Things to Do in Indonesia: City Guides & Audio Tours

The best things to do in Indonesia include exploring historic cities, encountering hundreds of cultural traditions and seeing how life is shaped by the sea. Stretching between the Indian and Pacific oceans across thousands of islands, Indonesia brings together volcanic landscapes, tropical forests, coral reefs, major cities and communities with distinct languages and customs. Neywo offers free audio guides for 23 cities in Indonesia, with 463 narrated places in total.

What to see and do in Indonesia

Indonesia is too varied to understand through one destination alone. Its cities and islands reveal different chapters of the country’s history, culture and geography.

Jakarta

The capital is one of the clearest places to explore Indonesia’s modern national story. Its narrated highlights include the National Monument of Indonesia, the National Museum of Indonesia, Istiqlal Mosque and Merdeka Square. Jakarta is also a useful starting point for understanding the country’s political development: Indonesia is a presidential republic with an elected legislature, and the Reformasi period brought constitutional changes, competitive elections and decentralisation.

Jakarta sits within an archipelago where maritime and air connections are essential. The country’s population is concentrated heavily on Java, and the island also has the country’s most extensive rail network. A high-speed railway between Jakarta and Bandung began commercial operations in 2023.

Yogyakarta

Yogyakarta brings together royal history, Islamic heritage and modern Indonesian identity. The main places covered by Neywo include Kraton Ngayogyakarta Hadiningrat, Taman Sari, Benteng Vredeburg and the Struggle Museum of Yogyakarta. These sites offer different perspectives on the city’s palaces, political history and cultural traditions.

The city is in Java, the island where much of Indonesia’s population lives and where rail connections are concentrated. It is also part of a cultural landscape shaped by traditions in visual arts, music and dance.

Bandung and West Java

Bandung is one of the Indonesian cities covered by Neywo, with highlights including the Bandung Geological Museum, the Asian-African Conference Museum, Barli Museum and Galeri Pusat Kebudayaan. Together, these places connect geological history, international politics and Indonesian art.

West Java is also associated with angklung, a bamboo musical tradition used in the region and elsewhere. More broadly, Indonesian music ranges from court and ritual forms to village and popular traditions, while textiles, puppetry, masks, carving and painting all play important roles in the country’s visual culture.

Semarang and Cirebon

Semarang’s narrated places include Lawang Sewu, Sam Poo Kong, Museum Kota Lama and Museum Pusat Perkembangan Islam Jawa Tengah. The selection reflects the layers of history found in Indonesian cities, where trade, religion, colonial power and local traditions overlap.

Cirebon offers another view of West Java’s heritage. Its key places include Kanoman Palace Heritage Building Museum, Kraton Kacirebonan, Palace Kasepuhan and Masjid Merah Panjunan. Indonesia’s history was shaped by long-distance maritime trade, followed by the development of Hindu and Buddhist kingdoms, the spread of Islam and the growth of Islamic states.

Medan and Sumatra

Medan’s principal narrated places include Maimun Palace, the Indonesian Plantation Museum, North Sumatra Museum and North Sumatra Press Struggle Museum. This range brings together royal heritage, agriculture, regional culture and the history of the press.

Further west, Banda Aceh includes the Aceh Tsunami Museum, Aceh Museum, Baiturrahman Grand Mosque and Museum Ali Hasjmy. In Bukittinggi, the route includes Fort de Kock, Istana Bung Hatta, Bung Hatta Birth House and Museum Perjuangan Tri Daya Eka Dharma. These cities show how Indonesia’s history is never just national or colonial: it is also regional, local and connected to distinct communities.

Palembang and southern Sumatra

Palembang’s narrated places include Kawasan Cagar Budaya Kampung Kapitan, Balaputradeva Museum, Bayt Al-Qur’an Al-Akbar and the National Hero Museum Major General TNI (Ret.) Dr. AK. Gani. The city is part of an island whose position helped connect the Indonesian archipelago to wider maritime networks.

The sea has remained central to Indonesia’s development. Spices from Maluku travelled along Asian sea routes before European powers competed to control the trade. Dutch commercial and colonial power expanded from the 17th century and eventually gained control over most of the archipelago.

Manado and eastern Indonesia

Manado’s highlights include South Sulawesi Museum, the Cathedral of the Most Sacred Heart of Mary, Ban Hin Kiong Temple, Gereja Bunda Hati Kudus and Kairagi. The city illustrates the religious and cultural variety found across Indonesia, a country with hundreds of ethnic groups and more than 700 languages.

Indonesian is the official national language. It is a standardised variety of Malay, which had long served as a lingua franca without belonging to a single ethnic group. The national motto, Bhinneka Tunggal Ika, means “unity in diversity.”

Bali

Bali brings together museums, temples, art and island landscapes. In Denpasar, Neywo covers the Bali Museum, Le Mayeur Museum, Museum Agung Bung Karno and Putrawan Museum of Art (PUMA). Ubud includes Ubud Palace, Puri Lukisan Museum, Museum Pendet and Agung Rai Museum of Art.

Other Bali destinations reveal different sides of the island. Kuta, Bali includes the Bali Shell Museum, I Gusti Ngurah Rai International Airport, the 2002 Bali bombings and Wihara Dharmayana. Lovina covers places including Pangkung Bulakan, Tukad Asangan, Pangkung Kelampua and Tukad Bengkala, while Nusa Lembongan includes Bukit Pangkung, Tukad Pangkung, Lembongan and Jungutbatu.

Gamelan traditions are especially associated with Java and Bali. They form part of a wider cultural life that includes ritual, court, village and popular music and dance.

Lombok and the Gili Islands

West Nusa Tenggara extends the journey beyond Bali. In Kuta, Lombok, Neywo covers places including Eat Memate, Eat Tebelo, Eat Merendeng and Bukit Tanakbeak. Mataram includes Sasak, Taman Mayura and Pura Meru.

Gili Trawangan provides a glimpse of the island world that defines the country, with narrated places including the Gili Islands and Gili Meno. Indonesia’s geography changes constantly from coastal plains and volcanic islands to tropical forests, mangroves, coral reefs and seagrass beds.

The natural world

Indonesia is recognised as one of the world’s megadiverse countries. Its geological history and many islands have produced an unusually varied mix of plants and animals. Wallacea, within the archipelago, is a transition zone between Asian and Australian fauna and an important centre of endemism.

This abundance exists alongside environmental pressure. Large oil-palm and timber plantations have been estimated to account for a large share of national deforestation. Indonesia’s natural story is therefore not only one of biodiversity, but also of the difficult choices involved in protecting it.

The country’s climate is equatorial, with warm and humid lowlands and cooler higher terrain. Monsoon winds shape the seasons: in many places, wetter months tend to arrive from November to April, followed by drier conditions from May to October, although the pattern varies by region. Seasonal rain influences rice planting, floods, droughts and fires.

Explore Indonesia with Neywo

Download Neywo to explore Indonesia through 19 walking tours across 23 cities, with 463 narrated places in total. Narration is available in 11 languages. The app tells the story of each place as you reach it, at your own pace, with no group and no schedule.