To get to Banyuwangi from Bali you have two choices. You can choose to take the very short 20 minute flight from Bali’s Domestic airport to land at Banyuwangi airport, or you can drive up to Gilimanuk and take the ferry across to Ketapang.
When it comes to timings, if you include wait times at the airport and transfers to and from the airport at each side – driving doesn’t actually take all that much longer than flying. Recently we took the land journey ourselves as we had never driven along the West Coast road in Bali, nor taken the ferry across to Java.
Depending where you are in Bali, will depend on how long the drive is to Gilimanuk Harbour in North West Bali. From Sanur it took us around three hours, the road itself is great (albeit there are some crazy drivers along the way).
On arrival to the harbour there are many street-side vendors you can buy your ferry ticket from and get an antigen test from (at the time of writing – February 2022) it is a requirement to have at least one vaccination and take an antigen test to board the ferry).
Tests are available from 50,000 Rp ($3 USD) and we paid 14,000 Rp (70 cents USD) for our ferry tickets (as individuals with no vehicles).
The ferries run constantly, 24 hours a day, so you don’t need to schedule timings as you just board the next available ferry. You can even take your car or motorcycle across on the ferry if you are self-driving/riding. These tickets are a little more expensive at around 180,000 Rp ($6 USD) per car including passengers and 40,000 Rp ($1.50 USD) to take your motorbike.
The bottom floor of the ferry is where the bikes and cars are parked and on the top two floors there is lots of seating and people offering snacks. Even as we boarded the ferry, there was a signature sunglasses salesman there to try and sell us some shades before our trip….he succeeded!
It’s a very slow-moving ferry and takes around 45 minutes to reach the harbour at Java. From there, there are people offering transport at the harbour and also online transport available.
Remember when you reach Java, they are an hour behind Bali…so turn your watches back!