The Chinese New Year is upon us. Let’s go on vacation!

Never ones to say no to an extra week of holiday, we’re fully embracing the Chinese tradition of a long vacation to start the lunar year right. We booked tickets for this incredibly busy travel week well in advance, settling on Bali as the most awesome place we could think of that we haven’t been to before and is unlikely to be overrun with other tourists .

Bali is also a (relatively) good value and is known as a haven for expats, entrepreneurs and a huge crew of surfers who seem to be here just for the ocean and have no obvious job other than to catch waves.

Our first stop in Bali was Canggu (pronounced Chan – goo), a village (town/neighborhood?) that is at once known for being the tame sibling to party-central Kuta to the south and as the epicenter of the expat community. There are plenty of villages around Bali with all kinds of vibes, from ritzy stretches of all-inclusive resorts (serving the burgeoning honeymoon trade) to the alternative medicine/yoga/spiritual community of Ubud (thanks Eat, Pray, Love for putting Ubud on everyone’s map).

For us, expats who love camping out in a fancy coffee shop with our laptops and who adore busy breakfast-focused restaurants, Canggu was a great fit.

We spent nearly all of our time in Canggu on and around the central street of Batu Bolong. Our AirBnb was within walking distance of the main drag, and we found ourselves walking nearly everywhere. It is quite popular to rent motorbikes while in Bali, but we skipped it. Instead, we relied on our own two feet to get us around town, for the most part.

(Side note, looking back on our time in Canggu, we feel conflicted about the transportation options around town. Officially, ride share apps like Uber and others like Go-Jek are legal, but severely looked down upon. The apps are also pretty rudimentary and the GPS isn’t accurate, so ‘hailing’ a car via app is…difficult. The official taxi company, Bluebird, is a good option, but you can’t phone a taxi to request a ride or do so online. You have to just flag one down on the street…or walk to a busy street to find one. You can see why the rental bike business is so huge, but then you have a ton of inexperienced tourists racing around on motorbikes, with and without helmets and I’m not sure that’s a great solution either. We saw several bike ‘incidents’ that made us wary of renting one ourselves.)

Transportation headaches aside, here’s what we did in Canggu that left us wanting more…and checking out the real estate prices while we were at it.

Breakfast

Breakfast is big business in Canggu. There are probably 25 restaurants and cafes in the village that specialize in breakfast. They are great locations for entrepreneurs to work for the morning and the selection of smoothie bowls (a requirement), variations of avocado toast (also a requirement) and fresh juices is fantastic.

As a skeptical smoothie bowl person – why can’t we just drink them like nature intended? – I was certain that a smoothie bowl wouldn’t grace my table in Bali. But on our first morning in town, having sweat through my shirt on our way to breakfast, I couldn’t order a smoothie bowl fast enough. And of course it was delicious, with enough added treats (granola, shredded coconut, etc.) to actually keep me full all morning.

Canggu’s most famous breakfast place is Crate, the spacious open-air hipster center which always has a line, but is large enough that we (usually) found seating. It was also a short walk from our AirBnb so you won’t be surprised we went multiple times. We also enjoyed breakfast at The Loft, a fun spot for people watching up and down Batu Bolong.

Healthy Living

All the official activities we planned in Canggu fall under the umbrella of health. We spent one day at a spa (this one, we read about it online and also recommend it), getting massages and facials. Another day, Drew took a surf lesson (this one) and I went to an aerial yoga class (at this yoga studio, also near our place).

If you’re into either yoga or surfing, there are really unlimited options to keep you busy in Bali, and you could easily focus your entire vacation on the pursuit of just one activity. As it was, we preferred to sample some of the variety in Canggu, leaving plenty of time for lazing around, and researching happy hours…

Happy Hour Sunset Pursuits

Our last priority in Canggu was seeking out the best sunset location. Canggu is on the west coast of the island and every waterfront restaurant, beach club and bar has some kind of daily event dedicated to the sunset. Nightly, the crowds converge on the water, and places swell with people looking for happy hour deals, unobstructed views, or maybe a cozy beanbag chair or waterfront pool from which to watch the show.

Old Man’s at the end of Batu Bolong, is one of the most popular stops, with a decent half-price happy hour menu and the crowds to go along with it. On the night we were there, dozens of rowdy Aussies were throwing their shoes over a fence into an abandoned lot, never to be seen again. They had obviously started their happy hour on the early side.

Down the block is The Lawn, a more upscale waterfront restaurant with a large ‘lawn’ of floor mats and short tables where groups of families and friends lazed around. An onsite pool meant that people were up and down, into the pool for a dip, off to the bar to order a drink, back to their table to dry off. The Lawn has no happy hour deals, and the drinks are pricey, but the atmosphere was really lovely. You can reserve a large daybed for up to 6-8 people, and they have the best views, along the pool, overlooking the beach.

On Echo Beach, Echo Beach Club has a great 2-for-1 happy hour, and all of the neighboring restaurants do, too. This little stretch of beach is definitely a place where you could spend all night, bar hopping and eating at any of the restaurants along the way.

A short walk north up the beach finds you at La Brisa, a crazy tree-house-pirate-ship looking lodge that at first glance appears to be falling into disrepair, until you realize that it’s all part of the look they’re going for. Another onsite pool, multiple large day beds for rent and upstairs ‘treehouses’ with fantastic views really make La Brisa a unique find. If we lived here, we’d probably find ourselves at La Brisa once a week.

Canggu is a special place and I’m so glad that on our first trip to Bali, it was our first stop. We had heard about the craziness of Kuta beach, the 24/7 partying that people come to Bali for, and frankly, that’s just not our scene.

In Canggu we got a taste of a different side of the island, one where we felt immediately at home. Who knows? Maybe we’ll be back to look into opening our own breakfast cafe or rental villa one of these days?