🇮🇩 Indonesia · SE Asia
Gili Air
No cars, no scooters — bicycles, turtles and ocean swings.
beachislandsslow☀ best: May – Sep
The Gili Air guide
Inside the premium guide
A preview of the real thing — a detailed premium guide, researched and checked in 2026. Click a page to enlarge.
THE COMPLETE CITY GUIDE
INDONESIA · RESEARCHED 2026
Gili Air
No cars, no scooters — bicycles, turtles and ocean swings.
sama·sama
The cover
What this guide covers
38 pages, A4 — cover to back. A phone edition comes with it.
What’s inside + how to use
The place & what a day costs
City at a glance — the best-of snapshot
What & how to eat
Where to eat — cheap & local
Mid-range & special occasion
Sweets, cafés & coffee
Vegan, veggie & gluten-free
Supermarkets & typical prices
Markets & food halls
Souvenirs & shopping
Where to stay — neighbourhoods
Budget, boutique & luxury stays
Hostels — the backpacker shortlist
Six big things to do
Top 10 experiences — book & compare
Nightlife & after dark
Best day trips
Insider tips + safety & scams
Ready-made day plans
Getting around
Arrival, tickets & transport cheat sheet
When to go + best time to visit
Cash, cards & tipping
Connectivity & insurance
Health, safety & entry
The travel toolbox
Every link, one place
Sama·Sama · Gili Air guide38 pages
Everything it covers
STRAIGHT FROM THE GUIDE
Designed cover to cover
One real entry from the Gili Air guide
The price tables further down give you the ranges. The guide gives you the places — 30 of them in Gili Air, each priced, each one tap from Google Maps.
€2–4Zzz Warung (Warung Zzz)Great food at unbeatable prices — one of our absolute favourites on the island. Heaped nasi campur, fresh juices and friendly faces at a handful of tables down a sandy lane. Cheap, generous and genuinely good; we kept coming back.📍 Open in Google Maps →One of 30. The rest are in the guide.
Everything. Two files. One price.
This isn’t a blog post saved as a PDF — it’s a detailed, premium, 38-page A4 magazine — researched and checked in 2026, designed to be used. And every purchase comes as two files: the A4 edition for your laptop, tablet and printer, and a phone edition laid out tall and narrow so you never pinch or zoom — the same guide re-flowed into 99 phone-sized pages. Keep it on your phone or print it, open it at a street corner in Gili Air and it answers the question you’re standing there with.
38A4 pages — cover to back
99phone pages — same guide, re-flowed
253+researched prices in €
242live, verified links
109jump straight to Google Maps
61hand-picked photos
Add it up: 556+ researched details — every price checked, every venue placed, every link live. More usable information than a week of blog-tab hopping, in one beautiful file.
- Made for the phone in your pocket — as well as the A4 magazine you get a phone edition: one attraction per screen, nothing cut, every link still live. No pinching, no sideways scrolling.
- Every venue is one tap from navigation — 109 Google Maps links mean you never type an address on holiday.
- Real prices, not vibes — three honest daily budgets (€26 / €52 / €122) and prices on everything from a dorm bed to a splurge dinner.
- Zero sponsorships — nobody paid to be in this guide. If it’s in, it’s in because it’s good.
- Book everything from the page — stays open on Booking.com & Hostelworld, experiences on GetYourGuide, Trip.com & Klook, transport on official operator sites.
- Plan-it-for-me included — ready day plans, a Top 10, a best-of snapshot, and neighbourhood “best for” labels that choose your base with you.
Buy the Gili Air guide — €9.95 →Or buy Gili Air on Etsy ↗
Was €14.50 — now €9.95, every city the same.
This page gives you the ranges. The guide gives you the places — every venue named, priced and linked.
SHOESTRING
€26/day
dorms, street plates, transit
COMFY
€52/day
private room, sit-down meals, a treat
FLASH
€122/day
nice hotel, good dinners, no maths
🧮 Trip maths
€365 total
What Gili Air costs, day to day
🛵 Getting around
Ride apps — no motor vehicles on the island — bicycles and horse carts only
Bicycle rentalper day€2.6–€4.3
Cidomo horse cart hopper ride — Welfare is debated — most people walk€2.6–€5.2
Fast boat from Balione-way€22–€35
Public boat from Lombokone-way€1.3–€1.7
🛏 Stays
Per night
Hostel dorm bed€8.7–€13
Garden bungalow double€22–€43
Glamping tent€17–€30
Beachfront villa€52–€113
Monthly
Simple room, low season€304–€477
Bungalow, long stay€391–€694
🛒 Groceries & daily life
Island minimarts — +30–50 % over Bali — stock up before the boat
Water refill stations — 30 cents a bottle — the island has a plastic problem
Night-market stalls — dinner counts as shopping here
Water 1.5 L€0.5–€0.8
Milk 1 L€2.1–€2.6
Eggs ×10€1.7–€2.3
Bread loaf€1.6–€2.1
Rice 1 kg€1.1–€1.6
Chicken breast 1 kg€3.3–€4.3
Bananas 1 kg€1–€1.6
Local beer 0.5 L (shop)€1.9–€2.6
🍜 Eating out
Warung plate€1.7–€3
Night-market skewers€1.7–€3.5
Fresh-fish BBQper person€5.2–€10
Beach-bar dinnerper person€6.9–€13
Sunset-side cocktailper drink€3.5–€6.1
🎡 Things to do — with kids
Turtle snorkelling off the sandmask rental€2.6–€4.3
Glass-bottom boat tripper person€10–€13
Ocean swings & sandbarsfree
🌙 Things to do — grown-ups
Three-Gili snorkel tripper person€13–€17
Fun diveper dive€30–€39
Open Water courseOne of the cheapest cert spots on earth€278–€330
Sunset-side beach barsfree
🌤 Climate
Day °CSea °CRain
Best: May – Sep · Wet: Nov – Mar
Drier than Bali proper. May–Sep is postcard weather; wet-season wind makes the boat crossings bumpy — don’t book a same-day onward flight.
✈️ Getting there
AirAsiaLion AirSuper Air JetLombok + public boat€26–€52
Bali + fast boat€30–€69
Fly to Lombok and take the 15-minute public boat, or fast-boat over from Bali.
🏧 ATMs & money
Fees: Most big-bank ATMs add no local surcharge — your bank's fee is the whole cost. Limits per pull are modest (2.5 M Rp on 50k-note machines).
Limits: 1.25–2.5 M Rp on 50k-note machines; look for 100k-note machines (marked on the slot) for ~3 M Rp pulls.
Best machines: BCAMandiriBNI
Use ATMs attached to real bank branches, never lone boxes in tourist lanes. On Gili Air, machines run dry and offline — carry cash over from Bali/Lombok. Exchange only at authorised 'PVA Berizin' offices; street 'no commission' boards are sleight-of-hand counters.
🩺 Health & safety
Vaccines: Routine, Hepatitis A, Typhoid. Bali has rabies in dogs and monkeys — admire, don't touch; any scratch (looking at you, Monkey Forest) means a clinic that day.
Health: 'Bali belly' is mostly avoidable: sealed water, hot cooked food, peeled fruit. One serious rule with a simple fix: drink only sealed, branded spirits — informal arak has caused methanol poisonings. On Gili Air, cuts from coral are the main 'injury' — pack reef shoes and antiseptic. BIMC and Siloam hospitals in Bali are solid.
Tap water: ❌ Never drink the tap (Bali belly's main culprit). Sealed bottles only; on Gili Air, carry enough over.
Safety: Homicide rates here are among the world's lowest — day-to-day Bali and the Gilis feel gentler than most European cities. Petty theft from parked scooters is the main nuisance: use the seat lock. Volcanoes occasionally grumble; if Agung is active, flights reroute and the authorities are well-drilled.
Emergency: 112 general · 118 ambulance
🌱 Vegan, veggie & gluten-free
Plant-based: Tempeh and tofu are national treasures — gado-gado, urap, nasi campur can all go plant-based. Warung 'vegetarian' signs are common in Bali.
Gluten-free: Rice-centred and largely GF by default; kecap manis (sweet soy) contains wheat — ask for plain sambal instead.
'Tanpa terasi' skips the shrimp paste · Ubud is one of Asia's vegan capitals — entire raw/vegan menus.
🛂 Visa & entry
For most short tourist trips, citizens of the US, UK, EU/Schengen, Canada, Australia and New Zealand either enter visa-free or get a simple online authorisation (an eVisa or eTA) before flying. Typical visa-free stays run 30–90 days. Some countries want a visa arranged in advance, and a growing number ask you to fill an online arrival or eVisa form even when 'visa-free' — so always check the official portal for your exact nationality before you book.
Rules change — always verify with an official source for your nationality before you book.
💬 Traveller tips & reports
The island where nothing happens — No cars, no police, no hurry. One lap on foot takes 90 minutes — do it at sunset once clockwise, once not. That’s the itinerary.
@slow.gili · May ’26 · ▲ 129