Bali For The Win

Here's Why Bali Is Winning


It’s been a while! For those who don't know us yet, we're Erik & Trista and we left our lives in America to reconnect and focus on learning new things - it's going well! Be sure to follow us or subscribe if you want to keep up on what we're doing.

After our last post, I got so wrapped up in my python education that I felt like Neo popping the red pill; fortunately, without all the goo and atrophy. I haven’t been this unaware of time since working doubles during the swine-flu epidemic!

Northern Thailand during rainy season was nice and quiet, but after that - a sunny island with coconuts and beaches is just what we needed. We decided to go to the next most basic digital nomad spot we could find - Canggu, Bali! I’ve read several articles lately hating on Bali for it’s overpopulation, crowded co-working spaces and rising cost of living. While all of these things are true, we thoroughly enjoyed our time in Bali for three main reasons:

Bali Is Super Basic.

We now have a system for determining our next place to live a while. About a month before we leave, we look at all of the places we want to explore, then check weather patterns and cost of living indexes. The winner is usually fairly obvious since weather and cost of living knock out about 80% of our options (Japan’s really expensive).


We picked Bali because I wanted to learn how to surf, Trista wanted a tan and we were both dying for some smoothie bowls. As with any new place, we got a 3-night AirBnB near the beach and spent the first 48 hours finding a place to rent more long-term.

We found a beautiful spot called ‘Arganta by Nerus’ which was ironically filled with Russian expats (‘Nerus’ translates to ’No Russians’ in Russian). It was a little further from the beach than we’d hoped, which actually forced us to explore a bit more than we’d originally anticipated.

'No Russians'


Since we mostly just stare at our screens during the week, we wrote down a list of places we wanted to visit on the weekends.

Weekends in Bali did not disappoint!

Boredom Is Nifty.

One of the nicest things about traveling is how few distractions you have. Sure, you can fill your time with Netflix if you want to, same as anywhere, but if you consciously decide to stop wasting time and focus on the things that really matter (physical, mental and spiritual growth) it’s amazing what you can accomplish! I turned off my daily ‘efficiency-schedule’ and we both deleted a bunch of apps we had no real need for. We cut down on caffeine and alcohol, started making more smoothies at home (brain food), started meditating again and only really used social media at pre-determined times.

These were all small changes, but when you add them all together, you’re left with a lot of time on your hands. It wasn’t long until the boredom set in.
The seldom discussed thing about boredom is that, if you don’t waste it, each time is a chance to make a conscious decision to progress at something. And each time you make a conscious decision towards progress, you flex your mental muscles and tilt the scales in their favor in the future.


Amidst all of our Bali adventures, in two months I was able to become proficient in a new coding language & start building my own automation tech - a valuable skill that I used to have to outsource.

Chess quickly became part of our morning routine.

Co-Working & Coffee Shops!

Being a digital nomad in Bali is easy, because there are tons of places to work from. Sure, the homestay's have wifi, but if you’re anything like us, you need some spirited conversation once in a while to keep things relevant and interesting.

First Co-Working Experience.


Ever since the ‘dingy basement full of junk’ days of Innovation Collective with Ryan and Nick, I’ve loved co-working spaces; and no co-working space is as widely publicized as Dojo Bali. Beautiful space, near the beach, smoothie bowls and a pool on-site… We showed up day one, got memberships and immediately started getting plugged in at events. In the first week, we went to three member’s outings, three different meetups and had a few lunch meetings by the pool. The cool thing about remote workers is ALL of them are actually DOING things. Not dreaming about things, not talking about things; DOING things. They HAVE to make money. Traveling isn't free.

Last Co-Working Experience.


We worked from a few coffee shops as well, our favorite of which was named 'Cinta' for the owner's dog. The owner's dog had just had a litter of puppies so, naturally, any and all patrons got to snuggle said puppies while they sipped their lattes and coconuts. It was a game-changer.

Cinta


Bali was pretty fantastic. We woke up early every day, ate some muesli or a smoothie bowl, went surfing or did yoga, survived the scooter ride to Dojo (barely), worked, split a wrap for lunch, worked some more and finished up our day watching the sunset on the beach. The routine was mostly the same, but the location, activities and people were tough to beat.

Thanks for reading!

Till next time,

Erik

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words.


Here's some of our favorites from our two months in Bali :)

A local 'Warung" (restaurant)

Aling Aling Waterfall

The edge of the world

Devil's Tears on Nusa Lembongan

Trista overlooking Uluwatu

Trista and I driving through the jungle near Ubud

Visiting a small temple that looks massive on other travel blogs :)

The smoothie bowls we lived on

Trista after a 4-handed massage

The sunset on Nusa Lembongan on our 8th anniversary

Visiting Monkey Forrest in Ubud
One distracting me while the other tried to pick my pocket

Trista surfing at Batu Bolong