The Mentawais have a reputation for being expensive, and a lot of the time that reputation is earned. But there is a wide gap between the cheapest way to get here and the best value way to get here, and they are not the same trip. This guide is about the second one.
We are going to talk about value rather than cheap, and that is not a way of dodging the question. Chasing the lowest number in this part of the world usually means fewer surf days, a longer journey, a worse boat or a trip that quietly charges you for everything once you arrive. The useful question is not what a trip costs. It is what you get for each day you are out here.
Start with a camp, not a boat
If budget is the thing shaping your trip, this is the decision that moves the needle furthest. A live-aboard charter costs more than a land-based camp, and it costs more for real reasons: you are paying for a crew, for fuel, and for a hotel that moves to the waves. It is a brilliant way to surf this region and it is not the affordable way.
A camp puts you on solid ground next to a wave. You lose the ability to chase swell across the whole archipelago, and you gain a considerably lower cost for the same number of nights. If you are still deciding between the two formats, we wrote a longer piece on surf charter or surf camp that goes through what each one actually gives up.
Jenny's is our genuinely affordable trip
Jenny's Bamboo Surfcamp sits on the Krui coast of South Sumatra rather than in the Mentawai chain itself, and that is exactly why it works as a value trip. Four waves break within sight of the camp, so your surfing does not depend on a boat going out. You walk down, you surf, you walk back.
The journey is cheaper and simpler too. You fly into Bandar Lampung and a camp taxi brings you up the coast, which means no ferry crossing and no overnight boat. For a lot of people that also removes the single most stressful part of getting to this part of Indonesia.
The suites are private, with proper bathrooms, air conditioning and WiFi, so this is not a trade of comfort for cost in the way people expect from the word affordable. What you are giving up is range. You are surfing the Krui coast rather than the Mentawai reefs, and on the days when Krui is not working you do not have a boat to take you somewhere that is.
Shoulder season is the single biggest lever
Everyone wants June, July and August, and the price of every bed in the region reflects that. The months either side of the peak are the most reliable way to cut what a trip costs you without cutting anything you actually care about.
The trade is honest: smaller swell and fewer of the very biggest days. What you get back is cleaner conditions, noticeably emptier lineups and better rates on the same accommodation. For most surfers, and particularly for anyone who is not chasing double-overhead reef, that is a better trip rather than a compromised one. Our season guide breaks it down month by month so you can see which weeks you are really giving up.
If it has to be a boat, Ombak Kabau is the better-value one
Between our two charters, Ombak Kabau is the one we point people at when cost is a factor. She takes up to ten guests, which spreads the cost of the boat, the crew and the fuel across more people than our eight-berth catamaran does. She still roams the entire Mentawai chain and still runs eleven nights with ten full surf days.
Odyssey Mentawai costs more per person and gives you en-suite cabins, a boat that sits flat at anchor and a surf pro on board. Both are good trips. Only one of them is the value answer.
Book the whole boat if you can fill it
The cheapest berth on any charter is the one you buy as part of a full boat. Booking individual spots means the operator carries the risk of empty berths, and that risk is priced in. Bringing a crew that fills the boat removes it.
There is a second benefit that has nothing to do with money. A full boat of people who know each other surfs better together. Nobody is negotiating with strangers about which wave to sit on, and the trip runs at one pace rather than three. If you can round up a group, it is the single best thing you can do for both the cost and the trip itself.
Compare what is included, not the headline number
This is where most people get caught out. Two trips can look far apart on price and end up costing the same once you are home, because the cheaper one was quoting for a smaller slice of the trip.
Before you compare anything, find out whether each quote includes airport transfers, all on-water transport, every meal, drinks, surf guiding and the regional surf tax. On our trips the transfers, the meals, the snacks and soft drinks, the guiding and the on-water transport are all in. Flights and the Mentawai surf tax are the main things that are not, and we say so up front rather than at the dock. Our cost guide goes through what sits in each column.
A useful test when you are comparing operators: ask what is not included. Anyone confident in their pricing will answer that question quickly and in full.
Where we would not cut
- Travel insurance. These are remote islands and proper medical care is hours away. This is the last thing to economise on, not the first.
- Trip length. Shaving nights off a Mentawai trip is a bad trade, because the travel days at each end stay the same. A shorter trip costs less and gives you a much worse ratio of surfing to airports.
- Getting here with a day to spare. Building a night into the journey rather than connecting everything tightly costs very little and saves the trip when a flight slips. Our guide on getting to the Mentawai Islands covers the connections worth being careful with.
What actually pushes the cost up
Peak weeks, small groups and short notice. Those three things account for most of the difference between two otherwise identical trips. If you have any flexibility at all on when you travel, use it there first, because moving your dates by a few weeks does more for the number than anything else on this page.
Tell us what you are working with
Send us your dates and your group size and tell us straight what you want the trip to be. We will come back with what fits, and if the honest answer is that a different month or a different trip gets you more time in the water, we will tell you that instead of selling you the more expensive one.