My little guide to Bali after spending two weeks in beautiful paradise.
In November I traveled to Bali with my boyfriend and it was one of the most incredible experiences I've ever had. I've been asked a ton about what my favorite parts were and food recommendations so I decided to just create a full post to share my experience.
Two weeks doesn't sound like much but we did A TON while we were there and changed locations almost every 2-3 days, so I won't be including every little detail but I will share all of my favorite parts. If you have further questions, feel free to reach out! .
Our trip began in Seminyak
We stayed at Bali Ayu where we had our own villa with a private pool. Although you can stay in Bali for around $20 a night some places, we thought $65 a night was well worth it for this charming place. We even came back here to stay an extra night at the end of our trip before we had to head home. We also loved it because it was so close to everywhere we wanted to go, which included all of the yummy restaurants and bars we enjoyed during our time here. Seminyak was definitely our favorite as far as food goes. It's known for being more of the party city but we didn't partake in much of that and still enjoyed ourselves.
One of my favorite parts of the whole trip was visiting Gili Trawangan.
Gili Trawangan is a tiny island off the coast of Bali that is often referred to as "Gili T." The beaches here were absolutely stunning and the whole atmosphere was so different. There are no cars allowed on this island, they use horse carts and bikes for all transportation. As soon as we got dropped off we soon realized our hotel, Ombak Sunset, was on the opposite side of the island(which isn't too far considering you can ride around the whole thing in about an hour on a bike.) So we grabbed a cart and they took us on our way. We rented bikes and took them everywhere we went, most places were only about a 10 minute ride from where we were staying.
Our favorite restaurant while we were here was Scallywags which had great food and the most amazing view. There is live music at many of the venues along the main drag in Gili T which makes dining and walking along the beach a blast.
This little guy is who we were greeted by when we got off of the boat! The Cutest transportation I've ever seen!
My favorite experience while we were here was our snorkel excursion where we got to swim with the turtles! On top of that we made a stop by a really cool underwater sculpture of human figurines that was placed there to help marine life and will eventually be a home to a coral reef.
My next favorite spot would hands down be Ubud.
I've dreamed of playing with elephants my entire life so naturally my favorite stop in Ubud was The Elephant Park where we got to play with and bathe the elephants. I chose to skip the ride on the elephant as I don't agree with it, but that is completely a personal choice. I did however sit on one in while it was playing in the water without any kind of harness or anything on and the elephant was allowed to roam free.
Monkey See, Monkey do.
Ubud is well known for The Sacred Monkey Forest. This is an upclose and personal experience where you get to interact with monkeys that roam free. I thought this was amazing because you truly get to play with them freely. They are not trained monkeys or another poor animal behind a glass window like at a zoo. When you first arrive you will definitely want to purchase some bananas as this is how you will get to have the best experience with the monkeys(if you want them to come close.) And by close I mean the monkeys will be crawling all over you as soon as you whip those things out so it's best to hide the bananas in your bag until you're ready to feed them. This is a great stop for a hilarious photo op, we learned quickly that the photos don't turn out as cute as you would have liked them to. Remember they are wild animals so there is a potential that they could bite, so be careful and treat them with respect.
The next stop on my list in Ubud is Zen Hideaway
Zen Hideaway is an AIRBNB famously known for its "Bali Swing." We were luck enough to be able to book this place for 2 nights and it was an incredible experience. The swing alone is what drew us to this location but the jungle "treehouse" ended up behind the coolest place we stayed our entire trip. This is literally an outdoor home which was incredibly beautiful, but we did have to share it with a few bugs, which was worth it because we had the most amazing view. I also included one of the photos from the Airbnb listing because I got so busy taking in all of the beauty that I didn't get enough photos of the house itself.
Tegallalang Rice Terrace
The Tegallalang Rice Terrace looked like a scene from a movie, it was so luscious and green and it seemed like it went on forever. These are also fully working rice fields, which was awesome because we ran into some friendly caretakers of the fields. Who actually went on to ask for a tip right after we snapped this photo of them.
The Tegenungan Waterfall(a pretty easy drive from the heart of Ubud)
The Tegenungan Waterfall was so beautiful and green, I'm so happy we were able to see it. I took my photo next to a little baby waterfall right next to it because the main waterfall does tend to get a crowded and it drives me a little crazy when there are a bunch of people in the background of your photo. So this was the best shot I could get as far as those standards go.
The Puri Gangga Resort
The Puri Gangga Resort is where we stayed on our last leg of our Ubud adventures. We had the most incredible floating breakfast, which was definitely a first for us! Can you believe it only costed about $25 for two people to eat, including fresh squeezed guava juice and coffee.
A more hidden gem of Bali is Uluwatu
Oh Uluwatu you are so beautiful. This is such a cool little surf town, which was a lot more mellow and relaxing. The beach was super cool, you can only get to it when the tide is low because you have to crawl through a little cave to get to it which is sometimes filled with water. Although the food was nothing compared to Seminyak it was a lot more peaceful. We enjoyed quite a few Bintang here which is the local beer. We actually enjoyed more Bintang on this trip than I would like to admit.
NOW FOR THE BEST PART...THE FOOD(& DRINKS)
First I want to highlight our absolute favorite place. This bar and restaurant was called KILNand was right in the heart of Seminyak. We loved this place so much we came back about 4 times during our 2 weeks in Bali.. despite the endless amounts of delicious places to eat. The food was phenomenal and we loved the ambiance as well. Our favorite food items were the Roasted Cauliflower, Wagyu Rump skewers, and the chicken dip(I believe it was called naughty chicken.) Everything we tried we enjoyed there. The drinks are also very impressive. We started by ordering a couple of their craft cocktails on the menu and after that we let the bartender make whatever he wanted and he slayed it every time! If you're ever in Seminyak this is definitely a must on food stops!
Bali has a never-ending amount of killer food spots, especially in Seminyak! Some of our other favorites were Sisterfields Cafe in Seminyak for breakfast, Revolver in Seminyak also for breakfast(will get to their coffee in a minute), Three Monkeys in Ubud, many delicious local Warungs, and lastly the best dessert goes to Tukies in Ubud for their to die for coconut ice cream. We also loved that you could get fresh coconuts almost everywhere you went!
LET'S TALK COFFEE.
Revolver was our favorite, hands down.
Revolver was another repeat stop for us during our stay in Seminyak. Once we had their lattes we couldn't help but want to go back almost every single day! Not to mention their breakfast was heavenly as well. They have avocado toast down to a science. Their bottled cold brews are perfect for the road(especially since we were there during the most hot and humid time of the year.) We loved this place so much we stocked up on some bags of coffee to bring home and one of their super rad t-shirts from the shop upstairs!
To be honest, we had pretty great coffee everywhere we went. Sisterfields was another favorite stop for lattes in Seminyak. We also had the pleasure of trying Luwak Coffee, or as we liked to call it "poop coffee." You may have heard of this coffee before when being referred to as "the most expensive coffee in the world." Basically these little animals called civet cats digest the coffee beans and the feces collected are turned into drinkable coffee. Sounds gross, I know, but it really wasn't bad at all. I must say it might have been the strongest coffee I've ever tried, but it was pretty cool to see the whole process. They also had all kinds of delicious teas that came with the sample platter and that were available for purchase.
