Spectacular 2-week journey covering three major Indonesian islands

Indonesia | May 11 - May 25, 2025

We had an amazing trip! Our itinerary covered three major Indonesian islands, Java, Sulawesi, and Bali, and it allowed us to learn about rich and diverse Indonesian culture, history and people from many different angles. Marc, our tour specialist, was very helpful at all stages of tour planning and execution, very flexible, easy to reach at all times by phone/text/zoom. At some point we decided to change the original itinerary by skipping the Java volcano climbs and proposed to replace them with a 4-day visit to Sulawesi with its incredible Bugis and Toraja villages. Marc was very supportive of this idea and quickly re-arranged our tour, which required quite significant changes and a slew of new bookings of hotels, flights, guides, local transportation, etc. Just before the trip we learned that Borobudur and Prambanan temples would be closed on two out of three days that we were supposed to spend there (I wish we knew about it earlier, before we booked our flights so we could change the dates). So, we had to rearrange our itinerary to accommodate this circumstance. Again, Marc was very helpful in fixing this issue. We were generally very happy with the hotels that Marc booked for us, they were comfortable, clean, located in beautiful surroundings and had a boutique feel to them. The only partial exception was our last hotel in Bali, Sun of Granary Resort. While beautifully located among rice fields, with helpful staff, our rooms for some reason were rather humid (with damp smell and a little damp linen), and our air conditioning wasn't able to cure this problem. Of course, the weather in Indonesia is generally very humid, but in all other hotels we did not encountered this issue. Our tour guides in Java (Fakikh) and Sulawesi (Robi) were excellent, very knowledgeable, enthusiastic, with good grasp of English. The tour guide in Bali (Sridana) was OK, but less engaging, perhaps partially because his English was sometimes difficult to understand. On the other hand, Sridana was punctual and took good care of us. The drivers on all three islands were excellent, it was important since driving in Indonesia is not easy to say the least. I am a good driver, but I would not risk driving there myself.

To summarize, overall our trip was a very pleasant and memorable experience, and we certainly recommend Marc as your customized tour operator.