Canggu, Bali

Spent 2 weeks here. Liked Ubud better, but if you're more of a surfer, you'll like it here, although it's a bit crowded (in terms of nomads) at this point. Food is good and cheap and so is accommodation.

It's a cool place to stay for a while, get to know people at Dojo or Tropical Nomad, work a bit, eat some good food. But it is not relaxing at all. Noisy, dirty, hot, humid. The beach is also not super beautiful or clean. If you don't surf, or are not into beach bars and party, there is not much for you there. Loved to wake up really early when the air was a bit fresher and fewer people on the streets: that was my favorite Canggu, but that is not what Canggu really is. After one month I was ready to leave.

Cons:

- Beaches are filthy
- Oppressively hot (except June-Sep)
- Unsanitary for such a popular tourist destination
- Congested traffic, small roads, constant scooter noise

Pros:
- Amazing health and wellness community
- Great healthy vegan food options
- Amazing networking. Nomad community is always #1 or #2 on Nomadlist
- Some of the best gyms in the world all within 2x2 square km

Personally I hated it. Being somewhat of a SEA vet, I found it crowded, over touristed, expensive and with too many annoying hipsters. You can't walk ten feet without a scooter blocking your path and a red eyed local going "Taxi?" Literally every ten feet in Semniyak. Canggu maybe isn't so bad, but still the traffic is annoying. The roads are super small and traffic is horrible. If you're into walking places, Canngu isn't for you. You'll get run over. So either drive a scooter or get used to dealing with the taxi mafia. There's a war between them and ride hailing apps at the moment. So when you call a grab, after he drops you off there's a chance he'll be beaten to death. But this is normal around the world at the moment, for less affluent countries anyway.

Pros? It's beautiful. Lots of stuff to see and do. Unfortunately you'll be charged money for literally everything, including walking through rice paddies. The landscapes, the architecture. I know Bali is a big island with a lot to do. You can rent a villa for $1200 usd a month and live like a drug dealer with your own indoor swimming pool. So gather four nomads and have your own gated compound. Lots of nightlife, clubs, if you're into that stuff. I'm not. For parties I'd rather go to a beach place with hippies in Thailand. The local food is good, the tourist food is amazing if you're willing to pay western prices. But the quality is very high. Overall it's not an expensive place, but it can be.

I know Bali is a huge island but I'm just referring to Canggu. It's just to westernized for me. Too crowded with westerners. But if you want to go meet nomads and do western priced fitness, meditation and yoga classes it's the place to be. Plus the beaches are super polluted. Argh. I couldn't wait to leave. I doubt I'll be back soon. But if I do I'm definitely renting a villa and learning to surf.

Cool place to do business. But not a place I'd want to live for long. Maybe I'll give it another chance one day.

Excellent place to start your nomadic life, very very easy living here. For example, having your laundry washed and folded for you is about $3 USD, eating out very healthy about $6-7 USD, and co-working spaces about $120 USD. It has been a very soft landing for starting this lifestyle.

+ startup event, good food, a lot of gyms, party, - pollution, and each year more expensive

Oppressively hot. Actually hard to find Balinesian food. There is a lot of overpriced, average, western, hipster food. People are incredibly kind and the Balinesian food is great when you can find it. The roads are ridiculously crowded while a lot of the restaurants, bars, and clubs were less than 30% full. Kind of sad for local business owners. Surrounding area is beautiful and relatively accessible. Aside from western food & beverage lodging, food and beverage can be very cost effective. Other parts of the island are better for experiencing the Balinesian life, but it is more of a challenge to mix socially with local people here than other places as most people work in service industries or agriculture. It is what it is. In the end, if you like oppressive heat & humidity, western millennial cuisine, crowded roads, and a small beach, this may be your place.

There are definitely much better places for digital nomads. Been in Canggu for 2 months (2019) and its turning into another Kuta since there are so many tourists and its not even high season yet. Something like Ibiza in Europe. Also Internet is NOT stable. Rented a place with 40 mbit but it was on 5 most of the time. Even the coworking spaces are not always stable although you are looking at 15 usd or more to pay there for a day. This is more a party holiday place now. Lots of rich kids aka trustafarians. Food can be quite expensive too. Many places you will easily spend 7 usd for a breakfast. Alc is expensive here too compare to most of SE Asia. Not sure how somebody can say this is the number one spot. All in all happy to leave.

The review that begins "Canggu is great. Here's some pointers you need to know before going:" is exactly 100% spot-on except... its not great. Motorbikes are dangerous and there are so many incredibly dangerous tourists on motorbikes either showing off on overpowered bikes or not knowing what they're doing and crashing. I've been crashes and near-misses almost every day. Had someone crash into me just yesterday. Walking is impossible and incredibly dangerous. Its not worth your life to be in a place with filthy beaches, filthy streets and incredible noise pollution from clubs and made-to-be-loud motorbikes. There are some incredibly, incredibly hot Western women but I don't like living like a colonialist. I've never seen an Indonesian in the same restaurant or pool or anything as me. That's creepy. If you miss The Raj, then its probably great for you but I like living among the local people. Not them being only servants with nothing about the place left to enjoy themselves.

Canggu is the best amongst other SE Asian area for chilling and working remotely.

Canggu is great. Here's some pointers you need to know before going:

1) You HAVE TO to drive a motorbike/scooter. Canggu has no sidewalks and walking on the road is very dangerous. If you ride a bicycle you're also just endangering yourself. Drive a bike. Traffic isn't necessarily safe. But if you drive 30km/h you'll be OK. Don't drink and drive, most ppl die because of that.

2) Yes it's very Western. Canggu is essentially a 2-by-2 km resort full of expats, foreigners, nomads and tourists. Locals staff the restaurants, bars and coworkings. It's not unlike a resort in Mexico in that way. Good? I don't know, but it's how it is.

3) Canggu has some of the best international food you can imagine. Italian chefs making Michelin-level food. Amazing pizzas at Crust for $5. Japanese sushi and ramen. Many chefs left their home countries to live in Bali and opened up restaurants here.

4) Canggu nightlife is improving fast. It used to be only Old Man's and then a party on the beach with the same Spotify pop playlist every night. But now we're seeing techno clubs like Volt and many more open. Very good.

5) Traffic is really annoying. There's just too many loud dangerous motorbikes and scooters on too narrow roads driving too fast. And often a giant car clogging everything up in there too. Canggu will kill itself if it doesn't fix this. Canggu needs a ban on petrol bikes, only allow electric bikes, set speed limits that are enforced and promote bicycle usage. Cars should be banned altogether, it's just too small for it.

But apart from that it really is one of the most ideal places to be now. I think what I like most is the people that Canggu attracts. It's creatives and entrepreneurs mostly.

Visit it, get a bike and explore Canggu. Stay for at least a few weeks before judging it. It's not the easiest place to start off and that's purposely to keep the noobs out. Enjoy!

Canggu is a hipster paradise with a vast digital nomade community, health foods, and fitness. Want to be a tourist? Go to Kuta or Seminyak. Want to surf? Go to Uluwatu. Want yoga and fasting retreats? Go to Ubud. Want to be part of a community that lives and breaths for arts, entreprenureal ideas, and a lifestyle of hitting the health foods, secret beach spots, and soul searching? Canggu is the place. Many westerners have settled here, and prices can reflect this unless you take the time to pinpoint the local warungs and guest houses. Not family friendly. CrossFit scene is epic.

Shittiest European Clique

Waves are shit, water is dirty and there's like a thousand kooks from Europe on longboards in the water fighting for that occasional 1ft mushy wave.
Better off going to Uluwatu or Padang for real waves.
Indonesia got some of the worlds best waves, but Canggu shouldn't even be regarded as a surf spot.

I have been there only one time but it was really chilly

This is really great place to be as a digital nomad. It's not insanely Thailand/Laos cheap however if you're a bit older, 30+ and have a moderately successful business its a steal. If you've done Thailand, Laos, Vietnam etc and want a professional alternative to a backpacker lifestyle then Bali is for you. Internet is great. Food is insanely good, people are very nice- expats + locals. Really glad I found this place. Dojo has awesome wifi :)

Dirty beaches, though I heard it's different depending on the time of year. Good food, lots of vegan/veg/clean options. No swimming at all, but good surfing. More expensive than I expected.

I think Canggu is a good place for working remotely.
The good points are that it is cheap to eat healthy and sleep in nice places, if you are acting ok with the balineses and majority of people living in Canggu, you will find them really nice. You can surf, hike, drive motorbike in beautiful rices fields. You might want to find peace and (for exemple) interest yourself in the meditation stuff or you can party like.. a lot !
For Digital Nomading aspects: There is a lot of coworking/coliving spaces and digital nomads to meet and discuss with around the island.
For Safety: Driving in motorbike can be tricky and dangerous in Bali but it might be the first option you'll have if you stay there (or you take motorbike-taxi everytime). BE SURE TO STAY SAFE AND INSURED - Eat in places you trust
Consider: The island just had a touristic boom in the last years and the authenticity of the island might not be preserved at this rythm. Take care of Bali if you visit it.

Vastly overrated. Infrastructure is bad, not densely populated so dating is difficult. Roads are too narrow and congested. The Internet is pathetic. Expensive beer taxed by the Muslim regime and every bill has 20% tax. Amazed this place can be so well regarded. Thailand and Vietnam are far better in SE Asia for everything. Would rather rough it in Cambodia than stay here.

I don't know why this place is ranked so high. It is not cheap, not safe, the internet is craptastic, and the beaches are filthy.

Watch out for the bag snatchers at night, it never happened to me but I've heard some stories. Better to just wear a backpack, because they won't try to snatch that.

What started out as a fishing village with just a few shacks on the beach became a surfer's hotspot around 2005. Surfers would stay in Seminyak and drive north to Canggu's Echo Beach to catch waves. Around 2008, there was the first remote working nomads arriving. Mostly Eastern European and Russian programmers who'd work from Canggu's then few cafes.

After the digital nomad explosion of 2014, many nomads sprawled to Bali and settled down in Ubud. Meanwhile in Canggu, the first coworking space there opened called Salty Volt. It didn't manage to attract many people though and finally closed down. Canggu just wasn't ready yet, with only a few cafes and restaurants, and well, people. It took 2 years for Canggu to get back on the radar and when Ubud's coworking spaces and cafes started getting crowded in 2016, people started mentioning Canggu again. In those 2 years, the Salty Volt had now become Dojo, had a new owner, there was now lots of hip cafes, restaurants with European chefs, and the vibe in Canggu was now a more ambitious and fashionable version of Ubud.

Where Ubud was for hippies, Canggu was for hipsters.

From 2016 on, every year more and more people started to move to Canggu. In late 2017, it became so popular with nomads that for the first time Dojo had to deny new memberships. At the same time, it started becoming a hotspot for Instagrammers, who'd rent luxury villas with flamingo floats and snap pictures. In turn, this started attracting more tourists and have now made Canggu the most popular spot in Bali for nomads. For now, at least.