Hidden beauty of North Sulawesi

North Sulawesi is your gateway to diving, travel, and adventure in Indonesia. North Sulawesi is known for its spectacular diving and is home to the world-famous Bunaken National Park, and the nearby islands of Bangka and Manado Tua.

Manado is the capital of North Sulawesi, known as The Land of Smiling People.  The city of Manado is not specially interesting. But its the arrival point to North Sulawesi. Its possible to fly from and to Jakarta, Bali, Makassar and even Singapore. We can find good flight connections in Manado. 

This region lies in the very epicenter of the world’s marine biodiversity of the Indo-Pacific Ocean. It is very attractive for divers. But its also worthy visit the inner part of the region. We recommend you to visit Tangkoko National Park. This big natural reserve is home to the to the Tarsius, one of the world’s smallest primates, the Indonesian bear cuscus and the rare and endemic Black Crested Macaque. The accommodation is simple but correct. So you can spend the night  here. And go trekking late at night and early in the morning, when you have more chances to see Tarsius. Tangkoko National Reserve still remains such an offbeat nature reserve in Indonesia.

Then we visited Minahasa region with its volcanoes, lakes, rice fields...Its quite a good combination to visit Tangkoko and Minahasa region. 

But for sure the most attractive from North Sulawesi its its unerwater world. It offers more than 100 different dive sites, all rich with tropical marine life, with diving all year round. The most known and famous island is Bunaken. In Bunaken Island you can find all kind of hotels, from guest house to really good hotels. We really enjoyed the snorkelling here. We saw stunning reefs, turtles, different species of tropical fish...

Opposite to Bunaken, we can find Lembeh Strait, another popular dive destination in Indonesia. To get to Lembeh it takes two hours from Manado. Lembeh Straits is known as the muck diving capital of the world, and is one of the few places in the world where you will see the elusive hairy frog fish, pygmy sea horses, larger sea horses like the thorny seahorse, mimic octopus, wunderpus and flamboyant cuttlefish to name a few. What we liked the most if the jungle views you have from Dembeh. You can see tropical forest on the beach...We stayed in Bastianos Lembeh. Good price, good restaurant and nice pool. We recommend you the overwater bungalows. The views from this room over the strait are amazing!

In North Sulawesi you can find wordl class marine life as well as an interesting flora and fauna. The perfect combination for a trip for those who love sea and land travels!