Destinations
Where we go
Seven places, chosen for what is in them rather than for how easy they are to reach.
Sabah is small enough to cross in a day and varied enough that two forests four hours apart will show you different animals. Most journeys combine three or four of these over eleven to seventeen days — a river, a lowland forest, somewhere genuinely remote, and often the coast at the end.
They are not interchangeable and we will not pretend they are. Tell us what you want to see and we will tell you which of them earns its place in your fortnight.
Interior
- Imbak Canyon
900×600Interior
Imbak Canyon
A Class I Protection Forest Reserve almost nobody has walked into.
Gazetted under the strictest protection Sabah has, reached by four-wheel drive and only with permission from Yayasan Sabah. The Kinabatangan, the river everyone has heard of, starts here.
- Maliau Basin
900×600Interior
Maliau Basin
Sabah’s Lost World — a near-circular basin ringed by escarpment.
You walk in and you keep walking, camp to camp, with your pack and a guide. It is the most demanding thing we arrange, and the people who do it rarely stop talking about it.
- Danum Valley
900×600Interior
Danum Valley
Old-growth lowland rainforest, and the most-studied forest in Borneo.
A conservation area that has never been logged, sitting inside a landscape that has. Decades of research means the trails, the towers and the guiding here are better understood than almost anywhere in the tropics.
Central Sabah
- Deramakot
900×600Central Sabah
Deramakot
Quiet logging roads, and the night drives naturalists come for.
A working forest reserve managed for timber and wildlife at the same time — an argument as much as a place. Nights are spent slowly along the roads with a spotlight and a guide who knows where to look.
East coast
- Tabin
900×600East coast
Tabin
Regenerating lowland forest and mud volcanoes, on the Dent Peninsula.
Forest that was logged and left, now grown back thick and busy with animals that suit it. The mud volcanoes draw wildlife out of cover, which is why photographers keep going back.
- The Kinabatangan
900×600East coast
The Kinabatangan
Sabah’s longest river. You watch the forest from the water.
Floodplain forest squeezed into a corridor along the banks, which concentrates wildlife into a strip you can travel by boat. It is the easiest wildlife watching in Sabah and the most honest illustration of why the rest of it matters.
- Semporna
900×600East coast
Semporna
The coast at the end of a journey, and a long maritime history.
A different Sabah entirely: shallow water, sand, and a maritime culture older than any of the rest of it. Most guests come here at the end of a journey rather than the beginning, and we build to the mainland coast.
Putting them together
The order matters more than the list. Internal flights, river levels and the drying and wet months all decide what a fortnight can sensibly hold, and getting that wrong costs you days. See how a longer journey fits together, or tell us your dates and we will draft one.
Start an enquiry