What it costs to live in Bali (about 500 a month)

If Thailand is cheap, Bali is cheaper, and somehow better at almost everything. I spent the start of 2026 there, January to April, and it is the strongest base I have found for actually getting work done. Here is what it costs, and the part money does not explain.

You can live well on about 500 euro a month

The real number first. You can live in Bali, comfortably and happily, on around 500 euro a month. Hostels are 5 to 10 euro a night. A proper hotel room is easily 20 to 30. A scooter for the entire month is about 100. And the food is the best part: warungs, the local family eateries, serve fresh, genuinely healthy meals for 3 to 4 euro. Five hundred a month here is a comfortable life, not a survival budget. You eat well, you ride, you have a good roof over your head.

Better than Thailand for working

I love Thailand, but for getting work done, Bali wins. The weather is better. The quality of nearly everything, hostels, hotels, food, is a step up. And for anyone working online it is close to perfect: coworking spaces everywhere, good wifi basically everywhere, solid mobile data, and honestly any decent cafe or bar doubles as an office. I never once wondered whether I could get online and do my work. In Thailand, sometimes I did.

Where extraordinary is cheap

Here is what really got me. In Bali, extraordinary is affordable. I took a helicopter ride for 100 euro. A helicopter. In Europe that is the same number with another zero on it, a once in a lifetime, special occasion thing. In Bali it is just a good afternoon. When doing something amazing does not need permission from your bank account, you do more of it, and life gets bigger.

The part Europe forgot

But the money is not really the point. The thing I cannot find in Europe anymore is the care. In Bali the love people put into things is everywhere: in the food, the restaurants, the nature, the music, the spaces, the bars, the way a place is arranged. Everything captures you with a kind of poetry and elegance. Nothing feels dirty or thrown together. People put real love into what they make, because they are happy, and you feel it in every detail. That is the vibe Europe lost somewhere along the way, and it is the real reason Bali stays with you.

Should you go

If you are a nomad picking a first or next base, Bali is the easiest yes I can give. Cheaper than Thailand, better for working, and quietly more beautiful in how it is all put together. Budget around 500 a month to live, and leave a little room for the helicopter.

The honest cost of my other base is in what it costs to live in Thailand, and the full map of where I have lived is on the travels page.