How to homestay in Bali

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You must’ve seen those fancy ooh-aah villas of Bali on Instagram you’d love to stay in too, but they are quite expensive. If you are a nomad or otherwise traveling on a shoestring budget a homestay in Bali is a must-try!

What does a Balinese homestay mean

We’ve been to Bali three times and have spent two winters there during our nomadic life.
We stayed some nights in fancier hotels but mostly booked one month in one place. When I was telling other travelers about our affordable homestays, I was surprised by a response: – Nice, but I wouldn’t want to stay on someone’s couch.

Homestay isn’t couchsurfing. Homestay simply means staying in private, family-owned little hotels, villas or bungalows built in the same yard family is living. A family running the business usually lives in the same property but in different building.
You will get all the privacy of a hotel – basically, you will see the owners when they serve you breakfast or come to clean your room. Just like staying in a hotel.
Unless you like to hang out and chat with them. Though they are busy working, even if you are not.

Why to stay in private homes in Bali

For travelers, especially for full-time digital nomads, money is the number one reason to choose a homestay.
You will get a room with a private bathroom for 10-15 € a night or something like 300 € per month. Breakfast and cleaning are included as always in Bali.
This is what we paid even in crowded Ubud in winter high season.

Number two reason is something that is very important for me at least. As said, homestays are family-run businesses. Every rupiah you spend goes to a local family.

Surely it’s okay to choose a huge hotel chain, but in places like Bali feeding worldwide corporations makes living very hard for locals.
Bali is a tiny island and tourism brings a lot of money here. The downside is that lack of land raises property prices.
Huge corporations can afford to pay any price leaving locals without a land and business.

And it’s not only worldwide corporations building their business here.
We were watching construction work next door as our homestay owner walked to us and told us there would soon be a new fancy villa.

He looks up to the hill ”There is another piece of land for sale, just next door. You love it here, why don’t you buy it and stay?”
The price was more than a million euros. Uh, well…
Eat, pray, love.

The law is protecting locals, foreigners can’t own property, in theory. There is always a loophole when money is involved.

Our first winter escape in Ubud

Every dowshifting story begins in Bali, right? So did our nomad life.
Though we didn’t know it yet. We had just started our 6-month sabbatical and needed a total rest.
We had been to Bali and Ubud before and knew we’d love to stay for the whole winter.
Yet we didn’t know anything about our forthcoming home, but bravely booked it in advance for the whole month. Rest first, touring then.

Landing after a 27-hour long journey all I needed was a good sleep. Ismo already fell asleep in a taxi on the way from Denpasar Airport to Ubud.
The driver drops us almost there and waves us to continue the last couple of hundred meters forward.

We stand in front of the desk waiting for someone to welcome us. A young man search the computer saying they are fully booked.
I gasp and dig out a print of our reservation from my backpack.
The owner arrives and notices a mistake. Yes, they do have our booking completed.
We get our bungalow and a good sleep.

Why to stay here

*Cute quiet bungalow with its own terrace and a private bathroom. Well, quiet when there was no gamelan rehearsal next door.

If you are not yet familiar with this traditional music, you’ll soon be on the island of Bali.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s nice indeed and also on the UNESCO listing of Intangible Cultural Heritage.
If you can’t hear it to your bungalow, get tickets to some event to see and listen.

Wayan and his family prepared a typical Balinese breakfast every single morning and it was included in the price.
They also have a small swimming pool which isn’t typical in affordable accommodations.
Daily cleaning was also, of course, inclusive.

The only downside I can think of was a poor wifi connection that forced me to run my errands in bars and cafes.
Many digital nomads prefer to work that way anyway, but I love my solitude. If you are like me, check them if the connection is fixed. It did work but was often overloaded.

Maybe the best part was the location. We only had approximately one kilometer’s distance to the main street, restaurants, and our yoga studio.
That one kilometer also gave us enough distance from the bustling and sometimes overly crowded Ubud centre ville.

Only ten minutes by foot and you are back on your own terrace resting your eyes on the wild, trees, playing lizards, listening to the sounds of a small river flowing only a few meters away.
And maybe some gamelan.

News from Ubud

*This place is up and running after all these years and Wayan has welcomed a new baby to his family. This was the news I heard when I got a surprise email from him a while ago.

We paid approx 300 € a month here, but the price varies a lot depending on the season. You might catch a room for only 7 € a night if you are lucky!

*Book your stay here

Btw, Wayan doesn’t know I’m writing this post, but please tell his family warm greetings from us if you end up staying at his place!

Return to Bali

Ubud tempted us back the next winter.
Again we wanted to stay in one place for a whole month. Unfortunately, there was no room at Wayan’s place, so we decided to try something new.

We were a bit worried about booking accommodation only a few hundred meters away from the busy Jalan Raya, the main street of Ubud.

You could always find a place to stay for a few nights, but for a month booking in advance is mandatory. So that we again did.
At least we would be a stone throw’s away from our yoga studio Radiantly Alive.

Not a bad choice at all. Despite the proximity of the busiest street, our homestay was so quiet that you could hear a pin drop.
During the Nyepi, the silence was even deeper, but let’s come to that just a bit later.

This place was one of those hotel-like homestays. The family had their traditional style home in the yard and had built quite a big two-story building with rooms for guests to stay.

We had booked a room downstairs.
A few previous stays in the second, third, or upper floor room had convinced me that staying on the ground is the best.

Feel the connection

I don’t know about you, but the more I gain age I just love to feel a connection to the ground, however hippie that sounds.
The younger me would’ve felt grounded. I used to love skyscrapers and city vibes.
(I do live in a capital city with 1,3 million inhabitants, but even here I have a home on the ground level, but that again is a different story.)
But yes, I love walking barefoot and absolutely loved waking up in Bali to step outside to our terrace to have a lazy breakfast.

Bali vibes change your attitude. Even if you’re as busy with your (remote) work as you would be in a busy city, Bali calms your nerves.

I often felt ashamed sitting at my computer when I was carried tea, fruits, and omelets.
I felt like I wasn’t doing a proper job and others were hard working for me.
But no, I think Balinese people precisely know how stressed we Westerners are and have turned their wisdom into a business to help us.
They are not blaming us, though sometimes our lifestyle might slightly look like a forever holiday for them.

Of course it does.
They woke up hours ago to prepare that breakfast you barely give a glimpse at concentrating on your iPhone.
You crawl out of your room to sip a cup of tea and write a few sentences on your laptop.
But it is a dream to come true for us.

We are not the only ones to return

After a month-long stay, we were already about to leave.
It was actually mandatory to leave Bali as this time we had chosen to come to Indonesia with one one-month visa on arrival only.
We had come from Japan to have a rest and had already chosen to travel next to New Zealand.

But we were to return.

We were not the only ones.
Sipping our tea one sunny morning on our terrace we got a visitor.
There was a lady in our yard, widely smiling, looking around.
She had once stayed in our room for five months!
We invited her in to visit her previous home.

Hushilence of the Balinese New Year

If you are totally dependent on your devices, wifi, and social media, this isn’t your cup of tea.
But if you came to Bali to downshift and relax, Nyepi is the best New Year celebration you will ever experience.

After visiting New Zealand for the second time we again returned to the Indonesian island of Bali.
We had a *booking for the same homestay we’d lived a month ago.
The same room was waiting for us like we never left.

I think we even left some of our stuff in the luggage room, maybe winter coats we’d needed in Japan? Though I’m not sure.

We returned to Bali early enough to attend the Nyepi celebration.
The Balinese New Year is something to experience at least once in a lifetime.

We sat in our garden watching the stars.
In complete silence.
Total darkness.
Locked inside our yard.

Celebrating the best time of our life.
And it was not because of us being quiet Finns.
Believe me, I’m way more talkative than Southern Europeans or Northern Americans.

Silent night, holy night.
All is calm, all is bright.

During Nyepi, you are not allowed to go on the streets. Lights and the internet are turned off.
You are there only listening to your heartbeat and thoughts.
Good or bad.

Third time, second homestay in Ubud

We were lucky. The owner of our homestay turned out to be a chef.
He cooked us three meals on Nyepi day as we weren’t allowed to go out and shops and restaurants were closed anyway.

The best part here was the shared kitchen. We loved the food we were offered, but we also like to cook ourselves.
Just next room to us was a shared kitchen.
Gas stove, refrigerator, blender, simple pots and pans. Enough for minimalist me.
At least most days.
For some reason, our German neighbor had a habit of taking the only pan and knife to her room in the evenings. Once I cooked an omelette in a saucepan.
Whatever, but why? Should we lock our room to avoid a neighbor wandering with a cooking knife?

Watch this video to see our minimalistic homestay in Bali (unfortunately in Finnish):

When it was time for us to leave the family was standing at the gate waving
”See you next winter!”.

*Book your stay here

Note for long stays

If you are a digital nomad, meaning you want to work from Bali, you can not legally stay there with a tourist visa.
You do need to take care of a residence permit (ITAS/KITAS).
Bali, for us, has been a place to rest and relax between our work trips.
If you are planning to live in Bali and run a remote business, it’s a different story.
Do not try to stretch the law. You could end up being sentenced and/or deported from Indonesia.

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