Nusa Lembongan or Nusa Penida: Which Island for a Day, and Which for a Stay

Nusa Lembongan is eight square kilometres, flat enough to cycle, with a village, a strip of guesthouses and villas above Jungutbatu beach, mangroves on one side and cliffs on the other, and a bridge to tiny Nusa Ceningan. Nusa Penida is 200 square kilometres of limestone with cliffs on three sides, a handful of villages, roads that are still being built, and the sights that made it famous: Kelingking, Broken Beach, Diamond Beach, Manta Point. Lembongan is a place to stay; Penida is a place to see. They are twenty minutes apart by boat and most people, given the time, do both.

Lembongan: Devil's Tear, where the swell explodes through a rock shelf; Dream Beach and Sandy Bay; the mangrove channels by small boat; Mangrove Point drift snorkelling; the Yellow Bridge and Ceningan's Blue Lagoon; a surf break off Jungutbatu; and enough restaurants and bars for an evening. Penida: the cliffs and beaches of the west and east, Crystal Bay, the mantas, and quiet. Both islands' snorkelling boats go to Manta Point, and a Lembongan boat reaches it in twenty minutes.

A day trip from Bali: Penida, for Kelingking; nothing on Lembongan is a reason for a thirteen-hour day. One night: Penida, to do both sides. Two or three nights, with children, or wanting a pool and a good dinner at the end of the day: Lembongan, with a day trip across to Penida's west side by boat and car, which every Lembongan hotel arranges. Divers: either; the sites are shared. People who want the wild, empty coast: Penida, and go east.

Fast boats from Sanur serve both, 30 minutes to Lembongan and 30 to 45 to Penida, with the first departures around 7:00; Padang Bai also serves Penida. Between the islands, public boats cross in ten minutes from Lembongan's Jungutbatu to Penida's Toyapakeh several times a day, and hotels charter them. In a big swell both crossings are cancelled, more often in the wet season. Details on harbours and check-in are in getting to Nusa Penida.