12 Days in Bali: Where I’d Go Back and What I’d Skip

There is a photograph from this trip that will never see the internet. In it, four members of my family are wedged onto a single horse-drawn cart, along with four suitcases, and two backpacks. The horse, a small animal who had clearly seen some things, was giving it everything he had. The driver had a mild look of panic that he was trying to smile through. I was doing that laugh you do when you want everyone to believe the situation is fine, while silently working out whether I could get down and walk.

So here is my first piece of Bali advice, free of charge. You can technically fit two adults, two kids and a small mountain of luggage onto one cart. Don’t. Get two. The extra cost is minimal, and the horse will thank you.

Right. Bali.

A few years ago my husband and I spent twelve days there with our two boys, trekking between the mainland and two smaller islands. What an adventure! I came home with a list of places I’d return to tomorrow and a couple I’d happily never see again. I also have some insights that the brochures seem to have skipped over.

Going in March, and the day the island switches itself off

March sounds like an odd choice, I know. The boys had two weeks off for March break and we wanted to take advantage of a proper chunk of time to have a little adventure; and it turned out to be a good call. It’s still low season, so you’re not fighting crowds or paying peak prices, and the weather holds up well enough (the odd downpour, nothing that wrote off a day).

What we didn’t plan for was Nyepi.

Nyepi is the Balinese Day of Silence, the Hindu new year, and it usually lands in March. When I say the island shuts down, I mean the island shuts down. No flights in or out. No electricity. No internet. Nobody leaves their accommodation for a full twenty-four hours, tourists included.

It was one of the strangest days of my life. The quiet was so total it stopped feeling peaceful and started feeling almost eerie. It was also, in hindsight, extraordinary, and I’m kinda glad we were there for it.

If you can plan around it, I would, particularly with kids. If you can’t, it isn’t a disaster. Charge everything, bring a book, and buy more snacks than you think you need.

The flight is its own leg of the trip

Getting to Bali from Toronto is not quick. With four of us we were looking at roughly a day and a half of travel each way, which is why the flight has earned its own section rather than a passing mention.

We flew EVA Air for the first time, connecting through Taipei, and I have no complaints. Good service, decent food (there’s a low bar for airplane food, admittedly, but they cleared it comfortably), and a modern, genuinely comfortable aircraft. I’d fly them again without hesitating.

With four seats to buy, business class was not happening, and frankly it’s wasted on children in my opinion. I’d rather put that money into the actual trip, which is to say nicer hotels, good food, and the sort of activities you remember. If you’re taller than average though, which I am not, fifteen-plus hours in standard economy sounds like punishment.

We compromised and upgraded to premium economy, which came in at around $200 CAD extra per person. Worth. Every. Cent. Real legroom, a meaningful recline, and a padded footrest that in all turned the seat into a stripped-down La-Z-Boy at 35,000 feet. All four of us slept. On a long-haul flight with kids, that is close to a miracle.

One more thing. You probably won’t find a direct flight to Bali from wherever you’re starting, so lean into the layover rather than just enduring it. I booked our return flights so that we had a full twenty-four hours in Taipei on the way home. We booked a hotel, slept properly, and spent the next day touring the city. It turned out to be one of my favourite surprises of the whole trip. It was my first time anywhere in Asia, and a very good excuse to show the boys a second country and culture.

Money, security and the traffic situation

Bali is not the bargain it apparently was twenty years ago. Your dollar does go further than it would in, say, Paris or Hong Kong, but don’t expect to be living on $20 a day. The island runs on tourism, and everyone from the hotel front desk to the horse-cart drivers knows precisely what a foreign visitor is worth.

Negotiate on everything. The exceptions are restaurants, grocery stores and anywhere charging a set admission, so the zoo, the monkey sanctuary, that sort of thing. Everywhere else, haggling is expected. Nobody is offended. Do not do the polite Canadian thing where you pay the first number out of sheer social discomfort.

The heightened security surprised me more than the prices did. Most hotels and beach clubs in the tourist areas run real checks: guards sweeping the underside of your car with mirrors, drivers questioned, bags searched. It’s a legacy from a series of fatal bombings that occurred in the early 2000’s. Once you understand why it’s there, it stops feeling unsettling and starts feeling like a place that takes its visitors seriously. I never felt unsafe anywhere we went, not once.

Where we stayed in Bali

Before I get into it, one piece of planning advice I’d give anyone. Don’t nail down every single night before you go. I understand the temptation, because I feel it too, and there is a specific smugness that comes from a fully booked itinerary and a colour-coded document nobody else will ever read. Resist it. Book the first few nights so you know you’ve got a place to land, and get your bearings. Then explore a bit, and get a feel for it. I guarantee you’ll arrive somewhere you thought was a one-night stopover, and find you want four. Someone at breakfast will tell you about a beach two hours away that isn’t in any of the guides. Your driver will mention, casually, that the ferry to somewhere better runs every two hours. If every bed is already paid for, the answer to all of that is no, and no is a very boring thing to bring home from a holiday. Bali isn’t one place. It’s a collection of very different towns and islands, and where you base yourself changes the shape of the whole trip. Here’s my rundown of the places we visited.

Kuta: skip it

We stayed at the AlamKulKul Boutique Resort, which was fine. The common areas were nicely kept with lots of green, lush vegetation. Our room was a bit dark and slightly musty on arrival; I don’t think anyone had stayed in it for a while. A few other rooms we glimpsed looked considerably nicer (a little hotel voyeurism never hurt anyone). The breakfast buffet earned its keep, though: fresh fruit, eggs cooked to order, and baked goods that had clearly been made that morning. It’s walkable to shopping and plenty of restaurants, so it’s no hardship if you end up there. I just wouldn’t go back.

Ubud: I’d go back

We stayed in an Airbnb in the middle of nowhere (finding it was it’s own adventure!), and it was one of the best calls of the trip. Our own sprawling estate with a private infinity pool, quiet and peaceful, and surprisingly inexpensive for what we got. You can also hire a local woman to cook homemade meals, for cheap, and the food is every bit as good as a restaurant. Ubud works beautifully as a base for day trips to waterfalls, the zoo and the monkey sanctuary, or as a wellness/yoga retreat, if you’re into that.

Nusa Ceningan: I’d go back

The smallest of three islands off the south/eastern coast. Slower and more laid-back than the mainland, though getting there is a bit of a production: a forty-five minute ferry to neighbouring Nusa Lembongan, then a smaller boat (which you will get wet on), then a walk across a long bridge.

Service across the island runs slowly, so build that into your expectations. The Blue Lagoon and Secret Beach are both close by and well worth the walk (note: the island is tiny and you can walk it in ~4 hours). Mahana Point is a great stop for a cold drink while you watch surfers, and the occasional lunatic launch themselves off the cliff into deep water (not me, thank you, I like my organs where they are). If you plan to swim anywhere on Ceningan, ask a local first. Some of those beaches have serious currents.

Gili Trawangan: my favourite island

A quick clarification, Gili T isn’t technically part of Bali. It belongs to Lombok, a neighbouring island and its own province, though still very much Indonesia.

We booked two nights and extended to four within about an hour of arriving; we immediately fell in love with the island. One of the most charming things about the island is that there are no motorised vehicles permitted. You get around by walking, bicycle or horse-drawn cart; which brings us neatly back to where this post started! Fun fact: there are no dogs on the island, but I dare say the number of stray cats and free-roaming cows more than makes up for it.

Our hotel accommodation was perfect.  It had a walled garden enclosure, two cottages joined by a covered outdoor seating area, with a private pool, all for a very reasonable price. If I went back though, I’d stay at Pondok Santi Estate instead.

Sanur: spectacular

We finished the trip here with two nights in a two-bedroom villa at what was then a Fairmont, and has since been rebranded as the InterContinental Bali Sanur Resort. It is a beachfront property, with the pools and restaurants all facing the water. Gorgeous property, excellent service, and walking distance to more restaurants and shops than you could work through in a week.

The hotel spa is beautiful and priced as though you never left North America, so I’d skip it. Walk five minutes down the beachwalk to The Nest Beachside Spa instead. All four of us had the best massages of our lives there for roughly $25 CAD each. I also had an excellent pedicure service. My husband and I enjoyed the experience so much that we went back for another massage before flying home.

Eat and drink like you mean it

While in Bali, you have to try Nasi Goreng. It’s fragrant, mildly spiced fried rice topped with a crispy sunny-side-up egg, and typically served with slices of cucumber, tomato and sambal. It’s satisfying, kind to anyone with a bout of ‘traveller’s stomach’, and is very hard to get wrong; which makes it a safe bet almost anywhere.

Don’t skip the warungs either. These are small, local restaurants (the Balinese equivalent of a pub). Plenty of them look like a hole in the wall from the street, but they often produce some of the best food you’ll eat all trip. Several of our favourite meals cost next to nothing, at places I wouldn’t have looked at twice anywhere else.

And you need to try a Bintang. It’s the beer of Bali, and you’ll find it on every bar menu and at every corner store. The radler version is the ultimate refreshment on a hot afternoon.

The small things that made the trip

Hire a private driver

This is the piece of advice I’d underline twice, especially after everything I said about the traffic. Ours was Dewa Adiwisma of July Seven Tour & Travel. Recommended by a friend, I’ve since sent several other people his way, who all came back thrilled. He drove us for our entire time on mainland Bali, knew everything from ferry schedules to which beach to hit for sunset, and walked into the arrivals terminal himself to collect us so we didn’t have to navigate the airport chaos. He’s also a yoga instructor if that’s of interest, and he’ll provide currency exchange at a very competitive rate. You can also find him on Instagram or Facebook. I can’t recommend him highly enough.

Do the sunset properly, at least once

Beach clubs are an institution in Bali, and there are plenty of shortlists of the best ones. There was really only one choice: Finn’s Beach Club (iykyk!), and we gave it a full afternoon and evening. The people-watching alone was worth the entry fee, and then the sunset delivered exactly the show we’d turned up for. I’d repeat that afternoon tomorrow. Wherever you end up in Bali, make sure you are facing west for the best sunsets of your life.

Get a massage, then get another one

Find a local spa, or ask your hotel to refer a therapist who’ll come to you rather than booking at the hotel spa itself. It’s a fraction of the price and, honestly, more thorough. They get right up on the table with you, personal space be damned, and you will not care one bit.

Nobody told me about the toilets!

One more thing about our short visit to Taipei, and I need you to stay with me here, because it’s the toilets.

I did not expect the standout memory of a major Asian city to be its sanitary ware. And yet. Every public toilet we walked into, the airport, the shopping centres, the train station, the restaurants, I was met by a heated seat with a bidet, adjustable water pressure, a control panel of genuine complexity, and a warm blow-dry. Not a novelty. Not a luxury installation in a fancy hotel. Standard. Just what a toilet is, apparently, when a society sits down and decides to take the matter seriously.

I have never felt so let down by my own country.

We came home to Canada, where the standard public toilet is a cold ceramic bowl and a dispenser of paper you could sand a deck with, and I lasted roughly two days before I found myself at midnight, laptop open, deep into a comparison of washlet models and reading a forum thread about whether you need a dedicated electrical outlet behind the toilet (spoiler: you do, which is the bit that has stopped me). I still haven’t bought one. I think about it often, usually at the worst possible moment.

What nobody puts in the brochure

Bali is stunning in places and, bluntly, covered in trash in others; on land and in the water. The busy tourist areas are kept up reasonably well, but drive through a town where regular people live day to day, and the litter is everywhere.

Frankly, it caught us off guard. Some of it comes from tourists, obviously. When we asked our driver about it, he was candid that a fair amount actually comes from locals, and that in some communities there’s a general lack of respect for the land. It made me sad to see somewhere so beautiful treated that way. I still think about it. It didn’t ruin the trip, it was just unexpected.

Why Sri Lanka is already on my list

I feel like there’s been a lot of chatter about Sri Lanka as of late. I haven’t been to Sri Lanka, so I can’t tell you what it’s like on the ground. However, I’ve done enough reading to have a working theory, and it’s one I keep hearing from people who’ve been there: Sri Lanka feels a lot like Bali did before it got so built up and expensive.

From what I’ve read and heard; quieter beaches, far less traffic, fewer scooters clogging every road, and prices that haven’t caught up to Bali’s, are all comments that come up repeatedly. Several sources also make the same point about Sri Lanka’s beaches and coastal waters being noticeably cleaner. I can’t confirm that firsthand, but after what we saw in parts of Bali, that’s a detail that stuck.

None of which makes Sri Lanka better than Bali. Just different, in the specific ways that appeal to me right now. It’s definitely on the list!

Tell me, have you been to Bali, or to Sri Lanka? Any advice on what I should plan for before I go, because I am absolutely taking recommendations.

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