Our favorite Borneo tours and excursions

From multi-day rainforest treks to tribal longhouse stays, Borneo offers some of the most unforgettable travel experiences on the planet.

You don’t come to Borneo to do things by halves. You want the very best guides, in the very best locations, with the very best range of activities, or nothing. In the world’s greatest wildlife destination, why settle for anything less?

By its very wild and untamed nature, much of Borneo impossible to explore without a guide – and we’re only interested in working with the very best. You can always spot them: they’re the ones who’ve never stopped being enthused about the sheer magnitude of the forest, and the ones who are as excited by a big cat’s pawprint as by the tiniest rare spider, even after years of guiding. Those are the people we want to show you Borneo.

Borneo isn’t just an untouched rainforest paradise. It’s a living, breathing island full of culture and contradictions, with street-food markets to explore, mountains to climb, coral reefs to marvel at, conservation challenges to face, and scores of different indigenous groups with whom to share an evening and a little tuak rice wine. These are the experiences that’ll get you beneath the surface.

Meeting the Iban people

Borneo’s Iban people may have abandoned their former practice of headhunting, but thankfully their traditional culture survives in many other forms.

Iban live in longhouses with up to 30 families under one roof, and in the evenings, these houses are filled with drinking, dancing and general merriment. Spend the night and be prepared to be plied with tuak rice wine and roped into a dance or two, to the inevitable amusement of your hosts! The Iban way of life may not have all the mod cons (or privacy) you’re used to, but it affords a sense of community that’s long faded from Western culture, and for us it’s one of the highlights of a trip to Borneo.

Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Center Insider visit with Dr Wong

Named after the crescent-shaped patch of fur on its chest, the sun bear is the world‘s smallest bear.

Sadly, it's threatened not just by habitat loss and the pet trade but by poaching for its bile – which is prized in Chinese traditional medicine. Dr Wong started the center in 2008 with seven rescued bears and the ultimate aim of returning as many as possible to the wild. Now, the center has over 40, and you can observe them in rehabilitation, watching from boardwalks and platforms as they go about their bear business – all while Dr Wong explains what makes them so special.

Exploring Mulu's caves

Mulu National Park is home to some of the most impressive subterranean landscapes you’ll ever see.

In Lang Cave, swallows and swiftlets flit between stalactites and stalagmites, while at gargantuan Deer Cave, a towering side-profile of Abraham Lincoln watches the nightly exodus of over two million bats. In Wind Cave, dripping flowstones appear like frozen waterfalls and spiky helictites give the impression of having formed in zero gravity. With two days in the park, you can trek from cave to cave, taking dips in cold springs and spotting wildlife from canopy walks in between.

Mount Kinabalu climb

Watching sunrise from the top of the highest mountain in Southeast Asia is an unforgettable experience.

It’s an 8.8 km steep trail to the summit, taking you from lush and humid lowlands to misty forests of tea and eucalyptus trees thick with moss, where you’ll stop at a shelter for the night. Rising at 2am the next day, you’ll continue for the final stretch through cooler granite boulder forest and treeless subalpine scrub to Low’s Peak, to be rewarded with views as far as the Philippines in the distance. Be warned: the ascent is steep, the summit is cold, and altitude sickness can strike anyone – but the rewards really are spectacular.

Trekking in Borneo's 'Lost World'

So remote and isolated that half of it has never been explored, the Maliau Basin is a tantalizing prospect for anyone with a remotely adventurous bent. Where else in the world can you trek through some of the world’s oldest rainforest, on trails that only a handful of humans have ever trodden?

On this two-day trek, you’ll hike up mountainsides beneath fat-trunked Agathis trees, sleep in forest encampments surrounded by the hoots of gibbons, and trek to the seven-tiered Maliau Falls, which earned this region its indigenous name: “Land of the Giant Staircase”. There really aren’t many trekking destinations in the world to compete with this.

Semenggoh Orangutan Sanctuary

Just south of Kuching, the Semenggoh Wildlife Reserve has provided a sanctuary for rescued orangutans since 1975.

They spend most of their time roaming the forest, but they visit the feeding platform twice a day for a free meal of coconut, banana, and hard-boiled eggs. At these times, you can see adult orangutans swinging through the trees, babies playing, and mothers teaching their young to climb as they follow the ranger to the feeding platform. Though sightings are likely, do be aware that when fruit is particularly abundant in the rainforest, the orangutans won’t always turn up for their free meal.