The Mentawais have a reputation as a hardcore boat-trip destination, and for a lot of trips that is exactly right. But if your crew includes people who are not going to surf four hours a day, a family trip here works. It just has to be built differently.
The short answer: camp, not charter
This is the single decision that makes or breaks a family trip out here. A live-aboard charter is eleven nights on a boat with a group of surfers chasing swell. It is a brilliant trip, and it is the wrong trip for a family. There is nowhere to go, no beach to sit on, and the day runs on the tide rather than on anyone's nap schedule.
A land-based camp solves all of that. Solid ground, a beach, proper rooms, meals on a normal rhythm, and the freedom for one parent to surf while the other does not. Nobody is trapped on a boat deck.
Children are welcome
We are a family business, so this is not a grudging yes. Kids come on these trips and they do well here. What we would ask is that you tell us their ages and what they are like in and around the water when you enquire, because that genuinely changes which camp we would put you in and how we would shape the days.
Ask us the specific questions rather than guessing from a website. Room configurations, what the kitchen can do for fussy eaters, how far the boat rides are on a given day: all of that is easier to answer properly for your actual dates and your actual crew.
Sunset Surf Villas: the strongest family option
Sunset Surf Villas is a private beachfront villa on Pulau Simakakang that takes up to six guests, and here is the important part: it is your group only. You are not sharing a camp with eight strangers on a dawn patrol schedule. The villa, the chef and the boat are yours, so the day runs at your pace.
Tikus breaks directly out front and is one of the more forgiving quality waves in the region, which matters enormously with a family. You can check it from the bar deck with a coffee, surf it, and be back inside ten minutes. A parent can trade off sessions without anybody committing to a four-hour boat trip.
There is an in-house chef doing three meals a day, which quietly removes the hardest part of travelling with kids. The villa runs on solar rather than a generator, so evenings are quiet. And when the surfers do want to range further, the private boat reaches nine named breaks within fifteen to twenty five minutes.
Jenny's Bamboo Surfcamp: for a mixed crew
Jenny's on the Krui coast of South Sumatra is the other one that works, and it has the most for non-surfers to actually do. There are waterfall hikes, jungle walks, snorkelling, and long afternoons in the hammocks. Four waves break within sight of the camp, so a surfer can walk down, get a session, and be back.
It is also the easier journey in some ways: you fly to Bandar Lampung and a camp taxi brings you up the coast, rather than taking a ferry across open water. The suites are private, with proper bathrooms, air conditioning and WiFi.
What non-surfers actually do
- Snorkelling, on both the camps and the charters, with gear provided.
- Beaches. Long, empty, warm water, nobody on them.
- Waterfall and jungle walks at Krui.
- Watching the surf from the deck, which is a genuine pastime when the wave is fifty metres away.
- Doing very little. Hammocks, books, long meals. Not everyone wants an itinerary.
Being honest about the hard parts
We would rather you knew this before you booked. These are remote islands. Proper medical care is hours away, so a trip here asks more of you than a resort holiday somewhere with a hospital down the road. Travel insurance that genuinely covers your family is not optional.
Most of the waves break over coral reef in shallow water, and they are not beginner waves. If a child or partner is learning to surf, the Mentawais are not where they will learn, with the partial exception of the softer days out front at the villas. Come for the family time and the ocean, and treat the surfing as something the surfers in the group do.
Getting here takes a day at each end, including a ferry crossing for the island camps. With small children that is a real consideration, and it is worth building a night in Padang into the plan rather than trying to connect everything in one go.
When to come with a family
The shoulder months either side of peak season are often the better family window. The swell is smaller and cleaner, the lineups are quieter, and it is generally better value. The surfers in your group still get very good waves; they just get fewer double-overhead days. Our season guide goes through it month by month.
How to plan it with us
Tell us who is coming: ages, who surfs and at what level, who does not surf at all, and roughly when you want to travel. We will tell you straight whether a family trip works for your crew, which camp fits, and if the answer is that you would have a better time in a couple of years, we will say that too.
If you are still weighing up the format, read surf charter or surf camp and is the Mentawai right for me. Both are written to talk you out of the wrong trip rather than into any trip.