away on both sides
- Having Mawun’s horseshoe bay almost to yourself on a weekday
- The thatched houses and rice barns of Sade and Ende
- Watching a songket take shape on a backstrap loom in Sukarara
In pictures: Kuta Lombok & the south
How long to stay and where to base yourself
Three or four nights lets you see a different beach each day, take a surf lesson or two and visit the villages. Surfers and digital nomads often stay for weeks.
Kuta town is the obvious base: walkable, with most of the restaurants and a wide spread of rooms from hostels to stylish small hotels. Mandalika, the planned resort area along the bay to the east, has the larger international hotels and wide, quiet boulevards. Selong Belanak and the hills to the west have villas and a few upmarket hideaways for those with their own transport. Gerupuk, a fishing village to the east, is for dedicated surfers.
