Astungkara Way Adds a New Trail Through Bali’s Wild Northwest

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Astungkara Way, the eco-tourism operator behind Bali’s coast-to-coast Astungkara Trail, is launching a new four-day route through the island’s northwest in October 2026 — its first expedition that spends time in the water as well as on foot. The Northwest Bali Trail covers roughly 18.5 kilometers from West Bali National Park to the coastal village of Pemuteran, with the first departure capped at nine guests.

The route opens with forest paths inside the national park, then moves through farmland where guests join local families for harvesting, cooking and shared meals, and a stretch of coast where visitors help plant mangroves. It closes on the water: a sunrise dolphin-watching trip followed by snorkeling around Menjangan Island with Biorock Indonesia, the coral-restoration group known for its electrified reef structures, and a closing yoga nidra session by the sea.

Trail fees fund a transition to regenerative rice farming for the local farmers involved, the same model behind Astungkara Way’s original cross-island route, founded by Tim Fijal. The organization keeps group sizes deliberately small — it caps total annual visitors across all of its expeditions at under 50 people — pitching the trips as regenerative travel rather than a standard multi-day hike.

The northwest corner this new trail covers sits well outside Bali’s usual south-coast circuit. Gilimanuk, at the island’s western tip near West Bali National Park, is also the port most travelers pass through on the ferry crossing to Java — worth knowing if a trip already has that route on the itinerary. Menjangan Island itself is already established among divers as one of Bali’s better reef sites, sitting inside the national park’s marine boundary. Travelers drawn to this kind of lower-traffic, conservation-linked trip may also want to look at the island’s other under-the-radar corner, covered in this site’s 3-day Nusa Penida itinerary.

The launch comes as Indonesia’s broader tourism numbers keep climbing — the country passed 8.98 million visitors for 2026 earlier this month — and fits a pattern of Bali operators pitching smaller, slower, higher-touch trips as an alternative to the island’s more crowded circuits. Full pricing and booking details are handled directly through Astungkara Way’s own site rather than a general tour marketplace, in keeping with the small-group format.