Culture

We are light here, and it is better to say so than to pad this page.

Asik Travel grew out of boats and islands, and the catalogue reflects that: what we run well is water, wildlife and the archipelagos east of Bali. Genuine cultural travel in Indonesia, the funeral ceremonies of Tana Toraja, the weaving villages of Flores and Sumba, the temple calendar in Bali, deserves a guide who lives in that place and has spent years being trusted there. We would rather point you to that than sell you a version of it assembled from a boat schedule.

What you will find culture in, honestly, is the edges of the other trips. The villages on Komodo where the rangers and their families live, the harbour at Labuan Bajo at five in the morning, the fishing platforms in Saleh Bay that are somebody's working life rather than an attraction, the meals cooked in a boat galley by a crew from Flores. None of that is a cultural product and all of it is the part people remember.

The journal is where we put the rest. The destination guides carry the practical context, what a place is, who lives there, what is worth understanding before you arrive, without pretending it is bookable.

If cultural travel is the reason for your trip rather than a part of it, tell us when you get in touch. We will say honestly whether we are the right people for it, and if we are not, we will say who is.