Frequently Asked Questions about our Indonesia Private Island
Booking process at Reconnect Island Resort
Buka Buka Island enjoys a warm climate all-year-round, which allows Reconnect to be open at any time during the year.
However, we do have what we call "musim barat", which translates by "west season", during which we usually have strong in-shore winds coming from the west.
The west season is often between December and February, traditionally believed by local villagers to end for Chinese New Year.
During west season, you can still come and visit us, but we ask you to be more flexible with your dates, because you might have to wait for the wind and waves to stop before we can bring you to the island.
Once on the island, you can enjoy a wide range of activities such as: snorkeling, stand up paddle, kayaking, beach sports (volley, badminton, pingpong..), holy water trekking, boat trips around the Togean Islands, and more to come.
Life on the island is also tailored around experiences, such as Overwater BBQ, Bajau Traditional Speargun Fishing, Romantic Dinner..
In a near future, we also plan to open our own Dive Center, so our guests can explore the beautiful coral reefs we have around the island.
Especially since the pandemic started, a significant amount of people started to ask us if they can become long term residents of Buka Buka Island.
We get it, a remote island is one of the best place to be, when the rest of the world is into lockdown, or any other form of chaos.
However, because of everything involved with long term residencies, we first want to get to know you over the phone, and make sure it's a great fit for you to live here.
If you're interested, you can reach out to Thomas on whatsapp, and he'll get in touch as soon as possible.
After we aired on national TV in Europe and Indonesia last year, a lot of people started to reach out, and ask how they could build their own place on the island.
To preserve the beauty, nature and paradisiac vibe of Buka Buka Island, we decided to keep 90%+ of all the lands available for conservation.
However, we are also open for limited and exclusive development, on a case by case basis.
Everything we build has to be powered by the sun, function with water desalination and use natural materials as much as possible.
Feel free to reach out on whatsapp or by email (hi@reconnect.id), to share your project, or ask any questions.
Other investment opportunities will be shared here on our website.
Ready to book your private Island getaway?
Reach out today, our reservation team will be happy to help within 24 hours.
Access to Buka-Buka Island, Central Sulawesi
Buka Buka Island is located in Central Sulawesi, close to the city of Ampana.
The easiest way to access the island is to book a direct flight to Luwuk, availably every day from Jakarta and Makassar.
Once in Luwuk, we will pick you up by car for a 5h roadtrip to Ampana, where our boat shuttle will wait for you to bring you to Buka Buka Island.
Short answer is no.
Although we are right at the door of the Togean (or Togian) Islands National Park, we are not legally speaking part of it.
However, if you want to explore some of the 50+ islands which are part of the Togean, just let us know, and we will help arrange e trip there for you.
We work closely with the local government and the tourism office, which granted us the authorization to bring our guests around the Togean archipelago, directly from Reconnect Island Resort.
Our speedboat, starting from the small Bajau Village of Tete B, next to Ampana, usually takes 20-25 minutes to cross from mainland to Reconnect on Buka Buka Island.
Trip duration can vary based on number of passengers (maximum 10), and weather conditions on the sea.
Buka Buka Island is a 160ha big island, featuring beautiful white sand beach on its west coast. The longest diagonal of the island is about 2km long, while the shortest one is about 1km long. If you could compare, it’s roughly the same size as Gili Trawangan, in Lombok (close to Bali).
Except that on Buka Buka Island, instead of hundreds of resorts, it’s just us, and a few villagers fishing and farming coconuts.
At the moment (July 2022), Indonesia allows fully vaccinated travelers from 70+ countries to enter Indonesia, without quarantine, using a VOA (Visa On Arrival) which cost about $35 for 30 days, and can be extended for another 30 days.
Because of the situation, and regulations are frequently changing, we invite you to get the latests informations directly from www.imigrasi.go.id
About our Indonesian Eco Resort Amenities
Buka Buka Island is located in Central Sulawesi, close to the city of Ampana.
The easiest way to access the island is to book a direct flight to Luwuk, availably every day from Jakarta and Makassar.
Once in Luwuk, we will pick you up by car for a 5h roadtrip to Ampana, where our boat shuttle will wait for you to bring you to Buka Buka Island.
Short answer is no.
Although we are right at the door of the Togean (or Togian) Islands National Park, we are not legally speaking part of it.
However, if you want to explore some of the 50+ islands which are part of the Togean, just let us know, and we will help arrange e trip there for you.
We work closely with the local government and the tourism office, which granted us the authorization to bring our guests around the Togean archipelago, directly from Reconnect Island Resort.
Our speedboat, starting from the small Bajau Village of Tete B, next to Ampana, usually takes 20-25 minutes to cross from mainland to Reconnect on Buka Buka Island.
Trip duration can vary based on number of passengers (maximum 10), and weather conditions on the sea.
Buka Buka Island is a 160ha big island, featuring beautiful white sand beach on its west coast. The longest diagonal of the island is about 2km long, while the shortest one is about 1km long. If you could compare, it’s roughly the same size as Gili Trawangan, in Lombok (close to Bali).
Except that on Buka Buka Island, instead of hundreds of resorts, it’s just us, and a few villagers fishing and farming coconuts.
At the moment (July 2022), Indonesia allows fully vaccinated travelers from 70+ countries to enter Indonesia, without quarantine, using a VOA (Visa On Arrival) which cost about $35 for 30 days, and can be extended for another 30 days.
Because of the situation, and regulations are frequently changing, we invite you to get the latests informations directly from www.imigrasi.go.id
When we first imagined the resort, we called it an eco-resort. However, we notices that this term has a lot of different meanings, depending who pronounces it.
Our vision is to develop the island in a way that is as respectful as possible, based on the different constraints we have on side.
- We develop our buildings using primarily natural materials we source locally, as well as drift wood we get from the beach, and we try to reuse as much as possible.
- 100% of our electricity comes from the sun, although we have a generator as a back up for safety.
- The water we use is desalinated from the ocean, also using sun-farmed electricity.
Does it make us qualify as an eco-resort? Eco-conscious resort? We don’t know.
But we’ll always try to do our best to be as respectful as possible of our environment.
The food we serve includes a variety of local Indonesian and western meals, mainly based on freshly caught fish, seafood, chicken and locally grown fruits and vegetable. However, we always do our best to accommodate our guests' diets, so feel free to let us know if you have any preference and/or allergies.
We have both phone signal and Wifi available on the island. The only operator available at the moment in Sulawesi is Telkomsel.
Our connection is still a bit random, ranging from mediocre to good depending on.. the weather, it seems.
We will soon work with Starlink to provide a high-speed, and unlimited internet connection to our guests.
We provide fans in every room. All our electricity is harvested from the sun, and storing enough energy to provide air conditioning in our rooms 24/7 would require a considerable amount of batteries. In the future, as sustainable technologies become more available, we will look into upgrading to air conditioning.