My name is Blaise Jaeger. I’m French, based in Bali since 2020, and on nusapenida.org I share guides about Nusa Penida, Bali, Indonesia and scuba diving — written from the island itself, not from a desk on the other side of the world.
I first heard about Nusa Penida in March 2015 during a stay in Bali, and visited it for the first time in June 2015. Back then the island was very different from today: a single fast boat company served it, hotels were extremely limited, and tourists were still rare. It was wild, with rough roads, little infrastructure and almost no information available for travelers — yet I was immediately captivated by its spectacular cliffs, its still-preserved beaches and its unique atmosphere.
Over the years I’ve returned to Nusa Penida more than thirty times, gradually exploring its different regions, villages, beaches and dive sites — and watching tourism evolve on the island at remarkable speed.
Settling in Nusa Penida and Bali
In August 2020 I moved to Indonesia to oversee the opening of the Adiwana Warnakali hotel on Nusa Penida, which opened in September 2020. For the first eight months I lived right at the hotel, in room 401, following the operation day to day, talking with guests and working alongside the teams. That period taught me a lot about what travelers really need, the concrete difficulties of organizing a trip to Nusa Penida, and how important it is to keep service warm and professional despite the island’s constraints.
In April 2021 I moved to Seminyak, in Bali, where I still live today. I keep coming back to Nusa Penida very regularly — often every week — both to dive and to explore the island, check out new hotels, restaurants and routes, and keep the guides on this site as accurate and up to date as possible.
My experience of Nusa Penida
For more than ten years I’ve watched Nusa Penida grow from a largely unknown island into one of Indonesia’s most popular destinations. Being on the island so often lets me share concrete, realistic information about:
- boat schedules between Bali and Nusa Penida,
- the best areas to stay,
- real travel times,
- beaches and viewpoints,
- tours and excursions,
- hotels,
- restaurants,
- itineraries,
- scuba diving,
- and the most common mistakes travelers make.
My aim is above all to provide honest, detailed and regularly updated guides, based on real knowledge of the ground and on many stays on Nusa Penida over the years.
My passion for scuba diving
Scuba diving has been central to my life for many years. After learning to dive in the 1980s, I really developed the passion from 2011 with my PADI certifications in the Seychelles.
In 2017 I opened the Warnakali dive center on Nusa Penida — now Dune Penida. That let me explore the island’s underwater world much more deeply, including the famous dive sites of Nusa Penida such as Crystal Bay, Manta Point and Gamat Bay. I’ve been a PADI Master Scuba Diver since 2018 and have now logged more than 700 dives around the world.
My favorite dive destinations
Some of my best underwater memories are the encounters with manta rays and mola mola at Nusa Penida, along with exceptional dives in Raja Ampat, Komodo and the Maldives. The most striking of all remains an extraordinary encounter with fourteen mola mola during a single dive at Gamat Bay — an extremely rare experience and probably the finest dive memory of my life.
My professional background
An engineer trained at École polytechnique and ISAE-SUPAERO, I worked for more than 30 years in the aerospace and international business sectors. That career took me regularly across Asia, the Middle East, Europe and the Americas long before I settled in Bali. Those many international trips still shape the way I travel and write today: concrete information, realistic itineraries, and practical advice grounded in field experience.
Why I created this Nusa Penida guide
When I started traveling to Nusa Penida, reliable and genuinely useful information was hard to find. Many guides stayed very general or didn’t reflect the reality on the ground: underestimated travel times, incomplete ferry information, questionable advice on where to sleep, road conditions or how to organize excursions.
Over the years my connection to Nusa Penida also became more personal and professional, with the creation of several businesses on the island: the Dune Penida dive center, the Amok Sunset bar & restaurant, and the Adiwana Warnakali hotel. In full transparency: when I mention these places it’s because I actually run them — never as paid placements.
So I built this guide with one simple goal: to offer detailed, honest and regularly updated content that helps travelers prepare their trip in the best possible conditions.
My method and editorial ethics
All the content on this site is based on real personal experience. I only publish guides about places I’ve actually visited myself, with information verified and updated regularly. The vast majority of the photos are my own, taken during my time on Nusa Penida. My aim remains to provide reliable, concrete and useful information to help travelers discover Nusa Penida in the best possible conditions.
Beyond Nusa Penida, I share guides about Bali, Indonesia, scuba diving, Greece and Paris on my wider travel website, My Best Places to Visit.
Follow me and get in touch
You can follow my travels, new guides and discoveries in Indonesia on the social accounts linked to this site: Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and TikTok.
For any question about Nusa Penida, Bali, scuba diving or planning a trip to Indonesia, you can also reach me through the site’s contact page. My travels don’t always let me reply immediately, but I do my best to help travelers through my guides and first-hand experience.