Madakaripura waterfall on the island of Java competes with Sipiso-piso waterfall on the island of Sumatra for title of Indonesia’s #1 waterfall. I loved them both.
You can get to Madakaripura by a 3 hours’ drive from Surabaya (the nearest airport). You’ll need an experienced driver who knows how to use the new toll roads/highways. Tolls roundtrip will total about 64,500 rupiah (about 5 USD). Parking will cost about 8,000 rupiah (less than 1 USD), and park entrance fee will be 26,000 rupiah (about 2 USD). (All numbers accurate as of December 2018.) I found my driver through my hotel and paid 1 million rupiah (about 70 USD, including gas) for up to 8 hours, with each additional hour charged at 100,000 rupiah. My roundtrip totaled about 7 and a half hours from Surabaya’s city center.
Once at the parking lot, you can hire a motorbike for between 10,000 or 15,00 rupiah (about 1 USD) to get closer to the waterfall, but I enjoyed the 4 km hike. You can hire a guide at the park entrance. My guide and I didn’t agree on a price beforehand, but 100,000 rupiah was the going rate for foreigners/bules. You don’t really need a guide until the very end, when you reach the waterfall, but unless you’re an expert climber, it’s worth it to hire a guide. It’s very difficult for anyone not used to climbing to get to the final (and most spectacular) waterfall on his/her own, but I saw most Indonesian teenagers able to make it. I brought my own sandals, but I also saw several touts selling them along the way. Obviously, you’ll get wet, so if you bring hiking or athletic shoes, you’ll need a plastic bag to protect them when you switch to sandals at the waterfall.
https://youtu.be/IkXTmnE09mU
