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Mountains & HighlandsMiri Division (interior)

Bario & the Kelabit Highlands

A cool mountain plateau of rice paddies, salt springs and megaliths — home of the Kelabit people.

By · Editor, I Love Sarawak

Facts checked

Rice paddies of the Kelabit Highlands on the approach to Bario
Photo: Pavel Kirillov (CC BY-SA 2.0)

The place

High on a plateau near the Kalimantan border, around a thousand metres above the lowland heat, Bario is the heart of the Kelabit Highlands — a patchwork of rice paddies, buffalo pastures and villages that produces the famously fragrant Bario rice and impossibly sweet Bario pineapples.

The highlands are laced with trails linking Kelabit villages, ancient salt springs still worked by hand, and mysterious megaliths left by earlier generations. Cool air, slow days and legendary hospitality make Bario unlike anywhere else in Sarawak.

A traditional salt spring in the Kelabit Highlands
Photo: Pavel Kirillov (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Pa'Umor village among the highland paddies
Photo: Pavel Kirillov (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Highlights

  1. Bario rice paddies and the highlands' celebrated pineapples
  2. Village-to-village trekking with Kelabit guides
  3. Traditional salt springs and scattered megalithic sites
  4. The Pesta Nukenen (Bario Food & Cultural Festival), usually held mid-year

Getting there

Ways to reach Bario & the Kelabit Highlands, compared
HowFromTakesCosts
FlightMiriunder an hoursmall MASwings aircraft to Bario's airstrip; seats are limited so book ahead
DriveMirithe better part of a daylong, rough logging-road journey by 4WD

Most visitors fly: small MASwings aircraft connect Miri to Bario's airstrip in under an hour, and seats are limited so book ahead. The overland alternative is a long, rough logging-road journey by 4WD from Miri that can take the better part of a day.

Good to know

  • Nights are genuinely cool at altitude — pack a warm layer
  • Flights are small and weather-dependent; keep a buffer day in your plans
  • Cash only in the highlands — there are no ATMs in Bario

Where it is

Map of Sarawak showing the location of Bario & the Kelabit Highlands
Bario & the Kelabit Highlands3.740, 115.450OpenStreetMap ↗Google Maps ↗

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