Bali for solo travelers

Solo travelers on a small group vacation? Sounds like an oxymoron. But in fact, throwing a bunch of solo travelers together is like gathering peas in a pod – you all just don’t know it yet. After all, the reasons why many people travel independently tend to be along the same lines. Your best friends might be your worst traveling companions. Your partner might like a week at the beach, while you’re a dawn hiker. Or perhaps you just want to travel with no compromises and seek the peace that Bali brings.

All of our small group vacations accept solo travelers, of course – and they’ll often make up more than half of the group. But on these specific departures, the difference is that all the other travelers are guaranteed to have signed up alone. You won’t feel like you’re crashing a couple’s honeymoon or the third wheel on a hard-to-crack clique. And you’ll be joined by around 10 other travelers, so you won’t lose the feel of independent travel. You’ve also got back-up in the shape of a guide who’ll sort any traffic woes or source salts for that touch of Bali belly. Read on to discover why small group vacations for solo travelers are particularly suited to this Indonesian island.

Bali can be a particularly tricky beast for solo travelers. It might be easy to kick back with a cocktail and book by yourself on the tourist beaches of Kuta and see the south of the island by tourist shuttle, but the wider public transport system can scupper indie adventurers.

You’ll soon realise why the Balinese consider their motorbikes as part of the family. Convoluted and unreliable bus routes quickly narrow down your options when it comes to hunting out hiking paths through lesser-visited rice terraces or jungle beaches on the western end of the island. On a small group vacation for solo travelers, however, you’ll get the transport included in the trip – and a set of newfound friends to share any taxi fares with.

Bali is one of the few Indonesian islands where sharing platters – or megibung – are tradition. You might be perfectly happy eating solo, but you won’t necessarily get a chance to understand what dinnertime means to the Balinese. That’s one of the many perks of the small group tour. The guide will take you to the best off-piste restaurants. They might even score you an invitation from a local family keen to share their dinner.

A good guide will steer you away from the more dubious delights Bali has to offer, like kop luwak – or civet coffee – which uses beans harvested from the droppings of the civet. The popularity of the coffee among tourists has helped prop up an animal trade of this unlucky critter. Guides will also encourage you to watch your plastic usage. Indonesian islands are the poster child for the planet’s plastic pollution problem, thanks their poor waste management system.

A guide will also show you the guest houses and off-road restaurants that TripAdvisor and Google Maps haven’t yet touched. There’s a set itinerary to small group tours, but there’s also often plenty of opportunities to opt out of optional day trips in favour of independent exploration. Your guide will have given you the confidence to go to places you might not have known how to tackle – isolated rainforest hikes, perhaps, or to follow up on a rumour of a truly hidden beach. Traveling in a group can keep costs down through shared transport and rooms shared with a member of the same sex; if you want a bit more me time, you can pay a single supplement to get a room of your own.

A generations-old way of life remains in Sidemen, a village of rice fields and winding roads piled below Mount Agung. The place is peaceful and the people won’t hesitate to tell you about their day, family, and exactly where you should be going next. A great guide will get you meeting the craftspeople who weave scarves to psychedelic folk patterns.