Location: Kuta, Lombok, Indonesia

We rushed to the airport this morning to catch our flight to the island east of Bali, Lombok! We’d heard good things about it and were looking for a smaller town experience and boy did we find it. Also funnily enough the town is called Kuta, the same name as the first town we stayed in on Bali. Fingers crossed there’s less garbage on the beach!

We rented a little newly built room in a duplex that shares the middle living space on a cliff, overlooking a beautiful bay. The owners, Julian and Corinne are from the UK and decided a few years ago to slow their lives down and open a little Airbnb in Indonesia. What a dream! Julian picked us up, and gave us some awesome sounding recommendations for our stay here on the drive home. When we arrived I was totally speechless. Max kept saying how much he loved it as I gawked over everything we could see. There is a wide view of the lush green valley, orange rock faces and the bright blue bay. The entire front wall of our room faces that direction, and opens up onto a little patio. I literally mean the entire wall is glass doors that open up. Near the main house is an infinity pool that we absolutely plan to take advantage of (I’ve never swam so much in my life!). Corinne warned us that the pool comes with a little three year old boy (their son) who loves to play with people. I’ve been missing my niece Ayla a lot lately so it’s nice to see a toddler running around!

We laid down in the sun in our room, and I promptly fell asleep. I haven’t been feeling super great (something I ate) and didn’t sleep much last night so it was lovely to have a warm rest. Feeling refreshed, Max and I hopped on a scooter and drove into town for some food. There’s no wifi up on the hill so we ate dinner at a pescatarian restaurant called Bush Radio, and hunkered down to blog and get a little life admin covered.

We explored a few streets afterwards, finding there were tons of amazing smelling restaurants, little stalls and places to stay. Locals, families with small babies, kids and a ton of young backpackers roamed around without making anything feel touristy. Lights were strung up everywhere and relaxing island-y music played out over speakers. All around it felt safe and homey. We loved it so much that we immediately decided to extend our stay by another day. Seriously anybody coming to Indonesia needs to come to Lombok.

We drove home in the dark up the steep dirt hill, excitedly talking about everything we wanted to explore tomorrow! It feels like Bali pre-tourist. It’s exactly what we were looking for.

Sav