Nine stops, three days, one headcount

Day one is the warm-up. The boat sails at 11:00, you climb Kelor, you snorkel at Manjarite, and at dusk you watch the bats leave Kalong. Day two carries the weight. It opens with Padar at first light, then Pink Beach, then a ranger walk on Komodo Island, and it ends with Taka Makassar and Manta Point. Day three is Kanawa, one last snorkel, and the quay near 12:00.

The grid gives one card per stop. Open the stop page before you brief the group, because each page says what people do there, how long they stand, walk or float, and what to carry. Manjarite gets no page of its own. It is a short snorkel on day one, and the route page covers it.

Count the days, not the stops. Day two holds five of the nine, so that is the morning to hurry people through breakfast and the evening to expect tired legs.

Sort the nine stops by what they ask of a body. Three are walks: Kelor on day one, Padar at dawn and the Komodo Island trail. Five put you in the water. Manjarite comes first, Pink Beach second, Taka Makassar and Manta Point as a pair, and Kanawa last. One you only watch. That is Kalong, from the deck, with the bats overhead.

The table below gives the length and effort of each stop. Read it with your slowest walker and your weakest swimmer in mind, because a group of 20 moves at their speed and not at the speed of the fastest.

Two stops need extra care. Padar is steep in places, and Manta Point has a strong current that suits confident swimmers. The rest are gentle enough for a mixed class or a three-generation family. Tell us who in the group needs the shorter option and we plan around them.