What do you think the biggest expense is when travelling? It all depends on what kind of travel you intend to do.  For us, we are trying to stretch our budget to allow for longer travel without compromising the things we enjoy. 

We stay in budget-friendly hotels that are a low-ish price point but still have the luxuries of a pool, air conditioning and complimentary breakfast. When it comes to eating out, we tend to order just two meals and all share and if still hungry then we order more. Below you will find our detailed list and a breakdown of expenses for our 29 days; not leaving anything out.

All of these amounts are in Indonesian Rupiah (IDR) and Canadian dollar (CAD) currency:

Accommodation – 11,250,000 IDR ($1000.80 CAD)

Transportation – 8,480,000 IDR ($754.32 CAD) (not including flights)

• Private car – 5,507,000 IDR ($489.84 CAD)
• Speed boat (To get to and from Gili Trawangan island) – 2,973,000 IDR ($264.48 CAD)

Food, laundry, snacks, miscellaneous – 7,518,000 IDR ($668.80 CAD)

SIM card – 250,000 IDR ($22.24 CAD) (unlimited calling to 10 countries and 16G data)

Activities/waterfalls, temples, etc – 1,576,000 IDR ($140.21 CAD)

Diving – 950,000 IDR ($83.78 CAD)

Total: 30,046,000 IDR ($2672.92 CAD)

Transportation: This was a big expense for us. Getting around Bali for the four of us was mostly done by private car. There are some buses that go between towns but 4 tickets equals almost the same as a private driver, without the convenience of getting directly to your destination. A private driver not only takes you to your destination, but also gives you the convenience of being able to incorporate a sight-seeing day out of it too, making it a win win situation. Chandra-travelbali was amazing if you are looking for a great private driver. There is also the option of renting gas-powered scooters or getting a Gojek to make it more affordable. We were travelling with a large duffle and two backpacks, not to mention two kids as well so the scooter really wasn’t a viable option for us.

If you are wanting to go to any of the islands then you will need to take a speed boat or ferry.  We chose the speedboat option as it was way faster. We were warned to be cautious of which company we booked with as some were less safe than others. Also, we only needed to purchase two tickets for the boat as the girls were free because they were under 100 cm apparently.

Accommodation: There are tons of places to choose from when looking for a place to stay. From hotels to home stays, the price per night varies for everyones budget. We always choose a hotel with breakfast included, and a pool. With kids you always want a pool, even if you are staying right on the beach they will always want the pool too. Some of the apps we used to search for places were Agoda and Booking.com; both of which have comparable prices, but sometimes one comes in a bit cheaper and one seems to give a better upgrade. This also allowed us to book in advance and have a piece of mind as to where we were staying for the night. The two are affiliated with each other so it is best to check both. Agoda’s prices fluctuate daily, even hourly, and sometimes they have flash deals making things a super great deal, so be sure to keep checking back. We found even with same day bookings you could find quite inexpensive rates.

The places we stayed:

Kuta – Transera Kamini Legian Hotel, $20 per night

Ubud – Nick’s Hidden Cottages, $36 per night

Amed – Bali Dive Resort, $43 per night

Gili Trawangan – Gili Turtle Beach Resort, $25 per night

Gili Trawangan – Deja Vu Hotel, $26 per night

Sanur – Nesa Sanur Hotel, $39 per night

Sanur – Taman Agung Hotel, $41 per night

Food: It is pretty affordable so eating out doesn’t really break the bank. For us being budget travellers, in many other countries we tend to make our own breakfast and sometimes even lunch at our hotel and then eat dinner out. But we had quite the challenge trying to find anything in the local market in the way of staples our girls are familiar with like cheese, wraps and lunch meat. Those seemed nonexistent here. So breakfast was usually cereal with milk, but again finding cereal was sometimes even a challenge. With choosing a hotel that includes breakfast it alleviates the stress of trying to figure that step out. While you can find a wide variety of different foods in the restaurants here, the western food tends to be a lot pricier than the local food. We mostly stuck to the mee goreng or nasi goreng (fried noodles or rice), while sometimes incorporating pizza and the odd burger into the mix.

Drinking Water: You cannot drink the tap water here. We did start out brushing our teeth with the tap water but after one of the girls got sick (unsure if it was water-related or food-related) we chose to use bottled water for that too. Bottled water is inexpensive, and even more affordable when purchased in larger quantities. We would generally buy a 6 L of bottled water and then refill our reusable Hydroflasks. A gentle reminder that bottled water doesn’t have any chlorine in it so water bottles need to be washed out, with soap and water then rinsed with bottled water before filling, and every few days or so or it becomes a terrarium for bacteria (learned this one the hard way). We now bring along our SteriPen which we use after we wash them out and refill just to play it extra safe.

Activities: We saw lots of places, of which we will go into more detail in other blog posts, but most of these were realistically inexpensive and you could spend quite a bit of time taking them in, as in the good part of a day. Mt Batur was probably our most expensive tour, and even that we felt wasn’t too much when you factor in getting there and having a private guide etc.

Other expenses: Last but not least, these are the other expenses that need to be factored in but will differ depending on where you are coming from so I have left them separate from the actual amount we spent.

Visas upon entry (Canadian) – 500,000 IDR, approximately $45 per person

Flights – From Cairns, Queensland, Australia to Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia, $413 per person

At time of writing, the exchange rate was $1 CAD = 11,300 IDR

Please check out our upcoming blog posts for more in depth Bali with kids.