If travelling for you is as much about capturing the perfect foodie photo for Instagram as it is about experiencing a new place… then we’ve got the guide for you.
Did someone say selfie? Say Seminyak. This sassy suburb or district, as the Balinese like to call their different precincts, is one of the hottest when it comes to attracting Instagram’s IT crowd. You might also like to chug on over to Canggu, which is proving popular too with those who like their pics just a little bit slick.
1. Revolver Espresso
It started out in 2011 as a 30-seater joint in Seminyak designed to serve great Australian coffee but has exploded into a 150-seat caffeine institution. And it’s not only the best beans that draw happy snappers here but the ambience of this rustic roastery too, with its slick signage and floral pink walls. Feast on a funky all-day menu or dive straight into a breakfast espresso martini. There’s also a Baby Revolver on Petitenget.
Revolver Espresso is a rustic roastery serving up Australian coffee and all-day breakfast.
2. Coffee Cartel
Think pink at Seminyak’s Coffee Cartel which blushes bright with this musky colour splashed all around and a sister joint at Legian. What’s even cooler, it has now introduced a Ripple Machine which ups the ante on latte art with its ability to create any image or text atop your coffee. Munch on funky fare with a tasty twist such as the beef brisket rendang.
Do you like a side of latte art with your coffee order? Coffee Cartel in Seminyak is the place for you.
3. Motel Mexicola
As if Bali wasn’t spicy enough, smack bang in the middle of Seminyak you’ll find Motel Mexicola, which is a little slice of Mexico with all the vibes from its eclectic interior to its coloured tiles. Feast on food is full of colour and flavour, from esquites to tacos and tostadas. Sip on some fun and flirty drinks such as the requisite tequilas and margaritas, and if you don’t capture a snap of yourself smoking a cigar from the reasonable selection here, did it even really happen?
Motel Mexicola is the perfect spot for a margarita and a Mexican feast.
4. Watercress
Byron Bay boys Pablo Fourcard and Jordie Strybos have turned their long-time friendship into a business partnership at this Kuta cafe, which aims to bring Australia to Bali. Focusing on sustainably sourced and honest dishes, get snap happy with food porn here from a memorable menu of pretty dishes like the Mahi Mahi burger with crispy capers and sweet marinated peppers.
Watercress is a Kuta cafe that aims to bring a slice of Australia to Bali.
5. Sea Circus
You can’t miss Sea Circus, near a quiet corner in Seminyak, where Instagrammers queue to plonk on the pink bench chair outside framed by this crazy cafe. Inside, discover an aqua bar framed by comfy white bar stools, plus a colourful menu to match including new dishes such as the four crispy Balinese spiced tiger prawns, pickled palm hearts, with chilli and coriander for plenty of colour (not to mention the flavour).
Queue for a photo on the pink bench chair at Sea Circus before settling in for a taste of their colourful food.Step inside Sea Circus and you’ll find the restaurant is as worthy of an Instagram post as the outside.
6. Neon Palms
Given the success of Sea Circus, not surprisingly, it has a sister restaurant and you’ll find that same signature perky pink bench outside Neon Palms, also in Seminyak. Make sure you check out the emerald green bathrooms inside before dining on a bold breakfast of Neon Benedict crafted with black truffle rosti, smoked bacon, poached eggs and hollandaise.
Neon Palms is the sister restaurant to the popular Sea Circus.
7. Milk & Madu
The proof is in the pudding and poke at Milk & Madu, which serves fun and funky food in both its Canggu and Ubud establishments. It’s all about a tropical vibe here, with colourful creations that match the decor. Check out the bold breakfast bowls for some photos to make your followers all shades of green with envy. And while the pizza may not be the prettiest thing you’ll ever see on Instagram, sometimes it’s worth just eating your food, rather than photographing it, particularly when it’s made on lava stone.
Milk and Madu
8. Da Maria Bali
It’s all about bringing a little slice of Italy’s Amalfi Coast to the Island of the Gods at Da Maria in Bali’s Kerobokan district. You’ll adore all the clean, crisp blues and whites of this venue with perky perches, eclectic events, late-night disco and fabulous food brimming with all the Italian flavours and fanfare, with great wines to match.
Da Maria is a little slice of Italy’s Amalfi Coast in Bali’s Kerobokan district.You’ll find fabulous food brimming with all the Italian flavours.
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9. Tropicola Beach Club
Adorned with all the primary colours you’d find in a Lego set – fire-engine reds, sunflower yellows and bold blues – this Seminyak space is the latest to attract the Insta crowd. The first beach club for the Mexicola group, you’ll find a club, restaurant, bar and pool here. Those chasing sunset snaps for their feed will adore the fact it’s perched along Bali’s Golden Mile on Batu Belig Beach and in pole position to catch the day’s dying rays. The Porn Star Martini of vanilla vodka, passionfruit and prosecco ought to be worthy of its own Instagram page in itself.
Tropicola Beach Club is a club, restaurant, bar and pool in one.Order a cocktail at Tropicola Beach Club and take in the view of Batu Belig Beach.
10. Pablo’s Canggu
You could be forgiven you were thinking you were in Colombia, not Canggu when you enter the vibrant venue that is Pablo’s. It’s got all those South American vibes here with splashes and sploshes of green, yellow, blue and red plus eclectic artwork galore. Strike the perfect pose on the tasteful tiled steps outside that signal you are in for an assault on the senses once you enter.
For all of the South American vibes head to Pablo’s Canggu.The eclectic decor of Pablo’s Canggu.
And a few ‘floating’ meal options worth a pretty pic or two…
Floating breakfasts have become all the rage in Bali recently (you don’t float, rather you wade, but your breakfast does) and there’s a growing list to choose from. For some spiffy snaps, check out:
• Ayana Resort and Spa at Jimbaran
• W Seminyak
• Ini Vie Villa, Kuta
• Kamandalu, Ubud
• The Royal Purnama Art Suites and Villas, Gianyar
• Samsara, Ubud
After youth-led protests in 2025, this year Nepal elected a 35-year-old former rapper as Prime Minister. In a country where tourism is its biggest industry, what’s next for travellers?
In 1986, Nepal changed its clock. It had used India Standard Time since 1920 so, to differentiate, it wound its clock 15 minutes ahead of, not behind, its big-brother neighbour. Boss move. “Nepal is strongly opposed to the idea that our identity is connected to India,” says Community Homestay Network (CHN) guide Bikal Khanal.
Tharu dance is traditionally set to hand drums. (Credit: Kate Lewis)
Today, Nepal is the only independent country with a 45-minute deviation to universal time; an oddity that’s become a symbol of national pride. The quirk is nearly as endearing as Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan airport where carved varnished wood and shiny red bricks rule. One sign points to a ‘Travelator’ and another to a ‘Grievance Handling Desk’ while visas are noisily stamped at customs for US dollars, cash only. When am I?
Spot the endemic Nepal gray langur. (Credit: Simon Urwin)
The 15 or 45 minute anomaly sees me tap out completely on timezone calculations. Why bend my brain calculating if it’s quarter to or quarter past elsewhere when I’m in the honking here and now of Kathmandu where the air is high-altitude crisp, the prayer flags flutter and the street dogs howl?
How tourism is changing in Nepal
Bardiya National Park is rich with wildlife. (Credit: Simon Urwin)
India is not the only association many Nepalis would like to shake. With eight of the world’s 10 tallest mountains, including Mount Everest and Annapurna, Nepal has long attracted mountaineers and trekkers, and expedition numbers are continuing to rise.
Tourism is one of the country’s biggest sources of foreign currency, so this growth is not negative, per se. But according to Ang Tshering Lama, who co-founded Phaplu Mountain Bike Club, being reduced to a mere trekking destination is limiting.
“Trekking is just one layer of our identity,” says Ang. “When it becomes the dominant narrative, it limits how we’re seen and how we see ourselves.” Nepal’s recent success, however, in diverting trekkers to less-trafficked areas such as Manaslu mofuntain, where visitor numbers rose by 117 per cent last year, offers hope that tourism can diversify even more radically.
Local men in Bhada village. (Credit: Simon Urwin)
The founder of CHN, Shiva Dhakal, wants that change. “The whole idea of the Community Homestay Network is to promote experiences outside of trekking,” he says. “Community tourism changes lives and helps kids stay home instead of coming to the city or migrating to the Middle East.”
Ang grew up seeing people leave, “not because they wanted to but because there weren’t enough opportunities to stay”, he states. Yet from remote villages to living traditions; food, art, music and emerging subcultures, “there’s so much that’s not being seen.”
CHN is opening some of those doors. It doesn’t own, or fund, any homes. Rather, it promotes homestays to travellers on a single, slick platform, while fostering entrepreneurship in places where women, marginalised castes, Indigenous people and the youth stand to benefit the most.
A new generation demanding more
Dalla Town Hall, where volunteers discuss anti-poaching tactics. (Credit: Bheem Thapa)
The future prospects of next-gen Nepalis can no longer be ignored. On a Kathmandu tour with 33-year-old guide Monica K.C, we pass buildings torched in the September 2025 ‘Gen Z protests’, including the Supreme Court and Parliament House. Seventy-two people died. “They were anti-corruption protests,” says Monica. “Politicians’ children are living a lavish life but the airports are crowded with youngsters leaving to find work.”
We stop in ‘little Tibet’ at the wondrous sixth-century Boudha Stupa. “The wheel of life is Buddhism in a nutshell,” says Monica. “Things such as hate, ignorance and anger keep you rotating around the wheel, so you must follow the principles of Buddhism to detach. If you can’t, there’s no nirvana for you.”
Boudha Stupa’s prayer wheels are used to recite Buddhist prayers. (Credit: Kate Lewis)
In a sun-drenched twist to the usual temple visit, we ascend the stupa’s sloping plinth and roam its whitewashed dome. Tendrils of diaphanous prayer flags stream from a steeple-like structure where the Buddha’s unblinking eyes stare out. No nirvana for you…
Tibetan-style prayer flags embellish the whitewashed dome of Bouda Stupa, a Buddhist temple. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)
The dome is delightfully free of guard rails or chiding from security. There is, however, a stern ‘No TikTok’ sign, perhaps in response to the youth’s newly flexed power. The booted-out Prime Minister, K.P. Sharma Oli, was replaced in a resounding election victory in March by 35-year-old Balendra Shah of the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) – a former rapper and mayor of Kathmandu. The RSP’s manifesto indicates tourism is a priority, and that Nepal’s cultural identity in areas such as gastronomy will be strengthened.
Vibrant souvenir shops and cafes around Boudha Stupa. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)
A more confronting stop awaits at Pashupatinath Temple. Today is Bala Chaturdashi, a Hindu festival where thousands of devotees gather to honour their dead ancestors. Vendors hauling foam mattresses do a lucrative trade as people set up for a night of vigil. This includes burning the bodies of recently deceased relatives on bamboo pyres in the Bagmati River, which flows into the sacred Ganges.
A woman at annual Hindu festival Bala Chaturdashi, in Kathmandu. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)
Wrapped in a shroud, the bodies are positioned with their heads facing north to the Himalayas where Lord Shiva resides. They’re covered with flowers and straw and set alight by male family members.
Hours later, the ashes are swept into the river where devotees will take a holy dip the next day. As much as Monica assures us it’s not voyeuristic to watch, I struggle to do so. “Here you see the reality of life because everyone ends up there,” she says, gesturing to the river.
Life unfiltered in the Terai region
Tharu woman and master weaver Parbati Chaudhary in Bhada Village. (Credit: Bheem Thapa)
The reality of life needs processing time, which the western Terai region delivers in spades. The Terai is largely separated from India by the Karnali River and Bardiya National Park, where elephants, rhinos and the elusive Bengal tiger roam.
Once a nomadic tribe, the Indigenous Tharu people are now the largest ethnic group here. “They didn’t know their daily life was interesting for international travellers but they’re starting to understand now,” says CHN founder Shiva.
Take a Jeep safari through Bardiya National Park. (Credit: Bheem Thapa)
We fly Buddha Air to Dhangadhi airport and drive five hours to stay in Tharu homes. The journey to Bhada village is a blur of roadside fruit stalls, traffic-stopping sacred cows and fields sown with wheat, rice, mustard, spinach, cauliflower and potatoes. Nepal’s agriculture feeds only Nepal.
Marigolds are an important part of Hindu rituals. (Credit: Simon Urwin)
“The only thing we export is young people,” says our guide Bikal. As the light dims and we plunge evermore rural, mysterious mounds of compacted hay – some house-sized – loom like the creatures from Where The Wild Things Are. Even our trusty driver gets flummoxed by a dirt road that abruptly ends and we find ourselves hurtling across a paddock.
On arrival, some are ferried to mud-walled cottages greened by gourd creepers, with thatched roofs and rustic-chic mosquito nets. Myself and two others are ushered to the home of corner store owner, mechanic and mushroom farmer Man Kumar Chilaruwa and his wife Rajkumari.
A warm welcome at a community homestay. (Credit: Simon Urwin)
They escort us to a bunker-esque back building with steel doors and a folding security gate, behind which is gleaming linoleum, dolphin-printed tiles and a shower cavity that must be gingerly stepped through to reach the toilet.
The ceiling lights emit a rainbow of colours (the bathroom light gets stuck in, frankly, a quite frightening red). We’re nevertheless touched that our hosts invested in all this bling when the average salary is around $275 a month.
In the coming days, we participate in Tharu traditions such as making moonshine, dancing, weaving straw handicrafts and gold-panning. We’re fed well with staples of rice, mustard greens, lentil pancakes, daal, curried chicken and tomato chutney served on antibacterial saal leaves.
Dig in. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)
Sonara community homestay president Indradevi Tharu tells us river snails are often served, and the boiled and pickled flesh of rats hunted in the rice fields. “Perhaps next time?” we say and all have a laugh.
The power of community homestays
Barda community homestay owners Parbati Chaudhary and Ram Krishni Devi Chaudhary. (Credit: Simon Urwin)
Immersing Western visitors in foreign cultural practices is not new. But with the Tharu, I never get that uneasy sensation that I’m being performed for. Despite being the only tourists, there’s no ‘othering’; just warm, composed and ultra-dignified welcomes. Like we’ve always been here.
“I love to have travellers in my village so I can see the world,” says local woman Parbati Chaudhary. “Why would I travel the world when the world comes to me?”
The graceful acceptance the Tharu offer, as well as the slow pace, works miracles on my frazzled nervous system. One day I even take a nap on a vacant homestay bed.
An authentic stay in the Sonara community. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)
Roosters strut and goats bray as we sit on the ground in al fresco kitchens, rolling rice flour into cylinders steamed to make dhikri (dumplings). When water is needed, we fetch it using a hand-operated pump as a family of ducks strolls by, side-eying us like curious neighbours.
Animal lovers will delight in Tharu villages. Kind and resourceful inventions are everywhere, such as snacking stations where two posts lean together, with leafy boughs dangling on rope for baby goats to forage from.
CHN’s CEO, Aayusha Prasain, nods knowingly when one in our group says she cried when she left her host, Shayam Chaudhary, in Bhada. Shayam’s 17-year-old son, Prashant, had translated, which deepened the connection.
“Community tourism turns travel into a relationship, not a transaction,” says Aayusha. “It places decision-making power in the hands of local communities, especially women and youth.” Since 2018, CHN has hosted more than 4000 travellers from 52 countries in 408 households, and estimates women’s participation has increased by 381 per cent.
Elephant watch. (Credit: Simon Urwin)
In the Bardiya community, where vexing human-animal conflict has been a balancing act for decades due to elephants raiding crops, long-time homestay operator Salik Ram Chaudhary says young people keep the older ones on their toes.
Gathering greens. (Credit: Bheem Thapa)
“We can’t keep homestays stagnant,” he says. “We have to upgrade our service and redefine our product or young people won’t see it as an attractive business. If we can keep evolving with this travelling trend we’re confident the youths will stay and continue it.”
Back in Kathmandu, Monica explains that after the deaths of young protestors in September, a determination had spread to not let their sacrifice be in vain. “We want to keep holding the government accountable,” she says. “We don’t know what situation we’re facing, but we’re ready to face it.”
Interested in Nepal but prefer to experience it in total comfort? Read our guide to luxury travel in Nepal.
