A Months Budget Travel Breakdown For Bali – It doesn’t Have To Be Expensive!
Last Updated: August 16 2019
Bali is a gorgeous part of Indonesia and is a must visit for any traveller! It can be such a cheap country to travel through which makes it popular with backpackers. It can also be very expensive depending how you spend your money. Budget travel in Bali is totally doable, and is really quite easy!
When travelling through Bali we stayed for 28 days and spent a total of £887 between us. That means we only spent £443.50 each during our 4 week stay. In this post we will breakdown all the costs, and talk about how to budget travel in Bali so that you can too!
How much did we spend?Â
What did we spend our money on?
Food:
Food can be as expensive or cheap as you would like it to be in Bali. Numerous factors affect the prices of food in Bali and these range from:
1. The type of food you are eating – Western food is always more expensive than local dishes so keep this in mind. Seafood can also leave a massive dent in anyone’s budget too so try and keep these dishes to a minimum!
2. Where you are staying – The more touristy parts of Bali, are always going to have more expensive options. Just bear this in mind if you are staying in the popular holiday destinations.
3. Where the restaurants are found – There are always different ways to find cheaper restaurants, even if you are staying in the popular tourist destinations! The cheapest options are usually Warungs which have a lot of local Indonesian food. Also if you are staying by the beach, try to stay away from the restaurants located at the front. They are usually the most expensive!
Transport:
Public transport in Bali is practically non existent! There is a shuttle bus called the Kura bus that runs through some towns in Bali. However we hardly ever saw it, so be prepared to fork out your money for taxis or hire a scooter.
For taxi’s the blue bird taxi app is your best bet. It is by far the most reliable and you will get your price upon booking your driver. This is the best option because there are then no hidden charges or haggling prices that need to be done. Also if there are no bluebird taxi’s available at least you will have a rough estimate of what you should be paying with other taxi drivers.
Accommodation:
The same is true with accommodation in Bali as it is with food. Accommodation in Bali ranges from luxury 5 star hotels to cheap home stays and hostels. As a couple we love to have our own privacy so always booked double rooms and we still managed to keep our costs low! One thing we will say is that make sure you check reviews thoroughly before you book accommodation. We stayed in Kuta twice because it isn’t too far from the airport, and didn’t have the most pleasant stay in either of the places we booked.
Activities:
There are so many activities to do in Bali so if you are on a budget it may be a good idea to prioritise which activities you would like to do. We paid for most of the temples we wanted to visit, fun activities such as hiring a surfboard and other tourist activities like the Monkey Forest in Ubud. One activity you must not miss is releasing baby sea turtles in Kuta! This is still one of our absolute favourite experiences to date.
They are so many tours and activities in Bali that you could easily spend away your budget in a few days! Check prices for different tours before making your decision, and make a list of the activities you do not want to miss on this gorgeous island! That way you can make sure you spend money on what you really want to do first, and then decide later on if there are more things you want to do.
Other expenses:
We bought a few souvenirs for our travels, and the other expenses were generally necessities such as sun cream, and toiletries. However, be careful of buying items such as sun cream in Bali. We ended up paying double the price for sun cream in Bali than we would do back home.
That sums up how much we spent during a 28 day stay in Bali as a couple, and what type of expenses we spent money on. Although we are pretty proud of keeping our budget that low, it is definitely possible to travel around Bali on a 4 week trip for less than we did! Here are ways that you could save even more money than us:
– We don’t know how to ride a scooter, so we often got taxi’s and hired a driver for the day. If you are comfortable riding a scooter here definitely do it because it will be much cheaper!
– Be wary of seafront restaurants: When we got to Bali, it was our first time visiting Indonesia so we had no idea how cheap it would be! Due to this we ended up paying £15 for a standard meal at one of the seafront restaurants in Jimbaran. If you’ve ever been to Indonesia you will know that £15 is a hefty price tag to pay!
– Make sure to haggle prices effectively! Bali was the first country where we had to haggle for items and although we aren’t too bad at it now we were very nervous at first! Generally you can get an item down to about 1/3 or 1/2 of the original price offered.
– Reduce the amount of imported goods and snacks you buy. Western snacks such as Pringles and Haribos are very expensive in comparison to other items on the island. You can get a full meal for the price of buying some of these snacks.
Thank you so much for reading this post! We hope this has given you some ideas on how to budget if you are planning a trip to Bali! If you want more information on Bali, read our “10 things you should know before you go to Bali” post.
In the future we will be doing a more in depth guide of Bali including where to stay, and which activities to do so keep an eye out for that one!
P.S If you want to see more of our travel tips, follow our Pinterest at:
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Thanks Jack & Abbie.
I’m one half of Acouplescalling. I'm passionate about all things travel and photography and I love sharing my experiences with others. I've seen a lot of the world already and I want to help as many people as I can do the same thing!
