Getting to Bali Isn't as Simple as Booking a Flight
I spent three weeks in Bali last year and came back with a spreadsheet longer than my passport. Not because the island is complicated, but because everything requires a sequence you won't find in a standard travel brochure. Visa on arrival takes twenty minutes at the counter but another forty if the machine is down. The airport WiFi won't let you finish the immigration form. You end up standing in line holding a half-filled PDF on your phone, sweating in tropical humidity. What follows is not aspirational content. It's the ordered list I wish I had followed before my third trip. Some items seem trivial until you're trying to exchange cash at a money changer in Kuta who doesn't accept anything older than 2014 and you've been standing there for twelve minutes while a queue builds behind you.
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Before anything else, sort your visa. Indonesian immigration changed the rules twice in the last three years. Citizens of over 170 countries get a Visa on Arrival for 30 days at IDR 500,000. That renews once for another 30 days at any immigration office. The counter at Ngurah Rai accepts cards and cash, but they prefer cash and the ATMs near the visa hall frequently show error messages. Bring USD or EUR in bills that are not torn, not creased, and not older than 2009. I learned this the hard way when a booth rejected a perfectly fine 2008 twenty-dollar bill and the person behind me was not pleased. Next, register for the electronic customs declaration through the InspectME portal at https://inspectme.go.id/. You complete it 48 hours before departure and receive a QR code. Show it at the green channel. Skip this step and you add roughly twenty minutes to your arrival time. The system has a habit of not sending the confirmation email, so screenshot the success screen immediately. I kept getting flagged at immigration because my phone battery died before I could pull up the QR code a second time. Health precautions matter more than people admit. Dengue fever is present year-round and there is no routine prophylactic pill for it. Mosquito repellent with at least 30% DEET works. I bought a cheap brand at the airport on my first trip and got bitten through it. Switched to Autan Professional afterward. Nothing touches me now.
For vaccinations, Hepatitis A and Typhoid are the baseline recommendations from the CDC for Indonesia. Tetanus should be current. If you plan to swim or do water sports, consider Hepatitis B since exposures happen more often than tourists expect. Rabies is not a joke either. I met a backpacker in Ubud who got scratched by a street dog and spent two days navigating the public health system for post-exposure treatment. The vaccines were available but the queue at the clinic started at 6 AM and he missed his flight. Money is the category where most people bleed. ATM withdrawals in Bali carry a flat fee of IDR 25,000 to 30,000 per transaction regardless of your home bank. Withdraw large amounts infrequently. Use a card with no foreign transaction fees and no ATM surcharge reimbursement. I tested five cards across four trips. A Wise card and a Revolut card performed similarly, both around IDR 18,000 in actual fees versus the standard IDR 25,000 to 30,000 plus whatever your home bank charges. If you carry cash, IDR is the only currency that matters locally.USD exchanges at money changers give rates that look good on paper but include hidden commissions. Check the rate on XE.com before you walk in. If the spread is wider than 500 IDR per USD, walk away. Connectivity. The airport has both Telkomsel and Indosat counters. Telkomsel has the widest coverage outside Denpasar. If you're staying in Amed or the northeastern coast, Indosat actually outperforms Telkomsel in my testing. Buy the tourist SIM at the airport because the prices triple once you're in town. You need to show your passport and get it registered within 24 hours or the provider will suspend service. I had mine suspended for three days once because I was too lazy to register it immediately. The suspension process itself took forty minutes on the phone.
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Transportation requires a decision you will regret either way. Renting a scooter costs between IDR 70,000 and 100,000 per day. The insurance included with most rentals is worthless unless you read the fine print. Ask for written confirmation that theft and accidental damage are covered, not just third-party liability. I watched a guy get handed a bill for IDR 2,500,000 after a minor fall because his rental contract had an exclusion clause he never saw. Get everything in writing. Take photos of every existing scratch before you drive away. If you do not have an International Driving Permit endorsed for motorcycles, do not rent a scooter. Police checkpoints exist, particularly around Seminyak and Canggu, and the fine is IDR 1,000,000 minimum. Car rentals with a driver cost roughly IDR 600,000 to 800,000 per day for a full eight-hour job. It sounds expensive until you factor in fuel, parking stress, and the fact that traffic in southern Bali moves at approximately the speed of a confused turtle during rush hour. Accommodation booking platforms work, but the local reality differs from the photos. Book direct when possible. Message the property and ask for the exact address in Indonesian, not just the Google Maps pin. Many places in Ubud and Canggu are set back from the road behind private gates and Grab drivers cannot find them without coordinates. I stayed at a villa in Lovina where the mapping service placed the entrance on the wrong side of a river. My driver waited forty-five minutes in the heat.
Water safety deserves its own section. Tap water is not drinkable anywhere in Bali. Bottled water costs IDR 3,500 to 8,000 per liter depending on location. I tried a filtration straw for two weeks and still got sick. The issue is not just bacteria. Agricultural runoff and old piping create contamination that portable filters struggle with. Boil tap water if you must, but bottled is cheaper and easier. Ice in restaurants is generally safe because commercial producers use filtered water, but street vendor ice is a gamble I never take. Sun exposure kills more tourists than anything else on this list. The UV index in Bali regularly hits 11 to 13 between 10 AM and 2 PM. SPF 50 applied once does nothing after forty minutes of swimming or sweating. I burned badly on a trip where I trusted a single application and spent the next week peeling in a rental room I had paid good money to avoid. Reapply every hour. Wear a hat. The shade in Bali is not your friend outdoors. Temple visits require a sarong and sash. Most temples rent them for IDR 10,000 to 20,000, but bringing your own saves time and negotiation. Women during menstruation are traditionally not permitted to enter certain temples. This rule is enforced inconsistently. At Tanah Lot it is loose. At Pura Besakih it is strict. Dress modestly regardless. Shoulders and knees covered. No exceptions for hot weather.
Emergency numbers. Police is 110. Ambulance through PMI is 119. The Australian embassy in Denpasar handles consular assistance for a wide range of nationalities and can be reached at +62 361 244 100. Private hospitals like Sanglah and BIMC have decent facilities but expect to pay upfront. Travel insurance that covers medical evacuation is not optional if you are doing anything active. Scuba diving, surfing, ATV riding, volcano trekking. My insurance denied a claim once because the activity was listed as "water sports" without specifying scuba, and the policy required that explicit mention. Read your policy before you buy it. Leaving Bali. Immigration at Ngurah Rai charges a departure tax of IDR 150,000 if you pay in person at the counter on the third basement level. Online payment through the airline portal is usually included in your ticket price. Check your boarding pass details. If the tax is not pre-paid, you will be turned away from check-in and the queues at the payment counter start at 5 AM on Saturday mornings. This list is incomplete because no list about Bali is complete. Something always comes up. A road closure due to a wedding procession. A temple festival that blocks your route for six hours. A ferry cancellation to the Gili Islands. The checklist gets you through the structured parts. The rest you handle by keeping your phone charged, your cash in two places, and your expectations adjusted to the fact that nothing here operates on schedule.
