A curated South East Asia trip — what one actually looks like
Most families on The Year take their first South East Asia trip in months three or four — far enough in that the Bali rhythm is settled, early enough that the children haven't yet decided which version of the year they want to remember. Where they go is up to them. What we tend to recommend, when they ask, is something that ties back.
This is one of our favourite examples: ten days through the Maluku spice islands — the original Spice Islands of legend, where the nutmeg and clove trade ran for three hundred years and where the modern world was, in a real sense, started.
Day 1–2 · Ambon
Fly into Pattimura airport. Ambon city is a port that has seen everything: Portuguese, Dutch, British, Japanese, Indonesian. The old colonial centre still has Dutch fortifications you can walk through. The local market — Pasar Mardika — is the first taste of Maluku food: tuna everything, sago palm in every form, the distinctive sweet-sour-spicy seasoning of the islands. We arrange a stay at the small heritage hotel and a dinner at a local family's home on the second evening.
Day 3–5 · Banda Neira
The historical heart of the spice trade. A small island, walkable end-to-end in an hour. Sixteenth-century Dutch fortifications — Fort Belgica is in remarkable condition — and the original nutmeg and mace plantations still operating. The story of Banda is the story of how Europe arrived in Asia, and how the Banda Massacre of 1621 (in which the Dutch killed almost the entire local population to control the nutmeg trade) shaped the next three centuries.
Children old enough to take in the history will be quietly changed by it. Snorkelling in the warm strait between Banda Neira and Banda Besar — one of the most pristine reefs left in Indonesia — is the day's lighter half.
Day 6 · Run Island
A small uninhabited island off Banda, where the British originally traded with the locals for the right to harvest nutmeg. In 1667, the British exchanged Run for the Dutch-held island of Manhattan. A small monument marks the trade. We take a boat over for the day, snorkel the eastern reef, eat lunch with the Run fishermen.
Day 7–8 · Ternate and Tidore
Two small island sultanates, side by side, north of Halmahera. For five hundred years, the clove trade ran from here, and the kraton (palaces) of both sultans are still standing. We climb Gamalama, the volcano that rises directly out of Ternate. Visit the spice plantations, where children can see the cloves drying on bamboo mats by the road. A boat trip across to Tidore to visit the second sultanate, where the courtyards are quieter and older.
Day 9 · Halmahera (north coast)
The largest of the Maluku islands and the least visited. White sand beaches, traditional Sahu Tobaru villages, jungle that runs straight to the water. We arrange a day with a local conservation group working on protecting the endemic megapode bird; children get involved in the survey work.
Day 10 · Ambon to Bali
Back through Ambon, late afternoon flight to Denpasar. Your driver at the airport when you land.
"They will remember, with surprising precision, the moment they realised their own history class — Dutch colonisation, Henry Hudson, the founding of New York — connects to a tiny island they walked across."
What the trip costs you
Ten days, all-inclusive of internal flights, accommodation, guides, drivers, boats and meals: roughly the same as a long weekend at a five-star Singapore hotel. Maluku is one of the great undiscovered regions of South East Asia. The travel infrastructure is basic in places but the experience is unmatched.
What it costs the children
They will remember the day they walked through a five-hundred-year-old fortress on an island that controlled the price of nutmeg in Amsterdam in 1640. They will remember snorkelling over a reef that has somehow stayed intact while most others have not. They will remember, with surprising precision, the moment they realised their own history class connects to a tiny island they walked across.
Other trips families have done with us
Ten days through Java's heritage triangle — Yogyakarta, Borobudur, Prambanan. Two weeks across the Lesser Sundas — Lombok, Sumbawa, Komodo, Flores. A long weekend in Singapore for shopping, museums and food. A week in Cambodia centred on Angkor. A two-week loop through northern Thailand. A short stay in Kuala Lumpur for old-quarter food and the surrounding tea estates.
Where families have wanted to go, we have taken them. Where they have been open to suggestion, we have woven in the history that ties back.
— The Annum