Gili Trawangan is the largest of the three Gili Islands and the one that most travellers arrive on first. The east-facing main beach is lined with restaurants, dive shops, and bars. The party scene is real — the reggae bars stay loud well past midnight, and the Friday night market draws people from all three islands — but the northwest shore of the island, five minutes' walk from the main strip, is entirely deserted: white sand, a reef you can snorkel from the beach, and nobody else around.
The island is small enough to walk around in two hours or to circuit by bicycle in forty minutes. The interior is flat and scrubby, with a small hill on the northwest that gives views over all three islands and across to the Lombok coast. Sea turtles are reliably seen on the east coast reef, particularly in the morning before boats arrive.