Bali
Alone

SAMPLE

An Island That Is Several Islands

The word “Bali” gets used as though it names one place. It does not. Say Bali and someone pictures a rice terrace at dawn, someone else pictures a beach club with a DJ and a pool the size of a parking lot, and a third person pictures a woman on a yoga mat with her arms in the air at sunset. All three exist, sometimes within twenty minutes of each other, and none of them is the whole island. The recommendations here lean deliberately toward Ubud and the rice terraces that surround it, toward the quieter east coast around Amed and Sidemen, and toward the cooler hill country around the northern lakes. The south’s beach strip (Kuta, Legian, Seminyak, and Canggu) gets a short section on what it offers and what it costs in traffic, so you can decide whether it earns a night or two. If a beach club and a cocktail are what you want, that is a fair choice and the south is where they live. This book leans toward the reader who wants temples, terraces, art, and quiet coastline.

A free excerpt from Bali Alone.