Working Remotely from Gili Air: The Complete Guide

Gili Air is a small island in Gili Indah, off the northwest coast of Lombok in Nusa Tenggara Barat, Indonesia — a short boat ride from Lombok and a fast-boat trip from Bali. As Bali gets busier, remote professionals are choosing Gili Air for something more authentic: serene, laid-back, feet-in-the-sand island life. At its heart sits Working on Air, a coworking space founded in 2021 by digital nomads, built as a treehouse-inspired structure of alang-alang and bamboo on Jl. Mojo, a short walk from the island's main harbor. This guide covers the practical side of working remotely from the island: how to get here, what the internet is like, where to work, what it costs and when to come.

How do you get to Gili Air from Bali or Lombok?

From Bali: take a fast boat from Padang Bai or Serangan directly to Gili Air. The crossing takes around 2–3 hours depending on the operator and sea conditions.

From Lombok: the quickest route is the public or charter boat from Bangsal Harbor, which reaches Gili Air in about 30 minutes. If you're landing at Lombok International Airport, a private transfer takes roughly 2 hours door to door, including the boat ride.

Boat schedules shift with the season and the weather, so confirm departure times with your operator the day before you travel. Once you step off the boat, everything on Gili Air is close: Working on Air is just a short walk from the main harbor, and there's a map with directions at the bottom of this page.

What's the internet and power situation on Gili Air?

Like on most small islands, connection quality on Gili Air varies from place to place, so it pays to be deliberate about where you take important calls. At Working on Air we run high-speed fiber internet with reliable 150 Mbps connectivity throughout the space — and because a single line is never enough when your job depends on it, the connection is backed up by multiple fallback links. Every workstation has power, video calls and large uploads run smoothly, and members with 24/7 key-card access can work across any time zone. If your livelihood rides on a stable connection, work from somewhere with dedicated fiber and backups rather than gambling on whatever network your accommodation happens to have.

Where can you work from on Gili Air?

Working on Air is the island's dedicated coworking space. Inside the treehouse-inspired building you'll find 30+ ergonomic indoor workstations and standing desks, three spacious shaded outdoor terraces with island views, and private call booths for meetings and video calls. Beyond the desks, it's a community: an international crowd of digital nomads, a shared group chat, and regular events from skillshares and workshops to beach cleanups. Reception is open daily from 8:30 am, and members get round-the-clock access with a key card.

The island also has cafés where you can open a laptop for a lighter session — including our own café on Jl. Mojo, which serves fresh coffee, local Indonesian specialties and European-influenced dishes daily for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Cafés are great for a change of scenery; for focused work, calls or a full workday, a proper workspace is the safer bet — more on that trade-off below.

How much does it cost to work from Gili Air?

Here's the current Working on Air price list, pulled from our live catalogue — the same one that powers the booking page, where you'll find what each pass includes and can buy online.

Prices are shown the way we display them across the site: "k" = thousand and "mil" = million Indonesian Rupiah. Booth hour packs and reserved-desk add-ons for members are listed on the booking page.

When is the best time to visit Gili Air?

Gili Air is warm year-round. Indonesia's dry season — roughly May to October — generally brings the most settled weather and is the busiest period, while the wet season tends to mean short, heavy showers between sunny spells and a quieter island. There's no wrong answer for remote work: the workspace runs daily on the same schedule all year, so pick the trade-off between liveliest season and quietest island that suits you.

Working on Air vs working from a café: which should you choose?

Both have their place — plenty of our members do a café morning before settling in for deep work. Here's the honest comparison, dimension by dimension:

In short: cafés win for an hour of light work with a good flat white — our café included. For video calls, deadlines and a routine you can sustain for weeks, the coworking space wins.