8 Alternative Places To Visit • Indie Traveller

My first experience of Bali 15 years ago was a copybook trip, following the hordes to Kuta beach and the bus tour crowds to the cultural heartland of Ubud.

While enjoyable, it left me a little underwhelmed, wanting more of the real Bali, beyond the tourist traps and street hawkers. It took me a couple more visits (before decamping semi-permanently on the Island of the Gods) to discover a very different Bali, blissfully free of the masses.

The south coast beach resorts are ground zero for mass tourism but that leaves a big wide open space for the rest of us to explore chilled-out, under the radar beaches, idyllic rural landscapes and have real cultural encounters.

The reality is you can have a stretch of fine white sand all to yourself and scamper through rainforests and rice paddy fields without encountering another western face all day long. Just check out these options for real Bali escapism.

The Great Lakes of Bedugal

The winding road dissecting Bali’s north central…