Tomé Soares
The city read on foot, one kampung at a time
Based in Jakarta (Kota Tua), Indonesia.
Raised between Lisbon and Jakarta, Tomé walks Kota Tua's colonial squares and the Menteng backstreets to work out how the city's neighbourhoods actually connect. They pair a National Museum morning with a canal-side kopi and will say plainly when a sight is worth the traffic and when it isn't.
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Walk Jakarta's Glodok Chinatown before the lanes close
Glodok is a morning, and it winds down by mid-afternoon. The order to walk it in, which temple to pick if you only want one, and where the coffee runs out early.
Volcano Crater, Tea Rows and Hot Springs in a Day From Jakarta
Drive to the rim of an active crater, walk a guided trail past the mud pools, pass tea estates at the foot of the cone and finish in volcanic hot water. This guide covers what each gate charges and when to be there.
Boiling Mud and Volcano Rims on a Jakarta Day Trip in October
Boiling pools at Kawah Domas, a crater rim you reach in a 10 minute walk, and a hot spring at the end. All of it fits in one day out of Jakarta.
Jakarta's Taman Mini Indonesia Indah on Foot in October
The park is car-free now, which changes how you plan a day there: below are the route, the ticket maths and the October weather window.
Sunda Kelapa and Jakarta's Last Wooden Cargo Ships
Jakarta's old port still loads timber onto wooden schooners by hand, and a morning on the quay will teach you more Jakarta history than it costs.
Under the Golden Flame at Jakarta's Monas
The gilded flame is the easy part. Most of a Monas visit is the square around it, the national collections across the road, and knowing which gate to walk in from.
What Jakarta's Commuter Line Shows You Between Beos and Bogor
One Red Line ticket, four centuries of Jakarta: from a Dutch trading company's terminus to a botanical garden 60km south, for less than the price of a coffee.
The Thousand Islands: Jakarta's Weekend Archipelago Where the Megacity Dissolves into Coral and Clear Water
An hour off the coast of one of the world's most crowded megacities, the Thousand Islands trade traffic and haze for coral reefs, turtle nurseries, and overwater bungalows — with a cash-only ferry queue worth planning around.
Setu Babakan: The Betawi Village Inside the Megacity That Jakarta Forgot to Demolish
On the southern edge of Jakarta, a 289-hectare lakeside village still performs Betawi weddings, cooks kerak telor over coconut coals, and teaches the martial art hidden inside the ritual — proof the capital's indigenous culture never actually left.
The Best Contemporary Art Scene in Jakarta
From the state museum that curated Documenta 15's home collective to a gallery inside a bank tower, Jakarta's contemporary art scene rewards a slow, cluster-by-cluster visit rather than a single afternoon.
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