Travel Journal
Guides, tips and insider picks from people who live on the island.
Seminyak is Bali's most rewarding place to shop — if you know where to look. From Oberoi's curated boutiques to the back-lane artisans of Batu Belig, here's how to find the real thing and sidestep the tourist traps.
Menjangan Island offers some of the most dramatic wall diving in Southeast Asia — and most divers reach it through the quiet bay of Pemuteran. Here is everything you need to plan your underwater itinerary in northwest Bali.
Twenty minutes from Lovina, a series of carved stone pools fed by volcanic hot springs sits deep in a jungle garden — Banjar's Air Panas is one of north Bali's most atmospheric and least-crowded escapes. Here is everything you need to know before you go.
Sanur faces east across the Bali Strait — making it the only beach in southern Bali where the sun rises directly over open water. Here's how to time the perfect dawn walk along the promenade, where to stand, and where to find coffee before the rest of the island wakes up.
In Sidemen, weaving isn't a cultural exhibit — it's a household practice that has outlasted centuries of change. Pull up a chair beside a backstrap loom and you'll start to understand why.
Manta Point is where oceanic manta rays — some with wingspans exceeding four metres — gather to feed and be cleaned in the channel south of Nusa Penida. Whether you snorkel or dive, encountering these animals in open water is among the most affecting wildlife experiences in Southeast Asia.
Perched on a sheer 70-metre cliff above the Indian Ocean, Pura Luhur Uluwatu is one of Bali's six directional temples — a sacred site of immense spiritual weight that also happens to frame the most breathtaking sunset on the island. Add the hypnotic Kecak fire dance performed at the cliff's edge, and you have an evening that is simply unforgettable.
Canggu has built one of Southeast Asia's most distinctive café cultures — a blend of specialty roasters, rice field terraces, and laptop-friendly spaces that makes it the default address for anyone working remotely in Bali. This is the curated short-list, with no filler.
Seminyak invented the Bali beach club experience — and it's still doing it better than anywhere else on the island. A guide to choosing your club, timing your arrival and making a full day of it.
Pemuteran is home to one of the world's most successful coral restoration projects — a living, electric reef that has rewritten the rules of ocean recovery. Here's the full story of how a quiet fishing village became Bali's most important marine sanctuary.
Lovina's dolphin sunrise is unlike anything else in Bali — no crowds, no noise, just jukung boats on a glassy sea and wild spinners leaping at first light. Here's how to do it right, ethically and memorably.
Sanur is Bali's best-kept secret — a protected lagoon, a 4km seaside promenade, and sunrises over open water that no other beach on the island can offer. Here's why the unhurried side of Bali deserves far more credit.
