Alter Native Stay

This is truly a magical place! A beautiful location with everything you could possibly need! There are bungalows over water and on land, for families or solo traveler's. I stayed in a stunning bungalow with a private bathroom and my own little private beach!
The family is amazing and Helga is warm and engaging, always happy to make my stay as wonderful as possible.!
Papaloe is a great organiser and co — ordinated our incredible trip to the blue river! Definitely a must and should not be missed!
The food was amazing and plenty of it! All the staff where super nice.
Loved it so much that I extended my stay!
Already thinking of my return.
One thing I forgot to mentioned is that they are super eco and also compost waste, which is very important to me!
Thank you for making me fell so welcomed and part of the family! ❤️

PapuArts Alter Native Stay built by the dedication of Timon and Helga is an unassuming gem on the island of Waigeo in Raja Ampat Regency, West Papua, Indonesia. Timon serves as the proud proprietor and proud he should be, because he and wife have developed a community-based, cultural and environmentally-centered homestay in a still untouched corner of the World.
Here are three highlights that made for an unforgettable, incredible stay like none other:
1) Timon is a part of the local Papuan community and respectfully helped to make the most of our visit in Raja Ampat. He speaks English perfectly, so communication was straight-forward. He offered tours with his own boat of the spectacular islands of Raja Ampat. Also, he has excellent connections with nearby dive centers and could readily assist with making arrangements if required.
2) That said, I'm more of a land-lover, so I greatly appreciated Timon's help in connecting me to a local guide for bird-watching. Marlon was that guide, and he knew the birds of Raja Ampat without exception. As if on cue, we had amazing shows from the two Birds of Paradise (The Red and Wilson's BOP) that grace Waigeo. We also saw Western Crowned Pigeons roosting at night because Marlon knew where to find them, heard the eerie witch-like laughter of the Red-necked Crake and patiently waited for a cameo from a Dusky Megapode. It was Marlon's humble skills and quiet observations that made for extraordinary birding.

We had an amazing stay here. The place is magical. Timon and Helga are great hosts and put a lot of energy and care into making sure all the guests are well taken care of. They are in contact with lots of local guides who showed us around: the birds of paradise hike was amazing, as well as the trips in Bakui bay, the passage, the blue riveri… The proximity to the village is also great and made us feel at home and in close contact with the local culture.
The food is amazing, it feels local with lots of fresh fish and is really delicious!
We can’t recommend this place enough, thank you so much to everyone at PapuArts for welcoming us so warmly!

Its a great place for anybody who loves nature. There are all kinds of birds, geckos, hermit crabs and fish around the stay. The staff is great. I loved the food. Dont have anything to complain about. The owner has a good birding guide who found nightjars, papuan bobooks and marbled frogmouths for me (and much else). There are papuan frogmouths in the garden.

The stay was great. The accommodation was very well equipped and very welcoming. Timon and Helga are charming and always willing to help. The location is ideal.
Our trip was for birdwatching, specially Birds Of Paradise, and it was a success.
Highly recommended! Thanks a lot Timon and Helga.

We stayed four nights in this beautiful place. Timon and his family are very welcoming, the food is excellent and if you want they can organize excursions of all kinds by sea or on foot.

Where should I start. We had the best time at Papu Art! Helga, Thimon and their family made us feel like we were part of the family. The accomodation is stunning and the food amazing, only cooked with local and fresh ingredients. The team has really helped us to make our stay the most confortable as possible.
We have also been diving through their partner company (Olin diving) who were great also!
Great place to visit Raja Ampat and also a place who support the locals!

Timon and Elga and their adorable daughters feel right at home.
It's a quiet place to recharge your batteries.
The bungalows are either on the water or in a magnificent garden surrounded by magnificent trees where marsupials and birds come to eat the fruit.
Elga's cuisine is always fresh and excellent, and Timon is always ready to organize activities that are not easy to organize when the number of participants is small.
In short, it's a beautiful, quiet place where you feel at home, far from the constant hustle and bustle of the big resorts.
An excellent experience for me.
Loic.

My girlfriend and I were in Raja Ampat for more than 2 weeks in April 2024. We decided to split our holiday into "1 week diving" and "1 week land activities".
For the second part of our planning we chose Papuarts as our homestay because of the range of land activities we found on their website and the very good communication and help from their host Timon. He was very kind to us from the beginning and helped us a lot to plan "no water" activities, which are very rare in Raja Ampat.
On arrival, Timon greeted us with a welcome drink: a fresh juice made from a mix of tropical fruits! After 10 days of drinking only water, this felt like a luxury :)
At the homestay we were given a small room, but with a very comfortable double bed, in front of the jetty, with a large terrace and the best view of the bay. The room and all the facilities of the homestay are beautifully built and decorated in original Papuan style.
Our room and all public areas were cleaned daily.
The shower and toilet (western style) worked well and were always very clean. But don't expect European standards with hot water and so on, this is still the normal way of life in Raja Ampat and it's a good thing.
Timon has a very friendly crew and a simple but very tasteful kitchen. Even my vegetarian girlfriend was spoilt with special dishes.
What else can I say?

Stayed here for 2 nights to rest and recover after the arduous trip of getting to Raja Ampat. Perfect start to the fortnight holiday. It was the highest quality homestay that we stayed at — 4 in total, each on a different island. Notionally the dearest but we are talking fine margins and it was well worth it. We will definitely stay again when next in Raja, which says it all. We had a room over the water which was an absolute delight. So easy, relaxing and enjoyable to fall asleep to the gentle sound of the waves below. The room / bed was the highest quality / smartest presentation of the 4. Simple in layout but spacious, clean and comfortable. Views from the room were awesome, particularly the evening sunset. Food at all 4 homestays was really good but PapuArts was the best, being a noticeable grade higher in all 3 sittings. Beer was kindly organised upon request so a tip for next time, message ahead so that the owners can pick it up in town for you in advance and have it cold for you. Good reef immediately off the jetty providing enjoyable snorkelling opportunities.

PapuArts Alter Native Stay is the perfect place to stay if you want to fully relax and enjoy a slice of paradise. I stayed with Timon and Helga at PapuArts Alter Native Stay for 9 days in early February this year. They are generous hosts who provide excellent service, clean and comfortable accommodation, delicious food, cultural experiences, and opportunities to indulge one's passions, in my case snorkelling and birding, and following in Alfred Russell Wallace's wake. Timon organised local bird guides whose skills and knowledge made for great birding experiences. Both Timon and Helga went above and beyond the call of duty to assist my travelling companion who became so seriously ill that he was hospitalised in Sorong.

From the outside this place appeared like paradise – beautiful accommodation, lovely coral reef, and great food. Unfortunately the atmosphere of the place and the terrible owner turned our stay into a nightmare.
When we first arrived the owner showed us around the room and told us several times how important it was to keep the doors closed and locked, otherwise his children and dogs might come in and take/break our things. He told us his daughter recently cut up a guest’s book and warned that she might do the same with our passports!
When we asked to access the Wi-Fi he told us that there wasn’t any, despite it being advertised that there was on booking. Com. We’d chosen this place partly because we needed good Wi-Fi for a work meeting, so this was quite disappointing.
On the first evening, the owner asked us what activities we would like to do. We said that we had already arranged to go diving the next day with Tarzan (I highly recommend them). The owner really didn’t like that we had arranged something independently. He refused to provide us breakfast and lunch on our dive day because we had not organised the activity with his dive partner (which we didn’t even know they had). Luckily, in the morning his wife Helga did give us some breakfast and snacks to take with us when she realised.

I travel a lot and I can honestly say that this is the worst experience I have ever had. First, the positive. The food is excellent, well prepared by Helga and her team. Sadly, that does not in any way compensate for the bad.
First, note that there is no Wi-Fi — despite it being advertised. This was extremely frustrating as we had chosen to go somewhere more expensive to get the Wi-Fi we needed for a meeting. Apparently, it has been recently taken away as it is too expensive to provide (bizarre given how expensive it is to stay here relative to other places we stayed, some of which had internet, albeit for limited hours).
Second, the owner does not like you organising your own activities. We had organised independently to go diving with Tarzan (they are excellent), but because we had chosen to do that, rather than use the owner's dive partner, he refused to provide breakfast or lunch (in fact, Helga did sort us out with a light breakfast and a snack when she realised). I suspect the lack of internet provision is at least in part to make it harder for people to organise their independent activities. The price charged by the owner is circa 3x what you will pay if you organise independently.
Third, on arriving, we had highlighted that the key thing we wanted to do was to see the birds of paradise. We had asked for this to be arranged two days later on our final morning.