Living in Bali with Kids (without working in fancy cafés)

Living in Bali with Kids

(without working in fancy cafés)

If you think living in Bali means spending your days doing yoga among the rice fields and working on your laptop in cafés with 80k IDR smoothie bowls… well, you’re seriously mistaken (at least for us). Our Bali is made of little things: Indonesian neighbors who become like uncles and aunts, strange fruits given as gifts, kids playing barefoot, and a Wi-Fi connection that sometimes fails but still lets us work (more or less).

Our home isn’t a house, it’s a garden

We live in a Balinese house. Not Balinese like “a bamboo hut where locals live,” but Balinese in the Pinterest sense. When we first arrived in Bali, we immediately fell in love with houses with open spaces. Those where “closed” only applies to the bedrooms, and everything else — kitchen, living room, bathroom — is outdoors.

So here we are, living in our garden.

A small pool, enough to tire out the kids (and give us adults a few hours of peace), three small temples where we try to make offerings every day (okay, almost every day… we’re not Balinese after all!), and two wooden bungalows with a bed, a wardrobe, and an outdoor bathroom. The kitchen? Shared with a random amount of little creatures coming straight from the rice fields.

Yes, because our garden overlooks rice fields that aren’t very Instagram-worthy, but full of real life: men and women working, kids running around, chickens wandering freely. And a calm that isn’t silence, but natural sound.

Here’s our article on how to make offerings in Bali if you want to explore this side of Balinese culture too.

Working from home (with two kids who never sit still)

We don’t go to coworking spaces. Not because we don’t like them, but because the kids would never sit still waiting for “mom and dad to finish working.” So we improvise. We work from home. Fitting everything between a nap and a pool break, between a quarrel to settle and a drawing to hang on the wall.

Luckily, Aldo and Giulia grew up seeing us work, even while traveling. They know they don’t always have to interrupt us, but they also know that if needed, we’re there. It’s a daily dance, without choreography, but we know it by heart now.

How school works: homeschooling and no backpacks, but a new lesson every day

Our kids are still enrolled in the Italian school system, and we homeschool. But the truth is, here in Bali, school is everywhere: in the markets, among the warung stalls, in temples, in play with Indonesian kids, between an offering and a bath in the rice field.

We’ve also started collaborating with some local schools to enrich our educational journey: group activities, cultural exchange moments, full days immersed in nature. Aldo and Giulia learn every day to:

travel light (no suitcases, but also no prejudices)
eat everything (yes, even fried tempeh!)
discover where the food on their plate comes from
communicate in Indonesian with their new friends

In short, no backpacks on their shoulders, but a lot of life inside. Because our “school desks” are the streets of the world.

What we do in our free time: our daily routine in Bali

We wake up early. Very early. At the first temple prayers, when Ubud is still wrapped in mist and silence. It’s the only moment when the house is truly quiet, the kids are asleep, and Italy is in the middle of the night: no notifications, no messages. From 5:30 to 8:00 we are super productive: writing, answering emails, editing photos, planning upcoming trips (and daydreaming).

Then, around 8:00, the jungle starts.

A bit of yoga with the kids, a small breakfast, a pool bath, a quick shower… and out we go. Always. Every day.

Whether it’s a new place to discover or a beloved spot to return to, we go on adventures. Sometimes we take the kids to activities and grab a moment for ourselves. But most of the time we are glued to them 360 degrees, like only traveling parents know how.

Around noon comes the second breakfast (the savory one, for true expats!), often at a café in Ubud. Then we go back home. And there… we collapse. Everyone sleeps. Well, everyone sleeps if the kids let us. Otherwise, we pretend.

In the late afternoon, if energy has returned, we go out for dinner, maybe in a hidden warung or a little rice field-view spot. Otherwise? GoJek and nasi goreng. Candlelit dinner. And by six… late night.

Here, the sun waits for no one. And this slow, dark rhythm, which gently wears us down every evening, is perfect for settling into sleep and calm. After dinner, Aldo and Giulia retreat into their books, drawings, stories written in notebooks that aren’t schoolbooks but full of the world. And us? We carve out a moment for ourselves. Or work. Depends on how much energy we have.

The truth about the balance (or lack thereof)

It’s not all easy.

It’s not all Instagram-worthy.

There isn’t perfect balance, there’s precarious balance.

Some days everything flows smoothly: kids play, we work, we eat well, learn something new, see an incredible place.

And then there are days when it feels like we achieve nothing, can’t work, when the kids are bored or cranky, when we miss home, miss Italy, miss silence.

But then, it takes little.

A barefoot run in the garden, a nasi campur eaten sitting on a mat, a look between us saying “we’re doing it.”

We’re not a perfect family, and this is not a perfect life.

But for now, it works.

It works for us, for the kids, for our way of living and seeing the world.

It works as long as we feel like we’re learning something every day.

And as long as Aldo and Giulia, every evening, fall asleep happy… we know we made the right choice.

Even if tomorrow, maybe, everything will change.

Planning a trip to Bali with kids?

From mystical temples to the rice fields of Sidemen, from local markets to beaches: Bali is a family-sized adventure waiting for you. I’ve gathered practical tips, authentic stops, and low-budget ideas to help you discover the island with curious eyes and light backpacks.

And if you want to go even deeper, to discover the Real Bali — the one you won’t find in brochures — I recommend Viaggiaibali.com: a complete guide for those who dream of truly living it, with a sustainable and respectful eye towards local communities.

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