EAST COAST
The East Side: Diamond Beach & Atuh
Diamond Beach, Atuh Beach and the Thousand Islands viewpoint reward the long, rough drive east — but they're really a day of their own, not an add-on.
Check dates and availability ↗A different island at the other end
The eastern end of Nusa Penida has its own set of showpieces, and they're every bit as striking as the famous western cliffs — but they feel like a different island. This is quieter, less-trodden country, reached by a long, jolting drive across the rough interior from the west. The honest headline first: combining east and west in a single day usually means spending most of it in the car and rushing every stop, and it's the most common mistake first-time visitors make. Treat the east as its own day, or choose it over the west and commit. If you do, you're rewarded with sea stacks, cliff staircases and beaches that see a fraction of the crowds that build at Kelingking once the mid-morning boats land.
Diamond Beach and its cliff staircase
Diamond Beach is the image most people arrive for on this side: a curve of white sand framed by tall, weathered sea stacks, with impossibly clear water lapping the shore. The view from the clifftop is the easy, spectacular part. Getting down to the sand is the effort — a steep staircase carved into the rock face, dramatic and much improved from its rope-and-ladder past, but still a proper climb in the heat, and a harder one coming back up. Whether the beach itself is swimmable depends entirely on the sea; the water here can look inviting and run with strong currents and shore break. Many visitors take in the view, walk part of the way down for the classic photograph, and leave the swimming for calmer, safer spots.
Atuh Beach next door
Atuh Beach sits just around the headland from Diamond, and the two are often visited together since they share a clifftop area and car park. Atuh is the broader, more sheltered of the pair — a wide bay backed by cliffs, with sea stacks offshore and, at the right state of the tide, calmer water that's more forgiving for a paddle than the exposed spots elsewhere. There are simple warungs at the top and along the sand for a drink and some shade, which matters after the descents. Seeing Diamond and Atuh as a pair is the natural way to structure the eastern day: two contrasting beaches, one dramatic and steep, one broad and calmer, within a short walk of each other on the same stretch of cliff.
The Thousand Islands viewpoint
The third eastern highlight asks nothing of your legs and gives back one of the island's great panoramas. The Thousand Islands viewpoint — Raja Lima is the name you'll often see — looks out over a scatter of jagged limestone islets rising from turquoise shallows, a seascape that genuinely earns the postcard comparisons. It's a clifftop lookout rather than a beach, so it slots neatly alongside Diamond and Atuh without adding a hard descent to your day. There's usually a modest local fee or donation at spots like this, collected on arrival. Go for the wide view and the sense of scale it gives the coastline; combined with the two beaches below, it makes the long drive east feel worthwhile rather than a stretch.
Making the east work
The east rewards planning more than the west does, precisely because it's further and rougher. Build the day around the drive: it's long and slow across the interior, so leave early, accept that travel eats a real share of your hours, and don't try to bolt a couple of western cliffs onto the end. If you're booking a private driver, say clearly at the outset that the east is your priority, so the route is built around it rather than treating these stops as an afterthought. And weigh the overnight option seriously — staying a night on the island turns a punishing east-and-back day-trip into a relaxed pair of days, one for each end, without the interior drive bracketing everything you do.