Exploring Timor-Leste

Recommended Timor-Leste itineraries

• Jonty • Episode 19

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Jonty:

Bondi. Welcome to exploring Tim Este, the podcast that talks about Southeast Asia's best kept travel secret. I'm your host Jte, and I'll share firsthand insights, expert interviews and practical travel tips. Whether you're a traveler, a cultural lover, or just curious about places rarely covered in the mainstream. You're in the right place. Let's explore two more. Less day.

In today's episode, I wanna give you an idea for some itineraries. So if you are planning to visit two more less day, this will give you some ideas about how you can structure your visit. I'll talk about five day trips. You can do from Dili, five overnighter, two day trips you can do from Dili, and three trips where you'll allow at least three days to complete them. So hopefully these will give you some ideas of combinations to make the most of your time into Leste. To start with the day trips from Dili. The most popular and obvious place to visit is ET Island. I've talked about this extensively on other podcasts is a beautiful place, a must visit if you are coming to Timor, Now, I'd recommend that you spend a few days there. It's a very nice place to spend some time and relax. But if you only have one day, you can go to ATAR roof for the day. Get the ferry out in the morning, you get a few hours on the island, and then get the ferry back. The best place for UpToDate information about traveling to Aro Island is on the website of Barry's Place. Under getting here, Barry updates that regularly with the latest services as I record this in mid 2025. There were ferry services five days a week. To get the most time on the island though, you wanna get the dragon boat. These are the fast boats that take about an hour and a half to get to Aru. The other ferries take more like three to three and a half hours, so obviously you get less time on the island. So if you get Dragon boat out. And back on the same day, you're probably gonna have three to four hours on the island, which is plenty of time to look around the markets. Particularly on a Saturday. Maybe have a quick walk around the village of Beloit. And the main attraction obviously is snorkeling. And if you go to Barry's place, you can rent gear and organize boats to go and snorkel in the, in a reef. Can also snorkel directly off the beach just south of the wharf, there is a reef there, which is okay, but the inner reef is definitely the place to go to if you can, which does require a local fishing boat to take you out. It's a very short boat ride of a few minutes, but it's too far to Safely Swim, If you only do one day trip from Dili, I would recommend ET Island. A second day trip idea is to go out to, so this is to the west of Dili, and it's very durable, particularly if you have your own transport, like hiring a car or a scooter. The road is in decent condition. You can visit the historic Apollo Prison uh, uba, which has a, for a church and a, and a lake and town, which is a massacre site, a church, and some seafront restaurants all in the day with about two and a half hours driving. It is technically possible to do it by local bus, but the buses may be infrequent, so you do risk getting stuck there. I think if you just went to one place and came back. You probably could, but if you want to visit multiple sites in, that's quite difficult without your own transport. Another option as a day trip is to head up to Glen O. This is the largest town in Amira and it has a huge church. And on the way you can stop at KO to visit the Gecko Cafe, there are local buses up there, or if you've got your own transport allowed, two and a half hours in total for driving to Glen Oak and back. The road is steep and winding, but it is a sealed and well maintained road. Another option is Salo Crack. This is home to a beautiful lagoon filled with water, lilies and surrounded by rice fields. Need to allow at least three hours for driving. If you're gonna go there in a day, take the road to a layer, and before you get into a layer, you turn off right. And it's about a 20 to 30 minute detour. The road does get significantly worse once you get off the main road. And actually, if you can go from soy crack onto Glen o and that road is quite a bad road, so you need your own transport to get to soy crack, but it is a very nice place to visit or continue along that road to aeo. That's a very pleasant day trip. You've got a cooler climate up there. There's mountain views, there's good places to have lunch. There's a couple of notable memorials and there's some busy markets on a Saturday. It's a very winding road. It's about an hour and a half from Dilly to Alejo. And the longest piece of straight road is probably, maybe, I dunno, a hundred meters, like the whole way you are going left right. So if you get carsick, you might want to give this one a miss. But if you're on a motorbike, it's quite good fun to take the winding road. And you do get some beautiful views back towards Dilly and the coastline for when you get up into the hills. So those can all be done in one day. Obviously, you can spend longer. If you wish. Now two day trips. I would start by recommending au. This is the second largest city in Timor-Leste and it's home to one four historic buildings and the only real large public swimming pool in the country. It's about a two and a half hour drive, one way from Dili along a stunning coastline on some of the best roads in the country. So head out in the morning, have a nice afternoon there. Go relax at the pool, see some of the sites, stay overnight. There's a few different accommodation options, and then come back the next day Another good two day option is Bella Ball, and that is three to four hours drive one way from Dili. So it gets a bit too far to do in a day, but certainly as a two day trip, it's great. Now on the way you're gonna travel through. So potentially you could visit some of those sites I mentioned earlier and then stay in BBO at the historic BBO Fort Hotel. Visit some of the sites in BBO the following morning, and then head back to Dili. I'd also recommend that you stop in at ABI on the way the D two UMA Cafe has fantastic views of the rice fields. Another popular two day option is to go to Mount Ramlow, which is the highest point in Tim Leste, just under 3000 meters high. Allow two and a half to three hours driving one way from Dili with some challenging road conditions towards the end, requiring a four wheel drive vehicle or very good motorbike skills. You'll stay in the beautiful village of hat bco, which is the highest in two more less day, and a lot of people would go out there and you get up about two 30 in the morning to hike to the summit of Ramal for sunrise at around 6:00 AM. I didn't like to get up so early, so I went for sunset set instead and then came down in the evening and headed the next day. A lot of people may just go up to see Mount Rameau, but I highly recommend trying to factor in time to visit the Docker Marley waterfall, which is probably the most impressive in the country. It's about 45 minutes down the road from obesity and also to spend a bit of time in ha to Ko an hour or two at least wandering around the village.'cause there's quite a few things to see and do. Now on the way to Mount Ram out is moi, so that's another option. If you don't have a four wheel drive vehicle, you can still enjoy the beautiful mountain scenery from that's about a two and a half hour drive, one way from Dili along good roads the whole way. Now, one of my favorite two day trips, which you can do over a weekend, is to visit a kui. this is Timor's enclave, completely surrounded by Indonesia. From Dili, overnight ferries and overland buses. Take the best part of 12 hours. Or you can fly with Aly in 35 minutes and there's flights that leave on Friday afternoon and return Monday morning. So it's three nights, but it's really two days, and that's about the ideal amount of time to spend exploring this little visited part of Timor-Leste. Now, a few ideas for longer trips than that. So Jao Island is technically possible to visit in a weekend, but as it involves 12 to 16 hours of driving to get there and back, that doesn't need much time to explore the place. So it's better to spread it out over three days and break up the journey in alco and com and expect the road to come to be quite decent. But from calm through to Jaco Island, that is pretty bad. So you do need some decent transport to get that far. Another option. As I mentioned at the beginning, at Aru Island, you can visit in one day, but two or three days is much better. You get a real chance to enjoy island time My final suggestion is to go to Bagilla. Now, this is really for adventure travelers. I'd say far few people visit here than Jao Island. It's less well known, but arguably more interesting and spectacular. So here you can stay at another historic fault, the Bagge Fort, which is a very nice place to stay surrounded by mountains. And you can hike up to the summit of Mat Bien. Which is the second highest peak in Timor-Leste that is significantly more challenging than Mount Ramala. To get to Bigge is a five hour drive, one way from Dili. Along the coast, there are decent roads, so you're heading through to Baal, then you go a bit further to lga, and then you start heading inland, and the roads get very rough. When I visited here in late 2024, there was some road construction underway, which will certainly improve the journey. I'm not sure it's gonna go all the way to Bagge. It's probably the first section only, so you do need a four wheel drive vehicle or very good motorbike skills, but for those who have the time energy and adventure to get out to bagge, I would really recommend it as an off the beaten track gem in somewhere that's not very well explored. Hopefully that has given you some ideas of various things you can do in Timor less day. as always, look on the exploring timor.com website to find more ideas about how you can explore this beautiful country.

Jonty:

Thank you so much for listening to exploring Timor Less Day. If you've enjoyed today's episode, please consider leaving a rating or review. It really helps more people discover the show. If you have any questions or feedback, I'd love to hear from you. Drop me an email at exploring Timor lessDay@gmail.com. Until next time, or Bodo ADEs.