10 Things You Need To Know Before Going To Bali

Last Updated: November 2 2020

Bali is an island located in Indonesia, although i’m sure all of you have heard of this tropical paradise. It is a place rich in culture, rich in places to see and activities to do. We absolutely love this place, and would recommend that anyone thinking of coming to Bali, just book the flight! As first timers to Bali ourselves we’ve definitely experienced some new things. That statement is an understatement haha. We wanted to list some things that we believe will be useful for anyone travelling to Bali. So here are 10 things to know before going to Bali!

1. Leaving the Airport 

Bali’s airport is called Ngurah Rai International Airport and is located just north of Jimbaran. We didn’t have any problems getting through the actual airport, it was pretty easy. However, when you get through the airport you will be swarmed by taxi drivers offering you a ‘good deal’. Don’t listen to them! The prices are such a rip off, and the drivers are aware that some people may not know about this. They may also rely on the fact that some people may be tired so they won’t bother to haggle the price. Make sure you do.

We downloaded the app My Bluebird before we got to Bali and it quoted us around 70,000 IDR (around £4) to get to our hotel in Jimbaran. The first taxi drivers who came up to us were offering 500,000 IDR (around£26). The second lot of taxi drivers were offering us 300,000 IDR (around £15). If you keep walking out the airport, there is a taxi stand just outside. They are said to offer far better prices. Or you can haggle the price down from the taxi drivers on the way out. We refused to pay more than 100,000 IDR, and eventually a taxi driver agreed to take us for this amount. They will say that the price you are asking for is impossible, but trust us when we say it isn’t and they will soon give you a better price when you go to walk out. Our key advice here is to check the price your taxi should cost, and be prepared to haggle for it. This is definitely one of the things to know before going to Bali!

2. Don’t be afraid to haggle 

While we are on the topic of haggling, don’t be afraid to do it! Jack is far better at this than me so he is always the one who haggles the price down. We have saved so much money by haggling down prices, whether it be a taxi or a piece of clothing from a local market stall. We wanted to buy two Sarongs and Jack managed to haggle the price down from 300,000 IDR (around £15) for two sarongs down to 80,000 IDR (around £4).

Don’t feel like you are ripping people off, the chances are they are getting you to pay far over the odds of the price they will sell it to you for. Usually if you go to walk away, they will offer you the price you are looking for. If they don’t, the chances are they believe it is too low of a price to sell to you. Although it is important to haggle, it is also important to not take advantage and insult people by offering them a ridiculously low price. Chances are you will already be paying a low price in your currency, so don’t take advantage of these markets. Make sure you give them a fair price.

3. Pavements are basically the same as roads

This was especially true in Kuta. The roads in Bali seem to be chaos, and there don’t seem to be any rules. We stayed on one of the busiest streets in Kuta where cars and scooters were always coming past. If cars were queuing, the people on scooters just decided to drive on the pavement instead. This is something to be wary of when walking around places in Bali, so be prepared to squeeze into a shop door.

On the subject on pavements, they are also a major problem in themselves, especially if you are planning to stay in Ubud. Half of Ubud is pavement, and the other half is basically big holes where the pavement should be. Just make sure you watch where you are walking. There has been so many times where we have tripped, nearly lost a flip flop or have merely missed falling into a hole full of water (P.S we have no idea what the water is, so best not to fall in it if you get what we mean). Also there seems to be a habit in some places to concrete over paths and leave no signs, therefore Jack stepped into wet cement in his flip flops. I shouldn’t have laughed but hey, of course I did haha! If you see some really nice shoes in the market, our advice is to buy them and wait till you are home to wear them!

4. Watch out for the monkeys

There are monkeys located in numerous areas around Bali, and although they may look cute they are evil. Okay they are cute and they aren’t really evil, but when one snatches your newly bought chocolate croissants out of your hand you gain a slightly different opinion. We stayed quite high up the monkey forest road in Ubud, and two still ended up next to our hotel pool.

We visited the monkey forest in Ubud and they have a tendency to jump on you and rummage through your pockets. Although we didn’t really have any bad experiences here with the monkeys, we have heard that people can. This isn’t to deter you from going, it is too prepare you well. It is mad enough seeing monkeys roaming around the streets when your from the UK. It is even weirder when you have them putting their hands in your pockets to try and get food. They also seem to have a thing for plastic bags, so make sure if you are buying from the supermarket or markets take a backpack with you to put the items in. Don’t walk past them with a plastic bag. Just make sure you listen to the signs that are located around the monkey forest. This includes not making eye contact, and not to antagonize the monkeys.

5. Check your change when coming out of shops

The first time we were short changed we figured the shop assistant had just got confused. Then it happened again, and again until we started to realise people weren’t making mistakes. We were short changed on a few occasions between 2,000 IDR – 20,000 IDR (around 10p – £1). This may not seem like much but it is more the principle of people doing it in the first place. We found this mainly happened in a chain store called the mini mart. We started going to other stores after this. Just be aware how much money you are giving, when you are paying for items and check your change before you leave.

6. Check reviews online when booking tours

There were so many times when we went to book tours or hire a driver, that we looked online at tripadvisor to see the reviews. This was the way we found our driver at Bali Driver and Tour Guide. The reason we picked these guys was because of the amazing reviews. Equally we wanted to book a boat to the Gilli islands, and got a good quote from a tour operator. This quote was a lot cheaper than all of the other prices. Due to this we wanted to check the reliability of the tour operator and boat that would be taking us. There wasn’t much at all on our tour operator and the reviews on the boat company weren’t positive at all. This just shows that the best price isn’t necessarily the best option, so shop around and it may be worth paying that bit more to get a reliable tour operator.

7. Imported items are a lot more expensive

We are really big foodies, and love our snacks anytime of the day. You can imagine our disappointment when we went to buy haribos and they were more expensive than a full meal in a local warung. Snacks such as pringles, haribos and other imported items are so expensive in comparison to everything else. We found we could get Nasi Goreng (Fried Rice) for anything ranging from 13,000 IDR to 30,000 IDR (around 70p – £1.50). Then we came to get snacks and popular brands were around 25,000 IDR (around £1.30) so that was a bust. However we did find that locally sourced snacks from Indonesia were much cheaper such as chocolate wafers 12,000 IDR (around 60p) and mango soleros were which only 5,000 IDR (around 30p). However if your looking for good crisps, you may be disappointed. They either seem to be weird flavours such as sweetcorn or sea weed, or they just taste really bad.

8. Always check the price of your taxi

There are so many different taxi companies in Bali ranging from bluebird, Uber, Grab and more. We tended to use bluebird wherever we could. This is because through research we found they tended to be the most reliable taxi service. By reading a lot of reports online, we saw that  some taxi companies in Bali tried to scam you for more money. This was by inventing up extra costs such as fuel and “entrance fees”.

We haven’t had this issue so far in our time in Bali and always found the taxi drivers we had to be reliable. Make sure when you get into a taxi that you ask for the meter to be turned on so they can’t charge you extra prices. If the taxi doesn’t have a meter make sure you negotiate a price with the driver before you set off. After you have negotiated, say the price again to make sure you are definitely getting the price you have agreed.

9. Try not to use companies such as Uber or Grab if possible

There is a bit of a disagreement going on in Bali at the minute between local taxi companies such as bluebird to bigger companies such as Uber and Grab. This is due to the fact that the bigger companies charge half the price of other companies. This is leading to local companies losing out on a lot of business. The locals have even started putting signs up around the towns saying no Grab or Uber allowed in the area.  For a 45 minute journey from Ubud to Sanur we negotiated a price of 210,000 IDR (around £10) using a local company. Although we may have been able to get it cheaper, this price was not expensive. In fact it is extremely cheap, especially when you come from an expensive country like the UK. For the local taxi drivers, it is there full time job and they need the money to feed their families. The wages there are very low as it is. For larger companies to slash the prices to put local drivers out of work is ridiculous.

10. Don’t eat at the beach if you are on a budget.

We treated ourselves to a few meals on the beach, and some of the local warungs a bit further down the beach have reasonable prices. However the main tourist parts of the beaches in Bali have a lot more expensive food prices. This is because there are a lot more people in these areas. Places to eat that are a few streets back from the beach, usually have food prices that are half the price. The meal portions are good and the fact you can save half the money is a major bonus.

Thank you so much for reading this post! We hope you find these tips helpful! These are just some of things to know before going to Bali. We would love to hear about some of your tips so please drop them in the comments below! If you want to find out how to travel Bali on a budget why not read our ‘Budget Travel in Bali’ post here.

Thanks,

Jack & Abbie

P.S. If you want to see any of the photos from our trip to Bali why not check our Instagram out where we post daily: https://www.instagram.com/acouplescalling/

We look forward to seeing you there 🙂