After our 7 day stay in Amed, we contemplated our options on how to get to the Gili's. Lonely planet said we had to drive to Padangbai, take a lousy 5 boatride then take another smaller boat to the Gili's. Luckily we asked around what our options were and we found out we could take a 3 hr boat ride from Amed directly to Gili Trawangan for 800,000 rupiah (about $82). Luckily, a German I went diving with also wanted to head to the Gili's so we split the cost 3 ways. It worked out well and saved us LOTS of time!