Borneo Orangutan Tours and Holidays

What does a Borneo orangutan tour from the UK include?

Picture the scene. It's just after breakfast in the rainforest at Sepilok, the air is already warm and heavy, and a rope strung between the trees starts to sway. A shaggy orange shape swings into view, then another, and the boardwalk goes quiet as the first orangutan reaches the feeding platform. A few days later you're in a small boat on the Kinabatangan River at dusk, scanning the canopy for a nest while hornbills flap across the water.

That's the heart of a Borneo orangutan tour from the UK: semi-wild orangutans at a rehabilitation centre, then wild ones along the river, with everything in between booked for you.

Almost every itinerary here follows the same line through Sabah, the Malaysian state in the north of the island. You fly from the UK to Kota Kinabalu or Sandakan, spend a morning with the orangutans, then head into the Lower Kinabatangan Wildlife Sanctuary to stay at a jungle lodge. Many finish on the beach. For the wider picture of every route, our Borneo holidays home page lays them all out side by side.

Sepilok and the Kinabatangan: two very different encounters

The feeding platform at Sepilok

Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre opened in the sixties and, according to the Orangutan Appeal UK, it was the first centre in the world set up to rescue orphaned and injured orangutans and release them back into the forest. Twice a day the rangers put out simple food on a platform in the trees. The menu is kept deliberately dull, so the orangutans still forage for themselves.

Some days several turn up. Other days, when the forest is full of fruit, hardly any do.

Younger orangutans practise climbing in an outdoor nursery that you watch from an observation building. Our guide to visiting Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre covers the feeding times, the nursery and the Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre next door, which most of these holidays visit the same morning.

Wild orangutans from the river

The Kinabatangan is where things get properly wild. Oil palm plantations and deforestation have squeezed the forest along the lower river into a narrow strip, which, sad as it is, pushes wildlife towards the water where a boat can see it. Macaques, proboscis monkeys, crocodiles and kingfishers turn up on many trips, while wild orangutans, gibbons and Bornean pygmy elephants are the species everyone hopes for. Read more on our Kinabatangan River page.

What about Kalimantan and Sumatra?

Much of what you'll find online is in Kalimantan, on the Indonesian side of Borneo, where you fly to Pangkalan Bun and sleep aboard a klotok, a wooden houseboat, on the Sekonyer River through Tanjung Puting National Park to feeding stations such as Camp Leakey. None of the UK escorted holidays on this page go there. Our guides to Kalimantan orangutan tours and Borneo or Sumatra for orangutans explain the differences.

Why The Best of Borneo leads our list

Travelsphere's The Best of Borneo: Orangutans and Rainforests gives the orangutans and the river more of your time than most. After Kota Kinabalu, with a walk through the Kiulu Valley to a Dusun village, you fly to Sandakan for an evening jungle walk to look for slow lorises and tarsiers. Next morning it's the orangutan feeding and the sun bears.

Then comes the best bit. A boat takes you across the Sulu Sea and up through the mangroves to Abai Jungle Lodge, which stands on stilts and can only be reached by water. You'll cruise at sunset and stay out after dark for the fireflies, set off at first light for Pitas Oxbow Lake, and walk the raised boardwalks behind the lodge where wild orangutans sometimes come close. A slow trip upriver takes you on to Sukau for more wildlife cruises, with an optional visit to the Gomantong Caves.

A stay at Shangri-La Rasa Ria, a beach resort inside its own nature reserve, rounds things off after all those early starts. A Travelsphere Holiday Director travels with the group throughout, and UK flights, internal flights, transfers and porterage are included. Travelsphere grades the pace as Active: moderate walking and some longer days. See the day by day on our page for The Best of Borneo: Orangutans and Rainforests.

How the other orangutan holidays compare

Every holiday here includes Sepilok, but river time, hotels and flights differ a lot. These facts come from each operator's own page, checked in October 2026.

If orangutans are the reason you're going, look for nights on the river rather than a single morning at a centre. Two lodges, as with Travelsphere and Just You, means two stretches of water. Our Borneo tour operators compared page looks at the companies, and Borneo tours covers routes with more Mount Kinabalu and city time.

What the organised holiday takes off your hands

Could you do it yourself? Yes, but it's fiddly. The river lodges sell out, some are boat-only, and wildlife trips run at dawn and dusk with the lodge's own naturalist guides. An escorted tour sorts all this out:

Will you definitely see orangutans?

At Sepilok, very probably, though even the centre says sightings can't be guaranteed. In the wild, nobody can promise anything.

What shifts the odds? Fruiting season is a big one: when wild figs and other fruit are plentiful, orangutans feed near the river and are easier to spot, yet fewer bother with the platform. A high, flooded river spreads wildlife out. Early morning and late afternoon are best, as orangutans leave their nests or build new ones, and the boatmen tip each other off. More time on the water simply means more chances. Our guides on where to see orangutans and the best time to see orangutans in Borneo go into the places and months.

Watching orangutans the right way

Rehabilitation centres aren't zoos. The orangutans at Sepilok are learning to live in the forest and can catch human illnesses, so the centre asks you to keep well back, keep your voice down, never touch one and skip the selfies and flash photography. On the river, a good boatman cuts the engine and doesn't crowd a tree with other boats. On night walks, leave the flash off.

Please steer clear of anything that offers to let you hold, feed or pose with an orangutan.

Quiet, respectful visitors help make the case for orangutan conservation. Our page on the Bornean orangutan covers their habitat and why numbers have fallen.

Is an orangutan holiday right for you?

These trips suit plenty of first-time long-haul wildlife travellers, including many in their sixties and seventies, but be ready for the conditions. It's hot and humid all year, and you'll be up before dawn on several days. Getting in and out of small open boats takes a steady step, so take your time and accept a helping hand. Boardwalks are easy going, while jungle trails can be muddy, and leeches are common after rain, so pack leech socks, binoculars and light long sleeves.

Travelling alone? Just You runs this trip for solo travellers only, with a room of your own, and Saga has a solo departure of its Wild Borneo tour. Our page on solo holidays to Borneo compares them.

Safety and health before you book

These routes stick to mainland Sabah. The UK Foreign Office advises against all but essential travel to the islands and dive sites off Sabah's east coast between Sandakan and Tawau because of a kidnap risk, and says that advice doesn't apply to the mainland. Check the GOV.UK travel advice for Malaysia before you travel.

The TravelHealthPro page for Malaysia, from the National Travel Health Network and Centre, lists the vaccines most travellers need and notes that dengue is a risk throughout Borneo, malaria risk in Sabah is low or very low, and you should avoid insect bites day and night. See your practice nurse or a travel clinic well before you go.

Choosing the right orangutan holiday

Start with the river. A Borneo orangutan tour that pairs a morning at the rehabilitation centre with several nights of dawn and dusk cruises gives you the best realistic chance of a wild sighting, which is why The Best of Borneo sits first in the cards above. Then weigh up flights, pace and whether you'd like a beach stay or Singapore to finish. When you're ready, head back to our Borneo holidays home page to see every route together.

Questions people ask