Things to do in Batam
And where to stay, the best time to visit, what a day costs, and the traps to skip.
Best time to visit Batam
• a note or something on ✦ an occasion worth the trip
Dry season, roughly March to October, is the window for golf, Barelang drives and resort days.
February and September pair good weather with thinner crowds.
May and June are rated the best overall window.
Wet season, November to February, is worst for golf in December and January but cheapest for hotels.
Chinese New Year brings sold out ferries, long immigration queues and full spas.
What's on
- Kenduri Seni Melayu Annual, usually early July; check dates
Batam's flagship Malay arts festival at Alun-Alun Engku Putri, with dance, batik, pantun and painting.
- Batam International Cultural Carnival December (dates vary by year)
A street carnival of costume parades and cultural performance through the Nagoya area.
- Chinese New Year January/February (lunar new year)
Temples are at their most alive, and ferries and spas are at their busiest.
Best things to do in Batam
Maha Vihara Duta Maitreya Temple
Southeast Asia's largest Buddhist temple complex, a vast and calm Batam Centre landmark built around the laughing Buddha.
Tua Pek Kong Temple
Batam's oldest Chinese temple, small and incense thick, woven into daily life in the heart of Nagoya.
Jabal Arafah Mosque
A striking modern mosque on a Nagoya hill whose minaret gives the best free viewpoint over the city and strait.
Eska Wellness Massage And Salon
Batam's benchmark spa, a full head to toe operation that Singapore weekenders book in blocks every trip.
Spa Central Batam
A polished, family friendly Nagoya spa with a kids club, one residents rate among the island's best.
Grand Majesty Spa & Boutique Hotel
The closest thing Batam has to a luxury spa, a boutique hotel setting for longer, quieter treatments.
Batam Zoo Paradise
An interactive petting style zoo in Bengkong where children feed and handle animals at close range.
Nagoya Hill Shopping Mall
Batam's biggest and most useful mall, the centre of the Nagoya weekender circuit for food, goods and snacks.
Where to stay in Batam
Nongsa
resort weekends, golf, couples and families who will stay put
A self contained waterfront resort enclave facing Singapore, with the resorts, golf and its own ferry terminal.
Sukajadi
golf trips and quiet quality
A planned golf and residential district south of Batam Centre, built around Padang Golf Sukajadi.
Nagoya
first trips, food, spas, shopping and nightlife access
Batam's walkable downtown of malls, food streets, spas and temples, with a seedy nightlife edge after dark.
Batam Centre
ferry convenience, calm and short trips
The planned administrative quarter by the main ferry terminal, calmer and more orderly than Nagoya.
Harbour Bay
HarbourFront arrivals and short stays
A newer waterfront strip by its ferry terminal, with a seafood promenade and Nagoya five minutes away.
Think twice about
- Kampung Bule and the Nagoya Entertainment District bar streets
Sex tourism bars, touts and drug offers after dark. Visit Nagoya but sleep on the mall side.
- Jodoh / Sungai Jodoh after dark
A working market district by day that joins the nightlife economy at night, with the city's roughest street feel.
- Waterfront City / Marina City, Sekupang side
A faded, half empty resort development. Isolated, little open, and nothing to walk to.
- Industrial outskirts such as Batu Aji
No visitor infrastructure, food or spa scene, and long rides to everything worth doing.
Best restaurants in Batam
Sei Enam Seafood
Batam's connoisseur seafood address since the 1970s, famous for its signature sauce crab and slipper lobster.
Rezeki Seafood Restaurant
A kelong institution since 1983, serving Teochew style steamed fish and cereal prawns over the water.
Kopak Jaya 007 Kelong Seafood Batam
A stilted kelong just before Barelang Bridge, praised for transparent pricing, black pepper crab and gong gong.
Wey Wey Live Seafood
The Harbour Bay promenade's breezy over water seafood house, the default first night dinner in Batam.
Golden Prawn 933
Bengkong's big room seafood institution, built for groups, with salted egg crab as the headline dish.
Love Seafood Batam Centre
The value seafood play in Batam Centre, serving the full shared spread at the city's affordable benchmark.
Anchor Cafe & Roastery
Batam's best cafe, roasting its own coffee and serving huge portions of Southern comfort food and cakes.
Mie Tarempa
The Riau Islands on a plate, flat tarempa noodles with seafood and a fried egg, a Batam breakfast ritual.
Outdoor things to do in Batam
Palm Springs Golf & Beach Resort
Batam's flagship golf, 27 Larry Nelson holes in three nines rolling to seaside holes in the strait wind.
Tering Bay Golf & Country Club
The Greg Norman design in Nongsa, with rolling hills, water hazards and a sea facing signature par 3.
SouthLinks Country Club
A championship course in the Sekupang hills with a Japanese style clubhouse, baths and highly praised caddies.
Padang Golf Sukajadi
The city golfer's course beside the Radisson, minutes from Batam Centre, with a full stay and play operation.
Batam Hills Golf Resort
The value round in Sekupang, a friendly Max Wexler layout that suits first time Batam golfers best.
Barelang Bridge
A chain of six bridges running 50 km south through the islands, Batam's postcard and its best scenic drive.
Galang Vietnamese Refugee Camp
The preserved UNHCR refugee camp of 1979 to 1996, a quiet and moving hillside of museum, boat and cemetery.
Panbil Nature Reserve
A small interactive reserve inside the city, with deer to feed, an aviary and easy forest trails.
Best hotels in Batam
Montigo Resorts Nongsa
Batam's headline stay, three level villas each with a private pool facing the sea toward Singapore.
Turi Beach Resort
The mid tier Nongsa fixture, 140 sea facing rooms on a private beach five minutes from the ferry.
Radisson Golf & Convention Center Batam
Batam's most polished conventional hotel, a kilometre from Padang Golf Sukajadi in the golf district.
Nagoya Hill Hotel
The most convenient address in Batam, a 250 room hotel connected directly to Nagoya Hill Mall.
HARRIS Hotel Batam Centre
A bright, reliable hotel by the Batam Centre ferry terminal and Mega Mall, the lowest friction base in town.
Zest Harbour Bay Batam
Batam's best budget stay, a clean two star near the Harbour Bay terminal praised for breakfast and value.
Is Batam expensive? What a day costs
| Budget | IDR 600,000 a person |
|---|---|
| Classic | IDR 1,200,000 a person |
| Splurge | IDR 3,500,000 a person |
A day of food, drink, sights and getting around, before the room
What to book ahead
- Eska Wellness Massage And Salon: a few days ahead
- Spa Central Batam: a few days ahead
- Grand Majesty Spa & Boutique Hotel: a few days ahead
- Palm Springs Golf & Beach Resort: weeks ahead
- Tering Bay Golf & Country Club: weeks ahead
- SouthLinks Country Club: weeks ahead
- Padang Golf Sukajadi: a few days ahead
- Batam Hills Golf Resort: a few days ahead
- Ferries sell out on Singapore long weekends and Chinese New Year, when immigration queues can pass two hours.
- Prime weekend morning tee times at the top golf courses go days to weeks ahead.
- Book Eska and Spa Central a day or two ahead on weekends.
- Montigo villas and the Radisson sell to the Singapore market first on long weekends.
Is Batam safe?
- Drugs are offered in Batam nightclubs and Indonesian penalties are severe, so refuse absolutely and use hotel recommended venues.
- Do not base on the Nagoya bar streets or in Jodoh after dark, and use Grab at night.
- Do not drink the tap water, and use mosquito repellent as dengue exists.
- Check air quality in September and October if haze or asthma is a concern.
Batam travel tips: tourist traps to skip
- Packaged city tours built on chocolate, latex and souvenir showroom stops are commission circuits.
- At live seafood houses, agree price per kilo, total weight and cooking charges before anything leaves the tank.
- Taxi touts at terminals quote multiples of the Grab fare.
- A massage place with no posted prices, no findable reviews and a tout outside is not the spa you came for.
- City beaches are not swimmable postcards, and the beach product lives at the Nongsa resorts.
Getting around Batam: public transport and more
- Use Grab and Gojek for almost everything, at roughly S$2 to S$4 a ride inside the city.
- Ride hailing pickups are restricted in some precincts, so use marked pickup points and ignore kerbside special prices.
- Hire a car and driver for the Barelang to Galang day, as there is no practical public transport.
- HarbourFront sails to Batam Centre, Harbour Bay and Sekupang, and Tanah Merah sails to Nongsapura and Batam Centre.
- Batam is one hour behind Singapore, so check return ferry times carefully.
Who Batam suits
| Solo travellers | OK |
|---|---|
| Groups of friends | Great |
| Couples | Good |
| Bachelor parties | Great |
| Families | Good |
| Bachelorette parties | Good |
Make Batam your trip
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