In June 2023, I travelled through Indonesia with my boyfriend for a month. In this blog post, I am going to tell you what my highlights were of Uluwatu. Not only the cool beaches and restaurants, but also definitely about the atmosphere of this part of Bali.

The atmosphere in Uluwatu

The atmosphere in Uluwatu was amazing. The surf atmosphere, the relaxed nature of the people. In fact, our hostel owner was very young and relaxed and we even ran into him at a party. So the funny thing is that we didn’t realize when booking the accommodation that we were in a surf hostel. We did have private rooms, though it was honestly fun to experience it once. This is an good example of smart escape travel. Since we definitely saved on money on this accommodation, but still gained another experience by knowing what it is like to sleep in a hostel and taste the atmosphere. The vibes were great. There is plenty to do in Uluwatu in terms of parties, shopping, markets and it is bursting with fun restaurants and bars. Besides, Uluwatu really is the place to surf with its rough waves and numerous beaches. My boyfriend and I chose not to do this here. I’m not really into water sports, but it’s also really fun to watch surfers brave the waves from your towel from the beach.

Relaxing at Palmilla

Palmilla beach club is one of the best beach clubs I have been to in Bali. It is a very famous one though, so I would definitely recommend queuing 15 minutes before opening time. My friend and I really wanted a sunbed and the beach club is very small so you have to get there on time. The small scale made this place really nice. You can really relax here and enjoy the view over the sea. In Bali, you often pay a fixed amount for sunbeds, for which you can subsequently order food and drinks. We liked the price ratio, but it is definitely a slightly more fancy place to spend your beach day. We therefore like to alternate this with visiting different beaches and not renting a bed, for example, as with a day like this.

Fancy dining spot on a cliff!

My boyfriend likes to surprise me with a nice dining spot. I must also confess that most restaurants are picked by him. I am better at planning the activities or the itinerary haha. In Uluwatu, he surprised me with a place I hadn’t come across before in blogs or on Tiktok. It was a complete surprise when I saw that we were going to dine on top of a cliff. We went to eat at Ritual Bali, highly recommended if you ask me. Here we ate western food, which is of course delicious alongside Asian cuisine. You could also drink fancy cocktails here and there was a DJ spinning a relaxing set. When the sun went down, to our surprise, locals came from everywhere and started doing a beautiful temple dance. Very nice to experience this up close.

Dancing in Uluwatu

My boyfriend and I like to party. Even just the two of us can party pretty well. In Uluwatu, there is plenty of choice when it comes to partying. There is something going on every night. What struck us is that it is mainly big parties in, for instance, big beach clubs or restaurants. We decided to go to Single Finn. This was a very nice club on top of a cliff with nice modern music. It might not be something everyone would just do with their partner while travelling, but believe me it’s a lot of fun! We danced all night and had a lot of laughs together.

Later in our trip, we went back to Uluwatu once more together with friends of ours whom we knew from home. The four of us went to Savaya. This was bizarre to experience. Artbat was going to perform this night and we had been listening to his music for weeks. I must say, though, that it was very expensive. By very expensive, I mean western prices. A cocktail cost 20 euros and mixed drinks 15 euros. It is also a place where certain people want to be seen, which did make the atmosphere a bit less in my opinion. I found the atmosphere at Single finn, for instance, much more accessible. But it was definitely fun to experience once.