I’ve always said ‘I hate Bali’. It’s time for a rethink

May 19, 2026 — 5:00am

If anyone asks, I say I “hate” Bali.

That’s an exaggeration. I don’t feel anything near that emotion when I think of the lush island to our north. My feelings are much more nuanced than that.

But I’ve fallen into the trap of viewing the island this way because my past couple of times there were less than wonderful, given the high expectations.

Poor beaches, terrible traffic, ugly tourist behaviour.

None of this is the fault of the Balinese people, who have a rich and intriguing culture that I have only viewed on the surface while hermetically sealed in my resort.

I’m acutely aware that I don’t know the whole story.

I admitted this to Melbourne woman Michelle Matthews, a frequent traveller to Indonesia. She and fellow Melburnian Fiona Brook have just launched Rasa Voya, a small-group tour company focusing on Indonesia, with an emphasis on design-led, culture-rich journeys, “jungle-to-table and beyond beaches”.

“If you hate Bali, you haven’t done it right,” Matthews says. Many people, especially Australians, don’t want to be told about Bali because they think they know it so well, she says.

“For 95 per cent of all tourists that visit Bali, it’s the fly-and-flop place. It is where they know, and it just stops occurring to them that they’re in another country, and there’s a lot that they could explore beyond that.”

Given how many millions of people go to Bali each year, and the rise of people living there doing remote work, most visitors are still concentrated in Kuta, Seminyak and increasingly Canggu. Some travel to Ubud, for its art market and Monkey Forest.

An hour talking to Matthews about only a fraction of what Bali has to offer has left me rethinking my inherent negativity towards it.

But places such as Tabanan, in the lush south-west – “which has got some beautiful resorts and lots of nature” – are not nearly as well known. Different microclimates and villages with varying traditions mean the small island has tremendous variety and quiet pockets.

“I think you could spend a lifetime discovering different aspects of Bali and Balinese culture, and then, you know, 100 lifetimes with the rest of Indonesia. There’s just that much in it,” she says.

Matthews doesn’t see Bali as a beach destination. “It’s popular for water sports and surfing, but the Thai beaches kind of leave it for dead.” What it does have is swimming pools, “the most incredible infinity pools”. And those pools have now expanded to day clubs, pool clubs and jungle clubs. She considers Bali to be “the Ibiza of the southern hemisphere”.

Bali also has a young population that percolates (literally) new ideas from around the world, such as the edgy little coffee shops that have morphed into resorts in the highland region of Kintamani. “It’s quite touristy with Javanese tourists. But still, it’s nice to be the only one of a few Westerners.”

Other areas worth investigating include Sidemen in the east. “It’s very lush and a little bit like Ubud. Most of the accommodation is kind of in a jungle setting, which is just beautiful. So, you’ve got the benefits of nature without necessarily having to contend with the crowds.”

Meanwhile, another way to dive more deeply into Bali’s culture is to time your visit when there’s a festival taking place, suggests Matthews. The Ubud Food Festival is in late May while the popular Writer’s Festival is in October.

Matthews and Brook plan to incorporate these and other, lesser known cultural festivals into Rasa Voya’s crafted journeys, such as the Nyepi, a Hindu Day of Silence, when the whole island shuts down for 24 hours, including the airport, and which is preceded by a fabulous parade of grotesque papier mache creatures called Ogoh-Ogoh the night before.

An hour talking to Matthews about only a fraction of what Bali has to offer has left me rethinking my inherent negativity towards it.

But what about all the traffic jams I hear about? Infrastructure has definitely lagged development, she says, but the current governor has been trying to increase the quality of the tourist experience on offer.

And what do the Balinese think about the hordes of tattooed, hair-braided, Bintang-drinking Aussies on their shores?

“I’ve tried to provoke them many times and said, ‘Come on, surely you don’t like us? Surely, the Australians are a bit hard to take?’ And they’re so genuine, I’ve never been able to get anything other than a positive response. They really understand that tourism is their industry, and it just accounts for so much and so much opportunity for them,” she says.