hey guys you might be wondering which of the Gili Islands you should visit on
your next trip to Bali well today I'm going to talk about our experience in
the Gili Islands which island we went to and if you should even bother visiting
the gili islands on your next trip to Bali I'm also going to give you a guide
on how to get there transport while you're on the islands your food options
where we stayed the weather and possible day trips from the gili islands around
to the other gili islands all that coming up next
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you don't miss any of our upcoming videos all right let's get on with this
guide about the Gili Islands the gili islands are a popular group of islands
tourists visit from Bali but the gilis are actually part of this
massive island Lombok there are in fact 26 gili islands around Lombok but when
people talk about the gili islands they're usually talking about these
three islands gili trawangan gili meno and gili air these are the islands that
i'm gonna be talking about today some other well-known and popular islands
near Bali are the three Nusa islands Nusa Lembongan nusa ceningan
and Nusa Penida we also visited these islands so if you want to see what we
got up to you while we were there I'll link a playlist in the description for
you to check out something you might be wondering is why some islands are called
the nusa Islands and some are the Gili Islands
well basically these are just two different dialects the Nusa Islands
are a part of Bali and the gili islands are a part of Lombok and both words
translate to island so which island should you choose gili trawangan better
known as gili t is known as the party island so if partying is your thing then
that is definitely island you would want to go to gili meno is a very chilled
island there's not much development there it's the kind of place that might
be really good if you're on a honeymoon and gili air is a bit of a mix between
both gili t and gili memo they have all the facilities of gili t but there's
just not as much of a party scene there so how did we decide which island we
would go to for this part of our holiday we were just looking to chill out for a
few days we'd had a pretty full-on trip up to
this point if you don't know what we've been up to then you should probably go
check out this playlist up here or in the description and watch our Indonesian
vlogs from the beginning although Gili T is known as the party
island we were not opposed to going there because of this we've been to Koh Phi Phi
in Thailand which I've heard has a similar vibe and we really loved it
there but it's just not what we were looking for for this part of our holiday
we were thinking that gili meno would have limited food options and also maybe
a little bit too quite for us so we opted for gili air we just decided from
what we'd read that this was going to be the best option for us having the kids
and what we were trying to get after this holiday so basically that's how we
decided on which island we go to but before you decide if you should even go
to the gili islands you might want to consider quite a few other things before
you make that decision something else you really need to consider is how
you're going to get to the gili islands because the time it takes to get there
may really weigh in on your decision whether you should go or not you might
only have a few days in Bali and the journey to get to the gili islands may
be just too long for you getting to the gilis was quite a journey for us we
were traveling from Nusa Penida where there are no direct boats or
ferrys to the gili islands from Nusa Penida we had to get a small boat back
to Nusa Lembongan where we were dropped off on a floating
dock in-between Nusa Lembongan and Nusa Ceningan from here we were picked
up by the Eka Jaya fast boat that would take us all the way to Padangbai and
then on to the gili islands all up this cost us four hundred and fifty thousand
rupiah per adult which is about 45 Australian dollars each and our kids
were free gili air was of course the furthest away
Javi can you say this is Gili T
This is Gili Gili Air
No say this is Gili T
No this Gili Air
Yeah
I going Gili Air Gili Air
Gili Air
Say this is Gili T
Gili Air
when the boat finally got to gili air we had to wait on another floating dock and
wait to be transported to the beach from that drop-off point it took us about 10
minutes to walk to our hotel the whole trip from Nusa Penida to gili air took
us a bit over six hours now obviously you may not be going all the way from
Nusa Penida if you depart straight from Padangbai the journey will be much
shorter and should only take a couple of hours now let's talk about the hotel we
picked and why we picked it the hotel we stayed at was the Ombak paradise we
actually didn't even have a booking when we arrived we didn't have a single
booking for the entire month we were in Indonesia except for our first couple
nights in Kuta Mount Agung had recently erupted and heaps of flights were
cancelled into Bali and because of this there was just so much available at the
time so we were happy to walk into hotels and negotiate a rate and
everywhere we went to we actually got a better rate than what was available
online so we were quite happy to do that on this trip I'm not saying it's gonna
be like that if you do the same on your trip to Bali but because it was just so
quiet it really worked out well for us so we picked the Ombak paradise for
quite a few reasons first of all it was pretty close to where the boats dropped
you off we didn't want to be walking too far carrying our luggage and the kids
some parts of the island can take up to an hour to reach if you're walking also
the hotel had mostly good reviews online this is something we always look at
wherever we stayed the rooms look clean and modern and the hotel also had a
massive pool and it's actually the biggest pool in all of Lombok so we
thought that was really cool now I'm sorry this footage is a little
bit shaky but I just thought we'd share our first impressions when we got to the
island guys first impressions of the hotel looks great I was told this is the
biggest pool in Lombok it is massive and it's actually the biggest resort in
Lombok as well I believe 200 rooms so a pretty cool place to stay hopefully it
all goes well it's right on the beach which is very convenient and they've got
a restaurant right on the beach as well anything else Elisa
Oh they've got a swim up bar
and I'm pretty excited about that
the bar
Yeah the bar
and
very responsible obviously drinking while you're looking after little kids and also you can order
food from your sun lounges so I'm pretty excited about it too because you know
when the kids are swimming we can just get some food we don't have to go anywhere else
just need someone to look after your kids now let's talk about transport while you're on the
islands your transport options are very limited on the gili islands there are no
cars or scooters there are horse drawn carriages bikes and your feet we walked
everywhere because everything we needed was usually only a 10-minute walk away
and we were not really supportive of the situation with the horses on the gili
islands now let's talk about the weather on the gili islands if you've seen our
previous videos from this trip you would know that we didn't have the best
weather leading up to this part of our holiday oh my god
this is incredible
and this sort of weather continued while we were on gili air most days was pretty
sunny you have clear skies but the rain would just come rolling in sometimes and
it was really unpredictable so if you do venture out make sure you've got an
umbrella our hotel had umbrellas available for us so just make sure
you've got that option available when you're in the gilis now let's talk
about food options while you on the Gili Islands if you didn't know we're
vegetarian so our preferences may be different to yours walking around the
island you'll come across people selling fruit and it's very reasonably priced
there are places that sell specialty coffee and we went to one that was
called coffee and thyme and it was quite good we just had coffee at coffee and
thyme and which is the little coffee shop just directly as you get off the boat
on the harbour the coffee was very nice however did not
do not have the soy it was kind of vomit inducing so unfortunately I
didn't finish my coffee because I could not handle this the taste of soy and
I've been drinking so for so long but that was just to way our there I tried for
David's coffee and who the actual coffee itself the taste was really nice so
definitely a good spot to go to and the prices were pretty Western prices
I think I paid about about $4 for my cafe late and I think three dollars fifty for
in cappuccino and we also had a smoothie so it all came up to about fifteen dollars
some other things we found is that there were some places selling vegetarian
burgers which is pretty cool for us and also we found a really great place to
sell doughnuts as well all right guys we're stopping for donuts how much a
donut Elisa 15,000 which is a dollar fifty
Oh and it comes in a pretty box
Oh it's raining Oh no thank you for those of you that aren't vegetarian we did walk
past quite a few places that had very fresh seafood I can't tell you if it's
good or not but you'll just have to find that out for yourself if you go to the
gilis now I have to say the best thing about the food on the gili islands
is the view that comes with it many of the restaurants are right on the beach
or have chairs set up right on the water some resorts and beach clubs put out
lounges for guests which anyone can use and you can order your food from these
but be prepared to pay to do so okay guys so we're just sitting outside the
sunrise beach club a good idea to check how much it is to use the chairs at
these resorts we just figured if you order some drinks and food would be okay
they have told us it is a hundred thousand rupiah to use the chairs which
is about ten dollars but like you get a credit basically to buy that much worth
of food and drink so we have ordered some drinks anyway so it's no big deal
we'd probably just spend more than we might have we were just gonna have one
drink but we'll probably just get two or three drinks to use that credit up and
then we'll move on back to our hotel I think but overall we'd have to say the
food on gili air was average there was nothing really to flash but we were
happy while we were there we thought the cost of the food was a little bit more
expensive than other parts of the Bali it is understandable though you need to
realize that the food isn't really produced on the island so they have to
bring it all in from either Bali or Lombok and obviously to transport the
food there it is going to result in the cost of food being higher so it's
totally reasonable but it is something you need to be aware of when you visit
there now let's talk about some day trips from the gili islands
you need to realize these islands are very close to each other you can see
them from each other so it really doesn't matter where you stay you can
easily do a day trip to the other islands if you want to get a taste of
what's happening over there we did one day trip to gili meno we did some
snorkeling and had some lunch and we went for a swim in this really cool pool
that had been formed naturally by all the broken coral and the currents guys this is this is the first time
we've seen heavy swim on his own he hasn't got his vest on but he's having a
go and he's doing awesome show us Javi yeah
its only for like a second but still good on him this is simply amazing however a
lady just walk past until and told us to watch out for sea urchins I promptly
started running away from the water but its shallow here so you can see where you're stepping
but this water is the perfect temperature it's calm because
they're tide is out at the moment it's just perfection
in saying that it was pretty sad to see so much dead coral on gili meno clearly
something is just not right with the water and the gilis the spot we went
snorkeling had nothing but dead coral there weren't really that many fish we
did see a few sea turtles if you know of the best snorkelling spots and the gilis
maybe tell us about them in the comments but from our experience in gili meno
wasn't that a crush hot gili meno also has a turtle sanctuary unfortunately we
didn't have time to go visit it our tour did seem a little bit rushed so if we
did do that tour again we would probably negotiate a bit more time on the island
nearly two we were planning on doing a day trip to
gili t but to be honest we were quite happy just to chill here on gili air for
the rest of the trip overall I'd definitely recommend visiting gili air
it has such a chilled vibe to it the Sun sets are no doubt some of the best we've
ever seen gili meno was nice but for us the beaches we saw just had too much
broken Coral the island is super chilled so if you love sitting on a beach and
doing nothing with not much else happening around you then gili meno
might be the best option for you like I mentioned we didn't get to visit gili t
we did manage to speak to quite a few people who have been to gili t and gili
air and from what they said you know we were quite happy with their decision to
stay on gili air they made us feel like it was the best option for us
particularly having the kids but if you're someone who likes to party then
definitely I think gili t might be the best option for you because gili air
really doesn't have that party scene that you might be looking for so to sum
it up we were very happy with their choice to stay on gili air for those
five nights in the gili islands now before you go guys please hit that like
button if you enjoyed this video I'm also going to link some playlists to
some other videos that we've done to Nusa Lembongan
and also Nusa Penida so you want to go check those out there's some links for
you there in the past we've mostly done vlog style videos we want to start doing
more videos that are a bit more informative like this one so if you did
like this video let us know about it in the comments and also please consider
subscribing so you can see more of our adventures as a family I do appreciate
it if you made it this far into the video thanks for watching and we'll see
you on the next one