What we spent: Bali

Bali clocked in at just $190 a day, despite the fact that we did fancy-pants things — like eat avocado toast in trendy restaurants and take taxis absurdly short distances — nearly every day. In fact, Brian and I are seriously worried that our life of leisure and luxury in Bali has ruined us, maybe permanently. (Does that happen? Asking for a friend.)

Like elsewhere, a wide range of spending is possible in Bali. For example, we easily could have kept our housing costs lower by staying in non-air conditioned homestays, some of which were as cheap as $12 per night. Alternately, palatial luxury villas can run as much as $1000 a night. (But really, how much space do four people and four backpacks require?)

Similarly, food in Bali can be had for very little money, especially if you’re vegetarian. Our favorite local warung in Uluwatu charged about $1.50 for a very tasty nasi campur lunch. But if you want imported or Western foods — especially dairy products — that is considerably more expensive. A quart of plain yogurt from the grocery store cost more than $6. Canned beans were bizarrely pricey, several bucks a can. And I saw 200 grams of Irish butter at the gourmet market selling for about $15.

But where Bali really excels — obviously — is the category of having fun outside. Having fun outside in Bali is free or nearly so and simultaneously, well, priceless. Most beaches are free to enter and beach parking ranged from free to an exorbitant $1.50 (and that over priced parking lot was punished with a unanimous one star rating on Google). Surfboard rental for the day was $7. We paid $4 to hike down to the Tukad Cepung Waterfall, pictured above. It did cost us a few bucks to enter the geopark area around Lake Batur and our guide for a half day volcano hike was a reasonable $50.

Unfortunately, getting to Bali is pretty expensive, even from points more local than California. We paid $746 to fly from Chiang Mai to Denpasar; flights from Denpasar to Sydney ran $1249. This is especially unfortunate because we are definitely hoping to return to Bali someday. The day before we left, Brian and I stood waist deep in the Indian Ocean at Padang Padang Beach and mourned our upcoming departure. Well, Brian said. We’ll come back.

I really hope we do.

What we spent: Bali

Downtime and relaxation

Doi and Doi-er