Amed travel guide

Amed is shorthand for a string of fishing villages along the far northeast coast, where the dry side of Bali slides into a sea that holds some of the island's best easy snorkelling and diving. It is far from everything, which is both its cost and its point.

Where it is

On the northeast coast in Karangasem regency, past Mount Agung. The drive from the airport takes the better part of three hours by the coast road. Nothing about that improves, and it keeps the crowds proportionate.

The coast

Black sand and pebble coves, jukungs drawn up between them, and reef within swimming distance of the beach almost everywhere. The Japanese wreck at Banyuning sits metres off the shore; the USAT Liberty wreck at Tulamben, one of the most dived wrecks anywhere, is twenty minutes up the road. Freediving schools have made the area their base.

The character

Guesthouses and warungs strung along one coastal road, Agung looming behind, early nights. Village life continues around the tourism rather than beneath it: salt panning and the morning fish auction predate every guesthouse.

Who it suits

Divers, snorkellers, freedivers, and travellers at the point in the trip where quiet is worth a transfer. It suits neither nightlife nor anyone on a schedule too tight to absorb the distance.

What we have not verified

Dive and freedive pricing varies by school and season. Verified figures will carry dates, on rule pages.