No cars, no motorbikes — just bicycles, sea turtles, and sunset cocktails
Gili Trawangan is the largest of the three Gili Islands off northwest Lombok. The island has no motorised vehicles — transport is by horse-drawn cidomo carts or bicycle — and its 3km circumference is walkable in under an hour. The draw is exceptional snorkelling (sea turtles are almost guaranteed), an east coast of sunrise cafes, and a west coast of beach bars where the party crowd from Bali gathers at sunset.
The Gili Islands were largely uninhabited until the 1970s, when Bugis fishermen from Sulawesi settled them. Tourism arrived in the 1980s when backpackers discovered the diving. The no-motorised-vehicle rule was established by community consensus to protect the peaceful atmosphere. A 7.0 earthquake struck in August 2018, damaging parts of the Gilis, but the islands rebuilt within two years.