Living in Bali on a Budget: Week 2 (Ubud)
If you want to travel on a budget, living in Bali is a great place to go! Bali is affordable, fun, welcoming, and a great place for a cheap tropical vacation.
Our goal: $50 per day total, including transportation, accommodation, visas, and bills back home. For two people.
In every budget update I will add a prorated estimate of our bills back home (loans, phone plan, etc. which may vary slightly by month), to include in our $50/day travel budget. I am not including travel insurance -- this would add about $5.75 per day to our total.
- Days: 7
- Location(s): Ubud and Lovina, Bali, Indonesia
- Avg. spending per day: $34.18
- Splurges: transportation, yoga, beer
- Avg. spending per day incl. bills back home: $37.08
- Avg. spending per day overall in Asia: $41.10
One of Ubud's beautiful temples
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So where did all that money go?
- Conversion rate: 10,000 Indonesian rupiah (IDR) = US$0.75.
- Accommodation: $101.64
- We continued our stay at Taman Mesari Guest House (AirBnB code) which was lovely and very quickly felt like home. There's a video tour in our Bali Week 1 budget.
- On Thursday we moved into Riktiga Bali in Lovina. Wow!
- Best of all, there's a four-week discount of 38% off, so our nightly rate is very affordable.
- Transportation: $23.34
- This week, we took a shuttle bus from Ubud to Lovina for 310,000 IDR (155k per person).
Straight up through the mountains
Blurry shot, but nice composition eh? You can see the beach!
- There is a bit of a shuttle bus scam (more of an annoyance) whereby you will not actually be brought to your final destination...
- Instead, you are brought to a place where the shuttle bus company can try to hard sell you on tourist attractions (e.g. a day of diving) while you are sort of trapped there.
- In our case, they were very nice, and when we refused their final offer (which honestly did seem like a good deal), they just put us on motor taxis and brought us where we were supposed to go. They didn't charge for the final taxi ride.
- In other instances I've read about, they try and charge for the taxi, or they are aggressive about selling, and it can be very unpleasant. Just stand strong!
- Food and drinks: $97.13
- We continued eating jam, salt, raisins, oatmeal, and bananas for breakfast to save a bit of cash.
- Beer accounts for the extra spending... oops!
- Misc: $17.25
- The Ubud Monkey Forest was 50,000 per person but totally worth it!
Everything does yoga in Bali
- I splurged on Yoga at the Ubud Yoga House with a couple of visiting friends. It was certainly nice to relax out in the rice paddies!
- For 130,000, I don't think it was over 2x better than my 50,000 classes at Yoga Saraswati. However, this is because I concentrate a lot during yoga, so I barely notice the outside road noise.
The view from Ubud Yoga House. It was certainly pretty!
Budget saving tips:
- It seems tempting, but keep eating off the main roads. One of my best meals was up in the rice paddies at Joglo Organik -- it was not too expensive and also incredibly beautiful! Don't be tempted by "happy hour" signs as they often aren't that cheap if you compare them to the off-the-beaten-path destinations.
The view from one of Joglo Organik's tree house dining areas. Worth the walk!
- Private cars are nice and air conditioned, but we saved 200-300k ($15/$20 ish) by taking the shuttle. For three people it would have been only a little cheaper for the shuttle.
Curious about Bali? Find out more below:
- Bali overview
- The Essence of Bali
- Restaurant guide
- Fruit guide
- Lovina final thoughts
- Canggu final thoughts
- Ubud final thoughts
Remember, if you are traveling on a budget but you don't want to sacrifice a visit to a tropical paradise, Bali is perfect!
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