Popular Topics

Trip Report

My Bali Honeymoon Itinerary

21 day dream honeymoon in Bali for 40 something newlyweds. In this itinerary you will find the best things to do on honeymoon in Bali.

  • On the dock waiting for the fast ferry to Gili T. Note the high end sunglasses I bought from a street vendor before we got on the boat.+ 1
  • The bride observing the Monkey Forest in Ubud
  • Us with Gede the best guide ever. Find him on facebook in Ubud!
  • My Bali Honeymoon Itinerary
charles1
About Me:I travel solo and with my wife and occasionally under duress with my children. read more

AsiaUnited Arab Emirates, Indonesia19 days / January 2016

Highs & Lows

Avoiding the crowds on the sunrise mountain hike and doing it in the middle of the day all by ourselves instead.

Trying not to laugh when the bride fell in a rice paddy on the mountain bike day trip.

Itinerary Overview

  • 1 Night: Dubai
    Transit to Bali with an overnight to cut down the length of the flights
  • 3 Nights: Seminyak Beach
    Close to the airport with some lux and some beach time to get used to the time change and chill before really exploring Bali.
  • 7 Nights: Ubud
    Temples and hiking around
  • 7 Nights: Gili Trawangan
    Solitude in our own hut with some luxury on the beach.
  • 1 Night: Lombok
    Surfing on a day trip
Dubai - Transit to Bali with an overnight to cut down the length of the flights
1

Dubai Transit to Bali with an overnight to cut down the length of the flights

The bride wanted a big deal far away honeymoon... the groom really didn't want to take that long of an international flight. The solution: book a connection in Dubai and stay overnight at the Dubai International Hotel. It's inside the terminal and you can check in easily at any time of the day or night without clearing customs in Dubai. Perfect room and a perfect stop on the way onward to Bali. Protip: stop at Duty Free for a bottle of Tullamore Dew Irish Whiskey and find the ice machine for low cost room service drinks. Groom has a hard time complaining about the long flight with a drink in his hand. 

Seminyak Beach - Close to the airport with some lux and some beach time to get used to the time change and chill before really exploring Bali.
2

Seminyak Beach Close to the airport with some lux and some beach time to get used to the time change and chill before really exploring Bali.

Seminyak - where we stayed first to get bigger city/high lux beach experience around new years eve. We stayed at a nice boutique hotel about 15 minutes walk from the beach. It was good and great service, but if you can swing it, I'd stay on the beach. The tourist scene was pretty thick. We went to the W for new years eve party which was pretty swank, but not all that. Beach was nice. The Amala, Seminyak (http://www.theamala.com/) service was great, nicest room we had in Bali (private in room pool, 2nd floor AC bedroom), they brought a yoga instructor in for us which was cool, but location was a 15 minute crowded hot walk to beach.

Ubud - Temples and hiking around
3

Ubud Temples and hiking around

Ubud - we stayed right in the middle of town, I'd do the same. We could walk to the monkey forest easily and to many good restaurants and to one of two yoga studios. We stayed here which was pretty posh: http://monkeyforest.komaneka.com/. Niceroom, private little deck over looking a rice paddy. We saw a ton of maybe more posh places that were outside of the main drag, I'd stay right in town though rather than at a place outside and on a rice paddy. Right in town was still relaxing and would be a good home base. Later we stayed at the Okawati Hotel in Ubud which was a little more backpacker low rent, nice, but not really that nice.

Highlight of our trip was somehow hiring a great english speaking guide named Gede when we were in Ubud. He has his own business and a facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/gede.sudianta You can reach out to him by facebook if you go, tell him we referred you from Atlas Guru. We hired him to take us on a mountain bike trip which was cool, but much better was the volcano trip and hike he took us on. 

All over you'll see signs for a "sunrise hike" to a volcano. Don't do this, it's super crowded to do it very early just to see the sunrise. You can end up walking up a steep volcano surrounded by out of shape tourists in the dark and sitting with like 120 other people to see the sun rise over another volcano. Instead of getting up at 4 to do this like all the other tourists, we instead got Gede to get us at our hotel at 9. We had a nice drive to the volcano just the two of us and Gede and he filled us in on a bunch of stuff. We ended up walking up the volcano as the stragglers from the bigger sunrise trip were coming down. When we got up there at like 11:30 we had the summit completely to ourselves. We took some awesome pictures that are on my facebook and had a tea at the tiny shop at the summit staffed by this little crazy-old dude. We then walked down the back side and back to car and didn't see a soul. 

Do this! It was cool. Gede then took us to lunch at his mom's house which was rural and cool and then we got back to Ubud. You could do an awesome run here. Really amazing views by the volcano. Gede can also take you to temples etc and even set up an overnight camp on the volcano if you want which we didn't do, but maybe should have.

7 nights total in Ubud, but two of them were on the way back from Gili T before we left for home.

Gili Trawangan - Solitude in our own hut with some luxury on the beach.
4

Gili Trawangan Solitude in our own hut with some luxury on the beach.

Gili T - We booked a fastboat ticket to this island near Lombok which was very cool. No cars at all. Donkey cart taxis. We stayed here which was nice and you could snorkle right from the hotel over coral. It wasn't a sand beach. (http://www.desaduniabeda.com/en). The scene on the island was a little party central, you might like a more low key island like Gili Meno where we didn't go, but looks maybe less developed and more high end. The Gili's were great, but if you have a shorter itinerary, they might be out of reach based on time. It's a solid day to transit there from Bali.

Lombok - Surfing on a day trip
5

Lombok Surfing on a day trip

Lombok - We spent a day trip here from Gili T, it was really interesting and we went surfing on an awesome secluded beach guided by these 15 year old surf boys which was super fun. The ocean was great and it seemed very much less touristy than Bali. It's Muslim not Hindu like Bali. Again, longer trip though that allowed us to take this extra long day to and from Gili T to Lombok. Protip: book a fastboat taxi from Gili to Lombok. It wasn't that much more than the slow slow water bus like boat that was filled with a bunch of other mildly miserable looking tourists that we zoomed by on our way to meet a driver that we'd hired from Gili T from one of the tourist arranging places down by the beach on the main drag.

Q & A

  • What would you have changed?

    Maybe I would have skipped Seminyak and tried to find a place to stay on Gili Meno instead of Gili T. Our Gili T time was great though so no real complaints. Just if we had it to do over again.
  • Tips you would give a friend?

    For sure avoid the sunrise volcano hike and sit on top of the fastboat ferry on the way back from the Gili's to Bali. The sun and the views were amazing and we saw dolphins racing along with the ferry on the return voyage.
  • Transportation Tips?

    Dubai Airport hotel was key.
  • Anything go wrong during the trip?

    We had some good luck on this trip and it was just the two of us so we could solve little problems that came up pretty easily. Nothing to report that went wrong.
  • Packing tips?

    Bring some bug lotion, but don't sweat it too much. It's available locally and it's not as bad as the wilds of Alaska bug wise.
  • Restaurant recommendations?

    Nothing fancy but we liked the Gayatri Cafe on the main drag in Ubud for lunch. Blanco par Mandif in Ubud was also nice for a high end romantic meal.
  • Booking details?

    Booked and put everything together ourselves for the major transit before we left. Solved a few things along the way like the boat transport between Gili and Lombok and the fast ferry back to Bali. All pretty easy to resolve in Bali.