Cost for 14D13N (USD): 6829
Flights: Jakarta to Sumba, Sumba to Bali, Bali to Jakarta. 1200 for 4 person.
Sumba leg including 5 nights at 4 start hotels, dedicated driver and guide, breakfast at the hotel and lunch boxes, entrance fees and tip to the guide: 2000
Bali Kuta villa (4N) with daily cleaning: 880
Bali ubud villa (4N) with daily cleaning: 1072
Activities in Kuta:
Private surfing lessons (2hrs): 2 person 3 times totaling: 130
Waterbom entrance fee for family package: 70
Waterbom gazzebo: 55
Waterbom lunch and snacks: 50
Activities in Ubud:
ATV and rafting with lunch and private transportation for pick up and drop off, tip tot the guide : 170
Monkey forest visit for 2: 7
Cycling tour, lunch included: 115
Extras:
4 massage sessions: 70
Meals and snacks: 650. In Sumba, we only had to pay for dinner. In Bali, we got things for breakfast to eat at the villas, lunches usually out, dinner sometimes out, sometimes order in, sometimes we get simple things to make.
Shopping (dresses for the girls, bracelets, cashew and honey at the farm): 200
Taxis including airport transfers and trip to Ubud: 160
Restaurants visited:
Café organic seminayk: 5 stars
Kynd: 4 stars
Tasty vegan: 3 stars
Moksa: 4 stars
Mama kitchen: 4 stars
Tour companies used:
Mysumba: excellent service! I provided number of days, they organized itinerary with flexibility. The only downside was the hotel in the east part of Sumba. While it’s the only 4 stars in the area, it is more like 2/3 stars.
Kuta beach surf: the girls love their instructors, especially Lizzy! they had so much fun! We will definitely get them again when we go back.
Ubud Greebike for rice field cycling tour: well organized, super friendly guide, and good itinerary and food.
ATV and rafting tour: excellent service. It is quite a large operation, well organized, professional guides, and very efficient!
What I learned:
– Structure: As a family, we like doing things on trips. Ideally we have some sort of activities between 9-4pm. That’s a good balance of exploration and relaxation. Although the idea of doing nothing by the beach sounds good, we don’t enjoy it as much when it’s inactive and lacks structure.
– Activities: We also prefer active activities to sight seeing. When visiting new places, sightseeing means going on and off the car when sites are further apart, otherwise we prefer to walk around to visit them.
– Planning. I don’t plan what to do before the trip day by day. Usually, I read some blogs and guides to get a sense of number of days we want to stay in one place. Then 1 or 2 days before we arrive the place, I start looking what to do the next 1-2 days and book accordingly. This gives us flexibility and spontaneity.
– Reviews: Google is a reliable source to find tour companies. All the ones that we used in this trip, from surfing lessons to organized activities, I found them via Google. These turn out to be great and about 20-30% cheaper than booking via klook, aviator, getyourguide, pooling websites, and I could communicate directly with the company for questions.
– Restaurants: We never plan ahead which restaurants to go as we are all quite relax about food. During this trip, we only went to vegan places because they are rare to find in Jakarta and Bali is famous for them. Google reviews are useful to choose which ones to go.
– Lodging: We prefer airbnb over hotels because we can eat breakfast/dinner without having to go out for them. Also we need two bedrooms. Even for hotels, we need two rooms. Nobody can have a good night of sleep if we stay in one room. That means higher lodging cost but it’s a cost I’m willing to pay to have an enjoyable trip for all of us.
– Running: I didn’t stress about running when I couldn’t this time. I ran 2/3 of the trip but couldn’t run at all when we moved to Ubud because there are too many street dogs and I didn’t want to go to a gym just to get my run done. Maybe if I’m in the peak training cycle for a marathon I’d have done that, but for this trip, I didn’t stress about it. I enjoyed the walks with the family instead.
– Things I’m glad I packed: packets of instant oatmeal, protein powder, assorted snacks for the family for long drives, travel size conditioner, 3 bottles of insect repellent and 3 bottles of sunscreen, hats and sun jackets were essentials.
– Reading: I only finished two books and it is fine. I had loaded up my kindle with 8 books but barely had time to read. We were always on the move.
Overall, it was a great trip, way better than I expected to be! Indonesia is a really cool place to visit given the culture diversity, topography that offers volcanos, beaches, mountains, forests for all kind of outdoor adventures. Cost wise, way cheaper than Europe and North America, and the services are great!
Our New Journey 
Agree that is QUITE a bargain. I like planning on some trips and spontaneity on others. Or a mix – like today we are headed to Bainbridge Island on a ferry, plan to take walks, see whatever there is to see, just explore, no real plan. But then again we are also seeing Olivia Rodrigo on Tuesday which took a lot of planning (and I enjoyed the anticipation element as did the kids!). So it’s a mix 🙂 You know I also love restaurant rerservations esp when with kids (though not every night some nights will be super casual).
That said the cheapest flights to Bali from Miami are $2K each so . . . that would be $10K right there for us!
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Agree that is QUITE a bargain. I like planning on some trips and spontaneity on others. Or a mix – like today we are headed to Bainbridge Island on a ferry, plan to take walks, see whatever there is to see, just explore, no real plan. But then again we are also seeing Olivia Rodrigo on Tuesday which took a lot of planning (and I enjoyed the anticipation element as did the kids!). So it’s a mix 🙂 You know I also love restaurant rerservations esp when with kids (though not every night some nights will be super casual).
That said the cheapest flights to Bali from Miami are $2K each so . . . that would be $10K right there for us!
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Wow, that is really not bad for that long of a trip! It helps that your flights were quite cheap, but it’s not such a long flight for you all! We are in such a different stage of travel with young kids. I know there are families that will travel with young kids but we have opted not to do that and just take one trip/year typically. I am taking Paul with me to visit my sister in the DC area but he is so easy to travel with and has more stamina. Taco can get quite tired easily and can’t walk as much as Paul (theoretically) can. We will see how he does on a more active/sight seeing type of trip, though. Our trips with both boys have been to Florida and Arizona. Florida is ideal for us because the boys love playing in the sand and surf and we enjoy a more low key type of trip with walks on the beach, swimming in the ocean and pool, etc. We’ll be more adventurous as the kids get older and heartier, though.
As an adult, I prefer trips with an active component – like my trip to Banff last year. I’d love to go back there as a family when the kids are older. I am not AS interested in big cities, but I would like to take the boys to NYC at some point and I love the DC area. San Francisco is fun to visit as well since you can do some hiking in various areas. The exception to all of this is Paris which is my absolute FAVORITE city. But it doesn’t feel like a big city for me since so much of it is historic and picturesque!
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You are so lucky to have such a cheap flight! I am trying to plan a Thailand trip with a friend in December, but she has two kids and the RT tickets are ~ $1400 USD each, and that adds up fast! For me, I have more flexibility with dates, but for her, she has to plan vacations when everyone else is also doing it, so that definitely bumps up the cost.
I am glad you guys had fun. I really enjoyed Bali when I was there last and I definitely plan to go back again someday soon. I have my SCUBA cert, and did not get a chance to go to the Gili islands last time, so definitely want to get there next time I go!
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You are so lucky to have such a cheap flight! I am trying to plan a Thailand trip with a friend in December, but she has two kids and the RT tickets are ~ $1400 USD each, and that adds up fast! For me, I have more flexibility with dates, but for her, she has to plan vacations when everyone else is also doing it, so that definitely bumps up the cost.
I am glad you guys had fun. I really enjoyed Bali when I was there last and I definitely plan to go back again someday soon. I have my SCUBA cert, and did not get a chance to go to the Gili islands last time, so definitely want to get there next time I go!
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Fun post! I love reading about stuff like this. I also prefer to NOT have any reservations if I don’t need to for activities, but this depends very much on the destination. For example, the tubing trip we did in Hawaii is the only one on Kauai, and it sells out completely 2+ months in advance. Or like when we went to NYC the tickets to go to the top of Statue of Liberty also sold out way in advance. Same with the luaus in Hawaii, etc. But this also depends some on how many people (we are often a group of 6). Would be a little easier with 2 people but still, it depends so much on the place! I do greatly prefer to just be able to wing it though if I can and it kind of annoys me/stresses me out if a destination requires a ton of advance reservations because I feel a little “trapped” or restricted!
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Oof, that sounds like a lot of money to me but I guess it’s a bargain for four people. My cousin recently traveled to Indonesia and he loved it, too.
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