Sumatra EcoTravel Bukit Lawang

19/05/2024

"WE MUST TEACH OUR CHILDREN TO SMELL THE EARTH, TO TASTE THE RAIN, TO TOUCH THE WIND, TO SEE THINGS GROW, TO HEAR THE SUN RISE AND NIGHT FALL - TO CARE." (John Cleal)

"KEEP THE JUNGLE GREEN" - what had once started as a unique project by a few conservation enthusiasts has grown into a big cleaning initiative. Once again EcoTravel Bukit Lawang has sent out 17 team members along with 4 members of the National Park. Together they were cleaning six campsites used by trekking groups, the trekking paths between them as well as the entrance to Gunung Leuser National Park in Bukit Lawang, Sumatra. The result: 34 HUGE BAGS - each holding 40 LITRES - full of garbage, plastic bottles and other debris were collected during our cleaning initiative in May 2024.

For more than 10 YEARS we have been removing garbage left by others. On a steady basis we keep our paths clean during each of our EcoTravel jungle treks and even more thoroughly on our regular waste collection days.

We offer tours, we love having guests! But it is essential to keep the impact of tourism under control. A huge THANK YOU goes out to our GREAT ECOTRAVEL GUESTS - for support in the past and in the future! Cheers to a cleaner and greener world!🌿🌞

25/12/2023

MERRY CHRISTMAS 🌴🎅🐒 from the Sumatran jungle into the world - to all our lovely former and future EcoTravel guests! May 2024 come full of happiness, love and health! LOTS OF SUNSHINE AND HUGS TO EVERYONE FROM PARADISE!🌞❤️

21/12/2023

HO HO HO - DOING SOMETHING GOOD BEFORE CHRISTMAS! We have collected a total of IDR 11,000,000 in donations within the last six months. Now we have stepped into action and put the generous donations from our guests into our green initiatives:

- TREES FOR THE FUTURE: Last week our EcoTravel team, in cooperation with our partners from local organization NFC, planted almost 300 trees in the "buffer zone" of rainforest, farmland and villages around Gunung Leuser National Park.

- SCHOOL EDUCATION SCHEME: We have topped up the remaining amount and now a teacher can be paid until June 2024 at Rumah Baca Pintar Bersama, an afternoon school for local primary school children.

A special THANK YOU goes to Michael & Jacqueline Gogel and Clare Cody, who supported us again this year with large donations, which sum up to more than half of the donation pot! A big thank you also goes to Jacqueline & Mario Herzog, Katharina Hoch & Holger Hessig, Lizzie Russel & Stephen Everson and Eva Krieger. ❤️❤️❤️

📸: Thank you for these great shots of wildlife Delphine & Quentin Share Trippers

Wishing you all a wonderful Christmas! May your heart be warmed by the sweet magic that Christmas always brings and may all your dreams be fulfilled. ❤️🐒🌴

06/08/2023

We wish a happy sunday🌞🐒🌿😍

11/06/2023

🎵JUNGLE TREK, JUNGLE TREK IN BUKIT LAWANG ... SEE THE MONKEY, SEE THE BIRD, SEE THE ORANGUTAN🎵

Don't miss this AMAZING VIDEO from Natalie & Carles ("Nomad Life For Me"). These lovely world travelers participated in our popular 2-day orangutan trek with our EcoTravel team. Check out their new video from our tour, which provides entertaining deep insights into the rainforest and its inhabitants on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SoOiZa2uX4 🌿🐒🦚🐜🐍🐢🐅🐘 ❤️ WATCH, WATCH, WATCH!

When we came to travel in Indonesia, we knew we really wanted to do an orangutan spotting jungle trek in Sumatra!!! Orangutans are so amazing!! Not only are ...

03/04/2023

"UNTIL YOU DIG A HOLE, YOU PLANT A TREE, YOU WATER IT AND MAKE IT SURVIVE, YOU HAVEN'T DONE A THING. YOU ARE JUST TALKING." (Wangari Maathai)

A big THANK YOU goes to our great EcoTravel guests Jacqueline & Michael Gogel, Sue & Bruce Peters and Astrid Polzer, who all donated a generous amount to our project "Trees For The Future". Our EcoTravel team has now PLANTED 250 NATIVE FRUIT TREES, such as Rambutan, Durian, Mangosteen, Jengkol and Petai, in collaboration with our partner Nature For Change (NFC), villagers and landowners.

The planting took again place in the "buffer zone" of rainforest, farmland and villages around Gunung Leuser National Park in Sumatra. Both wildlife and local communities will benefit, as there will soon be plenty of fruit for everyone - and bloody conflicts between farmers and wildlife, which are on the rise due to Sumatra's shrinking natural forests, will be minimised!

Information about our initiative "Trees For The Future", which has already existed for several years in cooperation with NFC, can be found here: https://www.sumatra-ecotravel.com/keep-the-jungle-green/planting-trees-for-the-future/

25/12/2022

"IT IS SAID THAT EVERY TIME WE HUG SOMEONE WITH PLEASURE, WE ADDED ONE MORE DAY TO OUR LIFE."(Paulo Coelho)

MERRY CHRISTMAS 🌴🎅 🐒 from the Sumatran jungle into the world - to all our lovely former and future Ecotravel guests! May 2023 come full of happiness, love and health! LOTS OF SUNSHINE AND HUGS TO EVERYONE FROM PARADISE!🌞❤️🤗

04/12/2022

„EXAMPLE IS NOT THE MAIN THING IN INFLUENCING OTHERS. IT IS THE ONLY THING." (Albert Schweitzer)

"KEEP THE JUNGLE GREEN" - what had once started as a unique project by a few conservation enthusiasts has grown into EcoTravel's big cleaning initiative - and then Covid came and our world stood still for almost 2 years. Guest numbers have of course not yet reached the numbers of the years before the Covid, but travelers are now back in Bukit Lawang. Therefore, we have finally sent out 20 team members again together with 4 members of the National Park and 4 volunteers. Together they were cleaning 10 locations used by trekking groups, the trekking paths between them as well as the entrance to Gunung Leuser National Park in Bukit Lawang, Sumatra. The result: 21 HUGE BAGS - each holding 40 liters - full of garbage, plastic bottles and other debris.

A huge THANK YOU goes to our lovely former guests JACQUELINE & MICHAEL GOGEL, who generously supported our first post-covid initiative - and to all our great guests around the world for their support in the past and in the future! Cheers to a cleaner and greener world! 🌿🐒❤️

25/09/2022

ECOTRAVEL’S SUNDAY LESSON 🌞🌴

"Elephants are so wise and so funny and so endangered and so intelligent. I just think there is a lot to learn from them." - by Gloria Steinem

We send you sunshine, love - and very special Sunday greetings from the jungle to all our friends around the world🌞❤️😀 Enjoy the start to your day with this wonderful shot of a mother elephant with her cute baby in Tangkahan 🐘

With love, from our little paradise ❤️🌞🌴

10/07/2022

“The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.” — Nelson Henderson

A big THANK YOU to our great EcoTravel guests Jacqueline & Michael Gogel who donated a generous amount to plant 200 trees for our "Trees For The Future" project. In cooperation with our partners from the local organization "Nature for Change", the planting again took place in the "buffer zone" of rainforest, farmland and villages around Gunung Leuser National Park. Since 2016, our EcoTravel team made it its goal to protect the area along the Ranto Panjang Landak River and balance the conflicts between farmers and wildlife by replanting native trees such as rambutan, durian, mangosteen, jengkol and petai together with our partner NFC. More trees will benefit both wildlife and local communities, as there will be enough fruit for all.

26/06/2022

"Nature is so fantastic. Enjoy it. Let it make you happy." Bob Ross

We send a lot of sunshine and big smiles from paradise!🌞🐒😎🌴 A big THANK YOU goes to our dear EcoTravel guests Anna & Marco! Check out their UNBELIEVABLE FANTASTIC PHOTOS of our last Observation Trek!

16/06/2022

SUNSHINE AND BIG SMILES from paradise!🌞🐒😎🌴Happy faces - the best of the last month: EcoTravel guests returning from an adventurous jungle trek...

"Lighten up, just enjoy life, smile more, laugh more, and don't get so worked up about things." Kenneth Branagh

27/02/2022

WHAT? THE TOURISTS CAN COME AGAIN?😍❤️🥳

Almost all Southeast Asian countries are relaxing their corona entry requirements. Also, the official quarantine requirements for Indonesia have already been shortened to 3 days for boosted travelers. Right now, with a visa, international travelers can enter through seven airports and then travel throughout the country. And rumor has it that there will be more easing in April.... Isn't this exciting Sunday news after 2 years of this terrible pandemic?

Thanks to flexible partners and the generous support of former guests, our team survived this period. A huge thank you goes from the bottom of our hearts again to our lovely guests Clare Cody and Jaqueline & Michael Gogel, who have supported our EcoTravel team with additional donations still over the past months. Thank you so much, thanks to you our lives have become a little bit easier! And Christian Bruns and his family donated to our school program and pay the teacher salary for a half year. Our EcoTravel team and all the children of the Rumah Baca Pintar Bersama (RBPB) Education Center say "THANK YOU!!!" 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻

Let's meet again soon in the jungle of Sumatra! 🌞🌴🐒

With love, from our little paradise ❤️❤️❤️,
Kembar, Christina & your EcoTravel Team

28/12/2021

AWARDS, AWARDS, AWARDS: Corona has ruined many businesses. In 2021 we only had a few guests and our rooms remained vacant for months. With hardly any income, our EcoTravel team struggled to pay for staff working in rotation, for food, electricity or maintenance. What may be a special experience for the few adventurous travellers visiting a deserted place, turned into a disaster for tourism. Our entire team now has additional jobs as farmers, tailors or carpenters. Nevertheless, we are grateful because we survived another Covid year. And on top of that, even with a slimmed-down offer, we were able to maintain our good reputation 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🌞🌴🐒:

- Travel & Hospitality Award Winner 2021: EcoTravel Bukit Lawang - "Adventure Tour Company of the Year"
- 2021 World Luxury Travel Awards: EcoTravel Cottages Bukit Lawang is the winner
of “Eco/Green Destination” - Regional Winner: Southern Asia
- 2021 Travellers’ Choice Award Winner: EcoTravel Cottages is in the top 10% of
hotels worldwide
- Booking.com - Traveller Review Awards 2021: EcoTravel Cottages - 9.7 out of 10
- 2021 KAYAK Travel Award: EcoTravel Cottages
- HotelsCombined, Recognition Of Excellence 2021: EcoTravel Cottages - 9,7 rated
by guests

At the end of the year, we would now like to say Thank You! To former guests for your generous donations! To future guests for your trust and bookings! You all carry us through difficult times!

We wish everyone a Happy New Year 2022! Stay safe and take care!

We hope the sun will shine again very soon, and remember: "You'll never find a rainbow if you're looking down." (Charlie Chaplin)

With love, from our little paradise ❤️❤️❤️,
Kembar, Christina & your EcoTravel Team

29/11/2021

Good Morning, Sumatra! Good morning, world! Wish you a happy Monday and a great week ahead! Take care! 🌞🐒🌴😍

07/11/2021

REMEMBERING WITH GRATITUDE & SOME HOPE 🌺: The other day our EcoTravel team silently remembered all those who tragically lost their lives in a flash flood in 2003. The disaster was most likely caused by an upstream landslide forming a dam - and when this dam broke, the consequences were horrible. 18 years ago, this flood left about 1400 families homeless and 239 people dead in the village of Bukit Lawang.

Today, we all are most grateful that Bukit Lawang has so far been spared a Corona disaster. Tourism has collapsed but our entire team and their families are healthy. A huge thank you also to all our dear guests who supported us during this sad time - especially Michael and Jacqueline Gogel, thanks to whose monthly support our 30-member team were once again able to bring home 150 kilos of rice.

And now we even have more good news: Bali has recently opened its borders to international tourists. We hope that everything will go well - and that we will be able to welcome guests in Sumatra again next year. ❤️ Stay well and take care!

21/09/2021

CLEAN, HEALTHY, SAFE & ENVIRONMENTALLY SUSTAINABLE: We're thrilled to announce that EcoTravel Cottages Bukit Lawang has received CSHE CERTIFICATION from the Indonesian Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy. We are now officially certified as a hotel that takes special care of its guests as well as the well-being of the local community and the environment. PROUD and THANKFUL🙏🏻

We would also like to send a BIG THANK YOU to our lovely former guests Jennifer Rouine, Clare Cody and Michael & Jacqueline Gogel, who have supported our 30-strong EcoTravel team over the past weeks with generous donations of 400 kilos of rice in total. THANK YOU FROM THE BUTTON OF OUR HEARTS🙏🏻

Indonesia is still closed to international tourism - and has been since March 2020! A real tragedy for our EcoTravel team! Let's keep our fingers crossed that times will change for the better!

Stay safe until we meet again. With love, from our little paradise ❤️❤️❤️

20/07/2021

“HAPPYNESS CAN BE FOUND, EVEN IN THE DARKEST TIMES, IF ONE ONLY REMEMBERS TO TURN ON THE LIGHT.“ - J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Actually, now would be high season 2021. But we have a PEAK SEASON WITHOUT GUESTS for the second year already - a real tragedy for our EcoTravel team! Despite everything, we are lucky: Corona infections are on the rise worldwide. But our little jungle village of Bukit Lawang has so far been spared the virus. Moreover, we have survived all these months thanks to generous donations from lovely former guests who thought of us.

We know that our current posts are a bit boring for some. We are very sorry for that, but we have nothing else to say at the moment but: THANK YOU FROM THE BUTTON OF OUR HEARTS ❤️🙏🏻

Last weekend, each member of our 30-strong team - from our guiding/campsite team via our accommodation staff to our main drivers - was able to take home 25 kilograms of rice. A big THANK YOU goes to Samantha Madden & family, Thomas Schmidt & Ulrikke Lund Wågsæther, Megan Gardner, Julia Willecke & Wanja, Michael & Jacqueline and Carsten Hensel for generous donations all in all 700 KILOS OF RICE!

Let's keep our fingers crossed that times will change for the better! Stay safe until we meet again. With love, from our little paradise ❤️

22/06/2021

While the holiday season is already starting again in other parts of the world, Indonesia remains closed to international tourism. Since the end of March 2020, it has been a never-ending story that will hopefully soon come to a good end.

We are grateful and happy that our EcoTravel team and their families in Bukit Lawang have been spared from an infection with the Corona virus. However, our biggest thanks go to our dear guests who have been supporting us with donations for over a year! We did not start a crowdfunding campaign nor did we ask our guests for support as we believe that this global pandemic affects most people - both health-wise and financially. We are therefore more than happy and grateful that some wonderful former EcoTravel guests have contacted us during this difficult time. Michael & Jacqueline Gogel have now made a very generous donation: 450 KILOS OF RICE! Around 30 Eco-Travel team members received 15 kilos of rice each yesterday. Thank you so much!

Let's keep our fingers crossed that times will change for the better! Stay safe until we meet again. With love, from our little paradise ❤️❤️❤️

11/05/2021

SELAMAT HARI RAYA IDUL FITRI! And a big "thank you" to past and future guests whose recent donations have given our team members and their families a lovely post-Ramadan celebration this year, despite the sad Corona situation. Each member of our 30-strong team - from our guiding/campsite team via our accommodation staff to our main drivers - was able to take home 10 kilograms of rice today. A HUGE THANK YOU goes to Clare, Manon & Christoph, Christian Peschel and Christian Tuerk. ❤️🙏🏻

And because we don't just want to take, but also give in return, 4 members of our team (EcoTravel guides Indiana Jones, Antonio Banderas, Firman & campsite chef Herman - do you remember them?) supported our local partner Nature For Change at the Ranto Panjang Landak River site yesterday: 2000 SMALL NATIVE FRUIT TREES ARE READY TO BE PLANTED. More trees in the "buffer zone" of rainforest, farmland and villages around Gunung Leuser National Park will contribute to both wildlife and local communities, as there will be enough fruit for everyone - and HUMAN-WILDLIFE CONFLICTS WILL BE MINIMISED IN THE LONG RUN. Cheers to a greener future!"

More information about our green initiative "Trees For The Future", which has already existed for several years in cooperation with NFC, can be found here 🌴🐒: https://www.sumatra-ecotravel.com/keep-the-jungle-green/planting-trees-for-the-future/