A Short Flight to Somewhere That Feels Far Away
Belitung sits off the eastern coast of Sumatra, yet for most international visitors it has remained largely off the radar. That is starting to change. In May 2026, Scoot resumed twice-weekly direct flights between Singapore and Belitung, restoring a connection that had been dormant since 2019. The flight takes under 90 minutes, and Jakarta is roughly an hour away. For an island with warm turquoise water and white-sand beaches framed by enormous granite boulders, those travel times are striking.
The Straits Times reporter Hariz Baharudin visited in August 2026 and found an island that is deliberately, almost defiantly, unhurried. There are no beach-club strips, no motorcycle traffic jams, no queues at international restaurant chains. Several Singaporean visitors he encountered had chosen Belitung precisely for those absences.
Granite, Geoparks, and Island-Hopping
The island's most distinctive feature is geological. Massive granite boulders rise from shallow water and white sand across Belitung's offshore islands, a landscape that earned the archipelago UNESCO Global Geopark status in 2021. Boats depart from Tanjung Kelayang on the northwestern coast for full-day island-hopping circuits, typically covering five or six stops including Batu Berlayar, where the water is shallow enough to wade through, and Pulau Lengkuas, home to a Dutch colonial lighthouse built in 1882 that still operates today.
For divers and snorkellers, the relatively shallow and clear water suits beginners well. More experienced divers can explore the Indomarine, a cargo vessel that sank around 1999 and now rests upright at 18 to 22 metres near Lengkuas, its hull colonised by coral.
Inland, the island carries the legacy of its tin-mining past. Kaolin Lake, where former mining pits have filled with vivid turquoise-blue water against pale white earth, is one of the more visually arresting geosites, though swimming there is not permitted. The forest at Bukit Peramun offers guided night treks in search of the Belitung tarsier, a nocturnal primate found nowhere else.
The Novel That Put Belitung on Indonesia's Map
For millions of Indonesians, Belitung is inseparable from Laskar Pelangi (The Rainbow Troops), a 2005 novel by Belitung-born writer Andrea Hirata about children fighting for an education in a struggling village school. The 2008 film adaptation was shot largely on the island. Local tourism authority data cited by The Straits Times shows visitor arrivals climbed from roughly 27,000 in 2007 to more than 55,000 in 2010 in the years following the film's release. Visitors today can still see a replica of the school and tour an Andrea Hirata literary museum in eastern Belitung.
Staying and Eating
Accommodation ranges from a five-star eco-resort within the Tanjung Kelayang nature reserve to smaller hotels, homestays, and budget guesthouses. Some larger properties were fully booked during the August visit, which falls within the drier March-to-October season. Getting around is straightforward: car hire with a driver runs around 50 Singapore dollars per day. The main town, Tanjung Pandan, has coffee shops, a growing cafe scene, and abundant fresh seafood including grilled fish, prawns, and ketam isi, a local crab speciality.
Why It Matters for Hosts
The return of direct international flights in May 2026 is a concrete demand signal. Independent guesthouses, homestays, and small resorts that position themselves clearly for the Singapore and Jakarta traveller market, with English-language information, flexible island-hopping packages, and a genuine sense of local character, are well placed to capture early-mover interest before larger operators scale up. The shoulder months between the dry and wet seasons may also represent an opportunity to attract visitors seeking lower prices and smaller crowds, provided hosts communicate honestly about sea conditions during those periods.
Details in this post were first reported by Hariz Baharudin for The Straits Times, published 29 August 2026. This post is published by the Qontaktly travel blog.
First reported by straitstimes.com.