Tomohon

A delightful retreat in nature amongst mountains, lakes, and hot springs

Tomohon is a lovely local town nestled amongst nature in the Northern Sulawesi highlands. People often pass through it, going straight from Gorontolo to Manado, but it’s great to spend a couple days here if you want to take it slow and enjoy nature, without being amongst tourists.

Contents

Getting to Tomohon

What to do in Tomohon

How long to spend in Tomohon

Where to stay in Tomohon

Where to eat in Tomohon

How to get to Tomohon

From the north (Manado)

From Manado, the easiest way to reach Tomohon is by calling a Grab. If you’re planning to do a scooter tour of North Sulawesi (which if you have enough time, would be a great option!), you can rent a scooter in Manado and drive to Tomohon. It’s about a 45 minute drive.

From the south (Gorontolo)

If you’re coming from the south, most likely you are coming from Gorontolo. From Gorontolo, there are a few different ways to reach Manado.

1. Private car – The fastest, most convenient option, and can also be economical if you have 4 people to share the cost with. It costs ~1,300K IDR ($80) for a private car, which can be shared by up to 4 people. The drive takes around 9 hours. You can make arrangements through your accommodation in Gorontolo or Tomohon.

2. Public car – This is how we traveled. We made arrangements through our accommodation in Gorontolo for an overnight public car which left around 8pm and arrived around 6am. The cost was 350K per person ($22). The drivers in Indonesia drive extremely fast, and this was a fairly curvy, mountain road, making it impossible to sleep on the overnight drive. My boyfriend even tried tying his head to the headrest using his t-shirt! If you’re going overnight, I would highly not recommend this option, and instead take the bus for a much more comfortable ride.

3. Bus – The bus ride takes around 12 hours and leaves Gorontolo at 7pm, arriving Manado at 7am. It costs around 300K IDR per person ($19). You can book tickets through your accommodation or online. If going overnight, I would recommend this option.

What to do in Tomohon

Visit the Traditional Tomohon Market

Perhaps what Tomohon is most famous for, is its extreme traditional market. Here, you can find all the typical goods of an Indonesian market: fruits, vegetables, meat, dry goods, clothing, etc. But what makes it extreme and unique, is that you’ll also find people selling and butchering snakes, rats, bats, and dogs. It’s worth a visit if you want to see something so unique here, but it’s not for the faint of heart. Here’s our Youtube video exploring the market if you want a preview!

Lunch and an afternoon at Lake Tondano

Lake Tondano is a large lake and it’s very pleasant to spend an afternoon just enjoying it! I’d recommend finding a nice place to eat along the lake, and spending some time just relaxing in the scenery. We went to A L’aise, which had delicious food, a wonderful view, and a nice vibe. Our first impression was that the place was too fancy for us, but after spending some time, we appreciated how it was also a laidback environment. I’d definitely recommend getting lunch and relaxing there for a couple hours!

Lunch and an afternoon at Lake Linaw

We didn’t end up going here because there was an entrance fee, which we were too cheap and annoyed about, to pay. However, we were able to catch glimpses of the lake on the drive, and it looked like a nice place to visit! There’s a restaurant with a great view (which you need to pay entrance for), and it would make for a nice relaxing afternoon by the lake.

Sunset at Narwastu Hills

A very nice sunset spot up on a hill. There is a small entrance fee but it includes a beverage (coffee, tea, or soft drink). It’s nice to go up here to enjoy a sunset and relax for a bit.

Ranolewo Hot Springs

This was the place that was most outstanding to me in Tomohon, and my favorite! There are 2 beautiful natural hot springs here, completely set in nature with nothing built out around it. It’s quite unknown to tourists, so you’ll mostly have the place to yourself, or just with a few locals enjoying a bath.

There are 2 hot springs there. One is too hot to enter, and the other is a perfect hot spring temperature. When you park along the road and walk down, the one on the left is the one that’s too hot, though it’s still beautiful and worth seeing. And the one on the right is the one with a proper hot spring temperature that you can enter. Both are absolutely beautiful. It’s also best to enjoy the hot springs on a cloudy day if you can, as the hot springs are actually hot!

Visit waterfalls

There are plenty of beautiful waterfalls around Tomohon! They are all around the same area making them easy to visit together:

• Air Terjun Kali

• Tapahan Telu – Beautiful spot, made of 4 waterfalls running side by side. This is the only one we had time to visit. It was about a 20 minute walk down, and we went on a rainy day and had the whole viewing deck to ourselves. Though we weren’t able to walk down to reach the waterfall, we enjoyed the view just from the viewing deck a lot, and would recommend it.

• Mah’watu – We didn’t have time to visit here, but it looks like a stunning small waterfall surrounded by lush green jungle. We wish we had time to visit it!

• Air Terjun Tumimperas

Visit Mahawu Volcano

We visited here, and it was just a walk around the rim of the volcanic crater. It was nice to see, but not a particularly stunning volcanic crater or view. Overall it was just okay and I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it.

How long to spend in Tomohon

We spent 3 nights in Tomohon and it felt about right, though we would have also enjoyed 1 more night if we had the time. Here’s what I would recommend for 3 days in Tomohon:

• Day 1: Visit Tomohon Traditional Market. Have lunch and spend an afternoon relaxing at Lake Tondano

• Day 2: Visit a volcano or Ranolewo Hot Springs. Have lunch and relax at Lake Linaw. Catch sunset at Narwastu Hills

• Day 3: Drive around to viewpoints and visit waterfalls

Where to stay in Tomohon

We stayed at Onong Homestay and would definitely recommend it! They have standard rooms for 250K IDR/night ($15) and bungalows for 350K IDR/night ($22), both including a good breakfast. The standard rooms didn’t look great, but we stayed in a bungalow, which was a nice standalone unit set amongst the trees, almost like a treehouse. We really enjoyed our stay there. We also rented a scooter through the homestay for 150K IDR/day, the standard pricing in the area.

Where to eat in Tomohon

• Kanzo Cafe – A comfortable and nice local warung with delicious and cheap food. Our favorite place to eat in Tomohon

• À L’aise – Restaurant on Lake Tondano. A nicer restaurant with delicious local food

• Culinary Market Tomohon – A few streets with street food and local warungs. Nice to get a vibe for the local street food scene

• Crepery – We really enjoyed walking around the town center in the evenings just to get a feel for the local life there. We found these crepes to be quite good, and it was nice to get the crepes and sit at the street corner just people watching.