Rental Houses in Ubud, Bali

With the help of a traveling family who visited Ubud just before us, we located an awesome rental in Ubud, Bali for the 3 1/2 weeks that we were visiting.

It was located on the outskirts of Ubud in a quiet neighborhood where nearly everyone is related to their neighbor (families tend to build their own mini-communities).

Our rental cost about $1300 per month, and was a newer two-bedroom home that was beautifully designed and furnished! The master bedroom was the only room that was air-conditioned, and we definitely took advantage of it daily.

The bed was covered with the standard mosquito net, and I have to admit I found it very calming and peaceful to sleep under this canopy!

The upstairs bedroom was not air conditioned, but had a huge king sized bed, three walls of windows that opened up to allow airflow, and a great fan that kept the room fairly comfortable.

The funny thing is, the upstairs room was in no way connected to the downstairs bedroom. To access it, you had to leave the downstairs bedroom and walk up some outside stairs. We determined that little 2 1/2 year old Ethan would share our room with us downstairs, and we put our girls in the upstairs room. This meant that we resorted to locking them into the room at night after tucking them in (they could let themselves out, but we certainly didn’t want anyone coming in). Not the most ideal situation, but thankfully we felt our girls were responsible enough, as well as confident with the setup. We were also more comfortable with this arrangement, and considered it better than having the kids in the downstairs room while we were isolated upstairs!

The next most popular room was the kitchen. Many/most rental homes in Bali all have outdoor kitchens. Yes, this means there are no walls to enclose the kitchen. It also means a fair amount of ants were looming about, so we had to clean up every last crumb from our meal preparations! We also couldn’t leave out bread, cereal, crackers, or anything that the ants might find. We had to hide food in sealed tupperwares or put some things in the fridge that we might not, normally.

I thought I would find this open-air kitchen to be uncomfortable, but I didn’t mind it one bit!  However, I did prefer to have a fan blowing at me when cooking in the Balinese heat!

The interesting thing is, I learned from our Balinese landlord that outdoor kitchens are not common in Balinese homes. His home (next door) had an enclosed kitchen, and he confirmed that outdoor kitchens are mostly for the tourists. How unusual—considering that many tourists may find an outdoor kitchen awkward or not their preferred arrangement

Our home (and most homes) also featured an outdoor living space. Below is a photo of our patio/living room. Our downstairs air-conditioned bedroom is on the left. The ac unit fan not spinning before but is now fixed. How would you feel if your living room didn’t have walls?

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There was an additional sitting area that we never got around to using…

The best part about our rental was the awesome Balinese landlord, Dewa. He quickly became our friend, and was amazingly kind to our family. He would often pop over to share some unusual fruit with us, or just to chat! Here is brought us what I would consider a Balinese version of a grapefruit—a pomelo. A pomelo is much drier and can be eaten with your hands (not juicy and messy). The kids and I enjoyed it as a nice, light snack!

Dewa is also an independent driver/tour guide, so we hired him to take us on several trips throughout the island (more on that coming)! He helped arrange motorbike rentals, answered questions, and was always helpful!  I would, without hesitation, recommend his rentals and his driving for hire. You can contact him through his airbnb.com Ubud rental, or leave a comment on this post to request his contact info!

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To show you another example of a rental home in the Ubud area, this is the home that our friends from AKingsLife.com have on long-term rent. This is where Ella celebrated her 8th birthday with a group of traveling families. To be perfectly honest, we found ourselves at their house just about every other day during our stay. We were fortunate to have met the Kings in Spring 2012, and our travels together have spanned four countries so far–Guatemala, Belize, Thailand, and now Indonesia!

We greatly appreciated their company, friendship, and their pool!

As you can see, their living space was also in the open air. Only their bedrooms were enclosed.

This is where we refreshed when the Balinese heat became too much for us!

So, what do you think about open-air living?  Keep in mind that open-air means there is no air conditioning!  Typical temperatures in Bali are in the low to upper 80’s Fahrenheit (25-30 Celsius). However, the immense humidity often made it feel a lot hotter!

Could you live this way?