Indonesien

Home to some Sulawesi's most stunning landscapes and one of Indonesia's most compelling traditional cultures, it's no wonder Tana Toraja is high on many bucket lists. The visual allure is immediate, with villages clustered around elaborately carved and painted houses with boat-shaped roofs, and towering terraces of emerald green rice paddies, all of which is overseen by a protective necklace of jagged jungle-clad hills.

Restaurang Ijen är den första i Indonesien som följer en nollavfallsfilosofi. En middag här garanterar miljövänlig mat på tallriken samt hållbara möbler att sitta på gjorda av exempelvis skumgummi och återvunnet trä.

Many tourists only experience the lush, volcanic panoramas of West Java (Jawa Barat) through the murky window of a lumbering bus or train, but this dramatic, diverse region has plenty to detain the inquisitive traveller who enjoys breaking away from the standard Java traveller circuit. Historically, it's known as Sunda, and its people and language are Sundanese.

The province of West Papua chiefly comprises two large peninsulas – the Vogelkop (also known as Bird’s Head, Kepala Burung and Semdoberai) and the more southerly Bomberai Peninsula – and several hundred offshore islands. The attractions here are primarily natural – above all the world-class diving and gorgeous island scenery of the Raja Ampat Islands. Sorong and Manokwari are well-provided urban bases from which to launch your explorations.

Flores, the island given a pretty but incongruous Portuguese name by its 16th-century colonists, has become Indonesia’s Next Big Thing. The serpentine, 670km Trans-Flores Hwy runs the length of the island, skirting knife-edge ridges, brushing by paddy-fringed villages and opening up dozens of areas few tourists explore.

Together with Angkor Wat in Cambodia and Bagan in Myanmar, Borobudur ranks as one of the great cultural icons of Southeast Asia. Looming above a patchwork of bottle-green paddy fields and slivers of tropical forest, this colossal Buddhist monument has survived volcanic eruptions, terrorist attack and the 2006 earthquake. The last caused considerable damage, but thankfully this most enigmatic of temples has remained undiminished in scale and beauty.

North Maluku’s historically and politically most significant islands are the pyramid-like volcanic cones of Ternate and Tidore. Once the world's only source of cloves, the spice trade made these ancient Islamic island sultanates the most powerful territories in medieval Maluku.

Bali has a hot soul. The volcanoes stretching along the island's spine are seemingly cones of silence but their active spirits are just below the surface, eager for expression.

If you’ve ever dreamt about having a tropical island entirely to yourself, complete with palm trees, powdery white beaches and crystal-clear waters, the Banyak Islands is a great place to fulfil your Robinson Crusoe fantasy. A cluster of 99 mostly uninhabited islands, the Banyak (Many) Islands are situated about 30km west of Singkil. Remote they might be, but they are now very much on the radar of paradise-seeking travellers and surfers. As well as having arguably the finest beaches in Sumatra and a handful of quality surf spots, the Banyaks feature Sumatra’s best snorkelling, with beautiful underwater forests of colourful coral (at least where there has been no past dynamite fishing).

The Aceh section of Gunung Leuser National Park has slipped under the tourist radar for years, seeing only a trickle of visitors while the masses head to the more hyped Bukit Lawang. Its jungle is basically the same, minus the well-worn paths and tourists clambering about trying to spot semi-wild orang-utans. This is the place for a real jungle experience.