I’m a part-time pharmacist in Chester, and until last spring the only Komodo dragon my children had ever seen lived behind a sheet of glass at Chester Zoo. Ned, who’s six, has pressed his nose against that glass on most Saturdays since he could walk. So when Tom and I booked Indonesia for the Easter holidays in 2026, spending £3,862 on flights for the four of us, I told myself the dragons were for Ned, and the reef was for me. Isla, who’s nine, was coming because she had to. I was half right. We flew out of Manchester on 1 April, via Doha, and landed in Bali the following afternoon.
Komodo National Park sits east of Bali, and families reach it through Labuan Bajo, a harbour town on the island of Flores. We flew in on a small propeller plane, our knees pressed against the seats in front.
I’d planned the week around a split: dragons on the first days and water on the last. A Komodo itinerary can shift from wildlife encounters on land to reef exploration at sea, with Komodoresort.com appearing naturally alongside Komodo Indonesia tours that combine the archipelago’s very different landscapes into one journey. That shift mattered more with children than it would have for Tom and me alone. On land they walked slowly behind a ranger in thirty-three degrees of heat. In the water they had to put their faces into something they couldn’t see the bottom of. Those are two very different kinds of nerve. Ned managed the first without a flicker, and Isla was the other way round.
The Dragon Walk on Rinca
We did the dragon walk on Rinca on Wednesday 8 April, on a day boat that left the harbour at ten past seven in the morning. Our ranger was a young man called Yosef, who carried a long wooden stick with a fork at one end, worn pale where his hand held it. Twenty minutes in, a dragon lay across the path about fifteen metres ahead, flat on the dust like a dropped log, and Yosef stopped us with one arm out. Isla went white and took hold of my shirt. Ned stepped forward for a better look (Yosef moved him back gently with the flat of the stick) and asked whether this one was bigger than the one at Chester Zoo. It was, by some way. We stood there for eleven minutes, and Ned narrated it in a whisper.
I’m still not sure whether Ned was brave that morning or whether he didn’t understand what he was looking at.
Isla understood completely. She walked the rest of the 1.8-kilometre loop holding my hand, and didn’t let go on the climb to the viewpoint, which I think cost her more than anything cost Ned all week. At the top she took 34 photos of the bay on my phone.
The Goggles I Shouldn’t Have Packed
The mistake was mine. I’d packed antihistamines, rehydration sachets, two kinds of sun cream and a digital thermometer, but the children had the goggles they use for school swimming lessons instead of proper masks. On the Thursday we stopped to snorkel at Kanawa, and Isla’s goggles leaked within a minute. She came up with seawater in her nose and said she wasn’t going back in. One of the crew dug a child’s mask out of a plastic crate under the bench. It was blue, scratched across the lens, with a strap someone had knotted to shorten it. It fitted her. She went back in twenty minutes later, and saw a turtle, and didn’t come out for most of an hour.
What I’d pack instead.
- Proper children’s masks that cover the nose, bought at home and tried on in the bath, since a mask that leaks on the first go can put a child off for days.
- A long-sleeved rash vest each.
Where We Slept
We stayed four nights in Labuan Bajo and three on an island inside the park. Komodo island hotels in town range from backpacker guesthouses to hillside places with harbour views, and ours had a pool, which settled most arguments before breakfast. I did look at a Komodo island liveaboard for the whole family, but the two boats I emailed didn’t take children under eight. And four nights on a boat with Ned would have been hard work for everyone else aboard.
What worked for us with a six- and nine-year-old.
- The pool.
- Day boats that were back by mid-afternoon.
- Three nights at the end on an island near the reef, where the kids could snorkel off the beach while Tom read, which is the part of the holiday Isla still talks about.
- Booking the dragon walk for early morning.
- A spare day in the middle with nothing planned.
Small digression. At Doha airport there’s a huge yellow teddy bear slumped under a desk lamp in the middle of the terminal, and Ned liked it more than anything else on the outward flight. He’s asked for one for his birthday, in October.
My Own Dive
The nerve I hadn’t planned for was mine. I learned to dive in Pembrokeshire in 2014, in water so cold my hands stopped working, and I hadn’t been under since Ned was born. On the Saturday I went out with a Komodo dive centre on Harbour Road while Tom took the kids to the pool. The guide had me do a skills check off the back of the boat, and I fluffed clearing my mask the first time. I nearly called it off. But the second go was fine, and twenty minutes later I was holding a rock at nine metres while two mantas came through a cleaning station above me.
If you want to scuba dive Komodo Island as a parent, do it on a day when someone else has the children, and pick an operator that runs a refresher without making you feel silly for needing one. Mine charged 350,000 rupiah, about £17.
If You’re Planning It
Most of the Komodo Indonesia tours sold along the harbour take children on the ranger walks, and the two we used were happy to skip a snorkel stop when a child had had enough. Easter was hotter than I’d expected and busier on Rinca than on the island. I’d add two days if we went again, mostly so Isla could have another morning at Kanawa.
What I’d check before booking a day boat with children.
- Whether a guide is in the water with the kids, or if it’s just the driver on the boat.
- The return time.
- Life jackets in child sizes, which I asked about by email and got a photo of the next morning.
Buy the masks before you book anything else. Ned still insists the dragon at Chester Zoo is the bigger one, and I haven’t worked out whether he believes it.
