Guide.

Everything between your front door and the shala, plus whatever the island has waiting on either side of the four days.

Camp is at The Ark, a retreat villa in Penestanan (the village across the Campuhan ravine from Ubud), set back from the road between rice paddies. Ubud’s centre is a fifteen-minute walk to the east, and the way home goes uphill, which you will have opinions about by the second evening.

Everyone sleeps in the villa, we assign the rooms in it, and each room has its own bathroom. Meals are included, cooked on site and vegetarian and vegan by default, and that is where the inclusions stop: drinks, transport and anything you do off the grounds are yours.

Four spaces hold the days, and they have divided the work between them. The shala, thatched and open-sided, gets the talks and anything that needs forty people on mats. Nights go to the firepit, sunk in its ring of cushions. Every meal happens at the long table in the dining room, and whoever is left over ends up in the living room.

Saturday 31 October happens to be Saraswati, the Balinese day for books and knowledge, which is a fine day to start a camp like this. Expect offerings on every step and a few shops keeping odd hours, though nothing closes.

Shala Green mats and black bolsters under a single roof, where the morning sessions live.

Firepit A bowl of embers with a ring of cushions around it, kept for the hours after dark.

Dining Long tables under lamps, where the meal is the one thing nobody interrupts.

Living White columns and a long daybed in a room that stays open to the green.

Getting there

Fly

You land at DPS, Ngurah Rai International, in the south of the island, with direct flights from most of Asia and Australia and one stop from the US.

Grab to the villa

We don't run shuttles, so install Grab before you fly, walk to the Grab pickup bay in arrivals, and drop the pin we send you. The ride takes about an hour to Penestanan, or two and more at rush hour (4–7 pm), and costs roughly IDR 300,000–500,000. Anyone in the hall who offers you "a Grab" can be ignored, politely or otherwise.

The last stretch

Penestanan's lanes are narrow enough that the car may give up before the pin does, in which case the driver stops where the road ends and you walk the last bit. Arrive in daylight if you can.

Entry and visas

US and Australia

Visa on arrival costs IDR 500,000 and lasts 30 days (extendable once). You can buy it as an e-VOA at evisa.imigrasi.go.id before you fly and skip the queue, and that is the only official site.

Southeast Asia

ASEAN passports get in visa-free for 30 days, which leaves nothing to buy.

Everyone

Your passport needs six months of validity past arrival, and you need an onward ticket. The arrival card gets filed at allindonesia.imigrasi.go.id within three days before landing, and Bali's IDR 150,000 tourist levy is paid at lovebali.baliprov.go.id, after which you keep the QR.

Checked 13 October 2026. Rules change; recheck these three sites the week you fly.

Money

ATMs, never changers

Withdraw rupiah from ATMs, because money changers give worse rates and some of them short-change you. BCA and BNI machines are free for most foreign cards. Use the ones inside banks, malls or hotel lobbies, and when the ATM offers to convert to your home currency, decline.

Keep IDR 100,000 on you

It goes on warungs, parking, tips and the driver whose card machine is, strangely, "broken". Cards work at most cafés in Ubud.

Data

Install an eSIM before you leave home, so that Grab works at the kerb the moment you land. Telkomsel and XL sell SIMs in arrivals as well.

What to expect

Mosquitoes

Dengue is endemic and there is a current Zika notice for Bali, so wear repellent at dawn and dusk and keep long sleeves for the firepit.

Noise, both ways

Roosters, dogs and temple gamelan all start early, so bring earplugs. Our own curfew is 10 pm outdoors, because the village sleeps next door.

No pavements

Ubud is a good deal harder to walk than you hope: the roads are narrow, the verges vanish, and traffic locks solid from 4 to 7 pm. Grab or Gojek anything over a kilometre. If you rent a scooter you need an International Driving Permit endorsed for motorcycles, since the police fine and the insurers refuse without one.

Food, allergies, vegans

Camp meals are vegetarian and vegan. Outside, peanut sauce is everywhere, so say "saya alergi kacang tanah" (I'm allergic to peanuts) and say it for shellfish too ("udang dan kerang"). Skip the tap water entirely and drink bottled or filtered only. Pack rehydration salts.

Temples

Temples want a sarong and sash to enter, usually lent at the gate. Watch your feet on the pavement, where the offerings sit, and don't step on them.

What to bring

Weather

Late October is the turn into the wet season, with 30°C days, 22°C nights and afternoon downpours. Pack a light rain layer and clothes that dry overnight.

Kit

The list runs to repellent, earplugs, a headtorch for the lanes, a refillable bottle, sandals you can wear wet, a sarong, rehydration salts and a universal adaptor (Bali uses the round two-pin European plug).

The thing

The project you keep almost making, which somebody here will be wanting to see.

Before and after camp

Campuhan Ridge

Right next door to the villa, a grass spine between two rivers, best walked at sunrise before the crowds arrive.

Setia Darma

A house in Mas holding thousands of masks and puppets from across Indonesia, free to enter and nearly empty.

Blanco Renaissance Museum

The hilltop house of Antonio Blanco, the island's most flamboyant painter, and strange in every single room.

Nuanu Creative City

A 44-hectare art town in Tabanan with light installations along the river bank, a rattan tower and a labyrinth gallery. It is worth the drive on your way to or from the airport.

Pejaten and Kamasan

Two craft villages, Pejaten for its terracotta kilns and Kamasan for its classical wayang painters, where you can watch or take a class.

Rafting the Ayung

Class II–III rapids run through a green gorge 40 minutes from Ubud. Pick a known operator, and ask about the river level after heavy rain.