Lombok Itinerary: A 7-Day Route Around the Island (2026)

We’re the crew behind the Lombok Loop, our 4-day motorbike adventure around the island. We’ve spent years riding these roads and showing travellers (and a fair few locals, funnily enough) the spots most people zoom straight past. So when someone asks us how to spend a week here, this is the Lombok itinerary we send them.

You can do all of it yourself. We don’t gatekeep our island. We want as many people as possible to see what we love about it: the people, the food, the rice fields and the beaches nobody’s heard of yet. That said, we’re not giving away everything in here (sorry!). A few of our favourite spots stay on the Loop.

Days 2 to 5 follow the Loop route, so if you’d rather sit back while one of our riders does the driving, you can drop the trip straight into the middle of your week. We last rode it this October, so the drive times are fresh.

Is One Week in Lombok Enough?

A week is the sweet spot for a first trip, and it’s what we build this Lombok itinerary around. Lombok looks small on the map, but it’s not a quick island to get around. Senggigi to Kuta is about two hours, Kuta to Tetebatu about 90 minutes, and Senaru back down to Senggigi takes two to two and a half.

Four days gets you round the mainland. Five lets you breathe. The last two are where it starts feeling like a holiday instead of a road trip, and we’d spend them down in the southwest, up Rinjani or over on the Gilis, depending on your style.

Our 7-Day Lombok Itinerary at a Glance

Day	Route	Sleep	On the Lombok Loop?
1	Land, Senggigi beaches and a Malimbu sunset	Senggigi	Before the Loop
2	Senggigi to Kuta via Melase Hill, a village and the south coast beaches	Kuta	Loop day 1
3	Kuta to Sembalun via Tetebatu’s rice terraces and waterfall	Sembalun	Loop day 2
4	Sembalun to Senaru and the jungle waterfalls	North Lombok	Loop day 3
5	The north coast and Nipah Beach back to Senggigi	Senggigi	Loop day 4
6 to 7	Sekotong and the Secret Gilis, Rinjani, or the Gili Islands	Gili Kedis, Sekotong or a Gili	After the Loop

Day 1: Arrive in Senggigi

Kick things off in Senggigi on the west coast. It’s where most people land, the Gili boats come in at Bangsal just 30 minutes up the road, and it’s where the Loop leaves from, so it all lines up nicely. Flying in? The airport’s about 1.5 hours away, or just flip the route and start in Kuta. Our guide to getting from Bali to Lombok has every crossing if you’re still sorting that bit out.

Spend the afternoon cruising the coast road north. It’s our favourite hour of riding on this side of the island. Pull in at Kerandangan (five minutes up and way quieter than town), then keep going to Malimbu Hill for sunset. Grab a coconut, watch the headlands stack up into the distance, and you’re officially on island time. Our Senggigi guide has the rest, including where we eat.

• Sleep: Senggigi. Joining the Loop? Stay here the night before, because we roll out at 8am (and we really do mean 8)
• Bonus round: Got a spare morning? Ride up to the Pusuk Forest viewpoint on the inland road. There’s a troop of monkeys up there who are very interested in your snacks, so hang on to your bag

Day 2: Senggigi to Kuta via Melase Hill and the South Coast Beaches

This is day one of the Loop, and we start early for a reason. The morning light from the top of Melase Hill, the first viewpoint out of Senggigi, is ridiculous, and you can see right across the island. From there we drop down through Mataram for a snack stop at a local market or the Islamic Center, the biggest mosque on Lombok.

Then it’s over to our co-founder Dayat’s village for a coconut oil workshop and lunch with the families there. Nobody’s putting on a show. It’s just a village doing what it does, and you head off with a bottle of oil you helped make. Doing it solo? You’ll pass the weaving village at Sukarara and the traditional Sasak villages of Sade and Ende on the way south (Ende’s the less touristy one, if you’ve only got time for one).

The afternoon is beach time. Selong Belanak for gentle waves, Mawun for a proper swim in a sheltered bay, Mawi to watch the good surfers do their thing. They’re all 20 to 45 minutes from Kuta, so pick two or three and don’t try to tick them all off. On the Loop we finish at our own sunset beach (nope, not naming it). On your own, Bukit Merese above Tanjung Aan is a pretty great consolation prize.

• Ride time: About 2 hours Senggigi to Kuta direct, plus the beach hopping
• Parking: 10,000 IDR for a scooter at most south coast beaches
• Sleep: Kuta Lombok, the busiest town on the island for food and a night out, if you’ve still got the energy

Day 3: Kuta to Sembalun via Tetebatu’s Rice Terraces

If you made us pick one day on Lombok, it’d be this one. From Kuta you head north on the back roads, stopping at some traditional houses and a hand weaving workshop, and climb up into the rice terraces around Tetebatu, about 90 minutes away. We might be a bit biased, but we think these terraces beat Bali’s, and you’ll have them mostly to yourself.

Our favourite waterfall here is Durian Indah. We take our riders for a swim and, if they’re feeling brave, a cliff jump. After a big buffet lunch, wander into the forest to look for the ebony leaf monkeys, Lombok’s black monkeys. Our Tetebatu Monkey Forest guide explains how to find them without a tour.

In the afternoon the road winds up around Rinjani through misty jungle, past a viewpoint that makes everyone pull over, then drops down into the Sembalun valley. You’ll feel it get colder on the way down, so dig out your jumper. Loop nights here are spent camping: buffet dinner, a campfire, marshmallows and the mountain right in front of you. It’s usually everyone’s favourite night. Riding solo, there are homestays and bungalows in the village, and Pergasingan Hill is a two-hour climb if you’re keen on a sunrise.

• Riding: About 90 minutes Kuta to Tetebatu, then 1.5 to 2 hours of mountain road to Sembalun
• Sleep: Sembalun. Want to slow down? Add a night in Tetebatu with our guide to where to stay in Tetebatu
• Bring: A warm layer. Sembalun nights are a lot cooler than the coast

Day 4: Sembalun to Senaru and the Jungle Waterfalls

Set an alarm for sunrise. Watching it light up Rinjani from the valley is worth the early start, promise. After breakfast we ride up to a viewpoint above the strawberry farms, then pop in to the traditional houses at Beleq in Sembalun Lawang, near the Bukit Selong rice field viewpoint. The roads from here to Senaru are some of the prettiest of the whole trip, so don’t rush them.

It’s about an hour round to Senaru, with a stop at Masjid Kuno Bayan Beleq, the oldest mosque on Lombok, and a cheeky taste of local rice wine for anyone who fancies it. In Senaru, Tiu Kelep and Sendang Gile are the two big waterfalls, and the path in to Tiu Kelep follows the river through the jungle (you will get wet). We also take our Loop riders down a natural water slide and to a jungle pool to cool off. Those two are staying off the internet.

Late afternoon we ride down to the north coast for the last night together: dinner, a bonfire, a fire dance and some very questionable karaoke. Riding solo, Senaru’s the easier place to stay, and our favourite hotel on the island, Rinjani Lodge, is right at the trailhead.

• On the road: About 1 hour Sembalun to Senaru, plus stops
• Sleep: The north coast, or Senaru
• Note: Sembalun, Bayan and the northern villages are more traditional than the coast, so cover your shoulders and knees when you’re off the bike

Day 5: The North Coast Back to Senggigi

Last day of the Loop, and it’s a slow one on purpose. Follow the coast road west and south, stop for a long breakfast and a swim at Nipah Beach, where the fishing boats pull up and the warungs grill the catch right in front of you. Then it’s over the headlands past a few quieter Senggigi beaches and viewpoints, and back into town for lunch.

That’s where Loop riders who started in Senggigi wrap up, usually with a handful of new mates. If you joined us in Kuta, you keep going with us to a homestay in a Hindu village for the night, and finish back in Kuta the next day.

• Ride time: 2 to 2.5 hours Senaru to Senggigi without stops
• Sleep: Senggigi, or head straight on to the Secret Gilis

Days 6 and 7: Pick Your Ending

By now you’ve done beaches, mountains and waterfalls. These last two days are about what you want more of: quiet islands, a volcano, or a bit of a party.

Our Pick: Sekotong and the Secret Gilis

This is the bit of Lombok we really wish more people saw. The Sekotong peninsula in the southwest is about 1.5 hours from Senggigi or Kuta, and sitting off its coast are the Secret Gilis: Gili Nanggu for the coral, Gili Sudak for calm, shallow water, and Gili Kedis, a tiny sandbar with a few trees and not much else (which is exactly the point).

Most of our riders roll straight off the Loop and into our Secret Gili camping trip, a night of island hopping, snorkelling and camping on Gili Kedis that Dayat started. It leaves on Fridays, Sundays and Tuesdays, so the Sunday one lines up perfectly with the end of the Loop. You can join it on its own too.

Go Further: Gili Asahan, Layar, Goleng and the Islands Nobody Sees

There’s so much more down here, and it’s where we’ve been spending a lot of our own time lately. Gili Asahan has no cars, a little fishing village, an eco lodge that somehow makes some of the best pizza on the island, and horses and goats wandering the beach. Gili Layar is all about the diving and snorkelling, and Gili Goleng is a tiny island of coconut palms where the only traffic is a family of monkeys. Gili Gede is the biggest of the bunch and the place to base yourself for diving.

There are golden pearl farms around here too, and a lot of local families depend on them. You can’t just rock up to one, so give us a shout if you’d like to visit. The Loop doesn’t come down this way, which makes it the perfect second half of your week.

Or Climb Mount Rinjani

Hikers, this one’s for you. The 2-day crater rim trek leaves from Senaru and camps right on the rim at 2,641 m, looking down into the crater lake. Rinjani isn’t part of the Loop, so we’d do it before the trip from Senaru, or head back up afterwards. Riding solo? Just stop in Senaru after Day 4.

You’ll need a licensed guide, and the park closes every year from 1 January to the end of March. Our Mount Rinjani trek guide covers permits, the 2026 rules and which routes are open, and we’re happy to book a local trekking crew for you.

Or Take the Boat to the Gili Islands

After beach bars and turtles? Finish in Senggigi and head 30 minutes up the road to Bangsal for the public boat to Gili Trawangan, Meno or Air. Our Lombok vs Gili Islands guide will help you pick one. We’d still go southwest every time, but the Gilis are easy, and loads of people pair them with Bali.

Short on Time? A 4- or 5-Day Lombok Itinerary

• 4 days: Just do Days 2 to 5. That’s the Loop, and it covers the south coast, Tetebatu, Sembalun, Senaru and the north coast
• 5 days: Add Day 1 in Senggigi, or a lazy day in Kuta for a surf lesson at Gerupuk and a swim at Tanjung Aan
• 10 days: Do the full week, then add the Gilis or Rinjani on top of the southwest, or just stay longer on Gili Asahan

Riding It Yourself: What We Will and Won’t Tell You

Everything in this Lombok itinerary is real, and you can find all of it on your own. We’ve given you the route, the towns, the drive times and where we’d stop. What we’ve kept back are a handful of spots that took us years to find: the sunset beach on Day 2, our favourite swing, the jungle pool and that slide near Tiu Kelep. A few things have to stay special for the Loop. There’s plenty more in our list of things to do in Lombok.

• Scooter: 70,000 to 150,000 IDR a day. You’ll need your motorbike licence from home plus an International Driving Permit that covers motorbikes. Days 3 and 4 are steep, twisty mountain roads, so be honest with yourself about your riding. Our scooter rental guide has the rest
• Private driver: The comfy option if you’re not keen on riding. To give you an idea, a driver from Kuta to Bangsal is about 600,000 to 800,000 IDR
• The Lombok Loop: Days 2 to 5 with one of our local riders doing the driving, from US$305 per person with your beds, meals, fuel and entry fees sorted. You sit on the back of a 150cc scooter, so there’s no licence needed. Just hang on and enjoy the view

When to Do This Lombok Itinerary

April to October is the dry season and the easiest time for this trip: dry roads, a calm south coast and clear mornings up in the hills. We run the Loop all year now, though. In the wet season we shuffle stops around the weather, and the waterfalls are absolutely pumping.

• Rinjani: Closed from 1 January to the end of March, so that ending only works from April to December
• The Komodo boat: Calmest seas from April to November
• Crowds: July and August are the busiest. May and September are our favourite months for this route

Our guide to the best time to visit Lombok goes month by month.

Where to Stay Along the Way

• Senggigi: the start and finish, and the closest base to the Gili boats
• Kuta: the south coast, and where the Friday Loop leaves from
• Tetebatu: rice terraces and cooler nights if you want to slow right down
• Sembalun and Senaru: Homestays, bungalows and a few lodges. Rinjani Lodge is our pick in Senaru
• Sekotong: The eco lodges on Gili Asahan, or a tent on Gili Kedis

After Lombok: Take the 4-Day Boat to Komodo

If you’re carrying on through Indonesia, do this. We tell pretty much everyone who rides the Loop with us. The Lombok to Komodo boat trip is four days and three nights at sea from Lombok to Labuan Bajo on Flores, hopping islands like Moyo on the way, then Komodo and Rinca for the dragons, Padar for sunrise, and the pink sand beach in the national park.

Fair warning: not every boat on this route is a good one, so who you book with matters. We work with a reputable operator and can sort your ticket and your ride to the port for the same price as booking direct. Flick us a message on WhatsApp with your dates and we’ll help you set it up, whether you’re joining the Lombok Loop first or not.