Where To Go in Lombok

Where to go in Lombok, or to at least base yourself, if you surf, is Kuta Lombok. Not to be confused with the Kuta in Bali, it’s VERY different. The area is super chilled out with empty dirt track roads everywhere.

If you’re looking for how to get to Lombok, have a look at the end of my post on Uluwatu and the Bukit Area in Bali.

Surfing in Kuta Lombok

Once in Kuta Lombok the main place to surf is Gerupuk. There are a few surf spots there, all of which you need to get a boat to. In average swell conditions, they should provide enough of a range to satisfy most levels of surfing, from beginner breaks to more advanced ones.

The drive to Gerupuk is beautiful and there are some beaches you can find along the way too.

We were warned at our homestay though that you shouldn’t drive back from Kuta Lombok at sunset time or afterwards as there have been incidents of foreigners being stopped by people with machetes and robbed.

We therefore always left to drive back into the center of Kuta Lombok before sunset and even saw some police checks along the way so clearly they were trying to fix the problem.

There are a number of other surf breaks around Kuta Lombok too that you can easily drive to. The views on the drives are pretty cool too as they’ll take you up and down mountains.

Nightlife in Kuta Lombok

Most of our time in Kuta Lombok we just had quite nights so would go out for dinner, buy a few beers and then go back to our homestay to hangout.

One night there was a party at the Reggae bar on the road along the beach, shown below which was great and had live music. We also went to a bar one night which was pretty much just a VW camper van in a field selling drinks, they had some benches out and things but no building structure or anything and the toilet was just literally the field next door.

There are other things to do in Lombok beside surf and go out, we just didn’t happen to do any of them!!

Two warnings related to this:

Toilets in Lombok

A lot of places don’t have real toilets, some of them are just a field as mentioned and others just a bamboo structure with 4 walls so at least you have some privacy but the only thing in there is a slab of concrete on the floor. So make sure you always take toilet paper with you and try to do anything more than peeing at home. Lombok really wouldn’t be the best place to get food poisoning.

Bike Theft in Lombok

The night we went to the Reggae bar we we had to park on the opposite side of the road in a huge parking lot for that area. That’s where everyone parked. We met some people later that night who’d had their bike stolen from there.

I guess it’s not surprising; it’s dark and would be easy enough to wheel a bike away while people are inside partying. Apparently it happens quite a lot in Lombok as a scam with the bike rental places since then the person who rented the bike has to pay for the loss of the bike so a lot of the time the bike rental places are the ones who actually steal the bikes.

To avoid this make sure at night in Lombok you always put your bike on wheel lock and put the key safety latch down.

How Long to Stay in Kuta Lombok

I went there to surf and spent 5 days as there are other surf breaks a short drive away from the center of Kuta Lombok too and it’s a lovely place to hangout. Unless you’re going there to see Mount Rinjani, the volcano most people trek up in Lombok, too it just depends on how long you want to surf there. If you’d like to trek Rinjani too, you’ll need to leave a couple of days extra for that.

Where to Stay in Kuta Lombok

I stayed in Qurnia’s Homestay. It’s really cheap, the owner (Qurnia) is lovely and the breakfast is delicious. I’d thoroughly recommend staying there.

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