7 Best Villas in Bali with Villa Finder

Renting a villa in Bali allows large groups and families to split costs while enjoying shared amenities and communal spaces. Here are seven of the best villas in Bali.

The enduring Australian obsession with Bali transcends any sudden spikes in social media envy or FOMO. Add a villa to the equation for a tropical island escape, and Bali becomes the dream getaway, especially for groups. Unlike standard hotel rooms in Bali, villas offer a home away from home with multiple rooms, fully equipped kitchens and expansive lounge areas. For larger parties, staying in a villa will often place you closer to local communities and traditions. Here are seven of the best villas in Bali.

1. Akashi Residence

Sleeps 12.

PurePods Akashi Residence — Slide into the villa pool.

Akashi Residence is featured on International Traveller’s guide to the best Bali accommodation for a multitude of reasons. The three-storey, six-bedroom, seven-bathroom luxury villa was designed for those seeking a sense of seclusion that feels far from the chaos of Canggu. The Akashi Residence is suitable for large family gatherings: it has an ice bath, pool table and a waterslide with wow factor that corkscrews into the pool. Channel Julia Roberts in Eat, Pray, Love and start your day with a swim followed by breakfast cooked by your own private chef in the designer kitchen. There’s also a gym and dedicated space for yoga practise. There are massage therapists available on request and a driver at your disposal. Don’t worry. We won’t judge you if you decide to stay glued to a day bed.

2. Villa Babadan

Sleeps eight.

PurePods Villa Babadan — Enjoy a personalised concierge service.

Gather eight of your nearest and dearest and make a beeline for Villa Babadan in Canggu. It’s easy to see why Villa Finder’s team of travel experts chose to include Villa Babadan in their listings. All up, Villa Babadan has four bedrooms and four bathrooms as well as a saltwater infinity pool lined with palm trees and frangipanis. And, like all of the Villa Finder properties, the luxurious abode offers a personalised concierge service which can arrange everything from airport transfers to stylish get-together. Up to 20 guests can be accommodated on the terrace or upstairs balcony for a cocktail party or small gathering.

3. Villa Kubu Dewi Sri

Sleeps 10.

aerial view of PurePods Villa Kubu Dewi Sri — Stay in a river of rice paddies.

Pack your favourite crop top and crochet shorts. We’re Bali bound. Out of the 277 villas available on the Villa Finder site in Canggu, this one caught our eye. Villa Kubu Dwi Sri is surrounded by a rippling emerald river of rice paddies, making it perfect for groups and families who want to feel a sense of place. The true allure of a stay here has to do with the fact the villa is built with a Balinese design bent in mind, with a thatched-roof gazebo a modern take on the Indonesian tradition of communal living. The five-bathroom, five-bedroom villa has nine staff on hand, including a complimentary driver standing by to transport you to the nearby beach clubs. Daily breakfast is included.

4. Villa Suka Sawah

Sleeps eight.

PurePods Villa Suka Sawah — Get a massage, or eat snacks by the pool.

The colour wheel changes from blue to green in Bali as you travel from the beaches to the jungles of Ubud. Villa Suka Sawah is set amid the crayon-green surrounds of Central Bali where the chitter of forest creatures is the soundtrack. Bookmark this minimalist-chic villa for next year’s Ubud Writer’s Festival as a great home base from which to soak up the creative scene in Ubud. The five-bathroom, four-bedroom villa is near to the village of Pejeng, where you’ll find vibrant local galleries and incredible restaurants. Like most of the Villa Finder offerings, this secluded retreat is best suited to groups who want to play board games or chit-chat rather than hide away in a hotel room. You can still get a massage and order snacks from one of the three villa butlers, but without the price hike of hotel room service.

5. Villa Aamisha

Sleeps eight.

PurePods Villa Aamisha — Take in views of Bali’s East Coast.

The pull of Bali’s East Coast remains irresistible, especially when you manage to secure a stay at luxury digs like Villa Aamisha. Villa Aamisha looks like the kind of property that would feature on Location, Location, Location. Just six kilometres to the town of Candidasa, it overlooks the endless blue of the ocean and features a breezy living pavilion perfectly suited to the tropical climate. Villa Aamisha is a popular villa for bridal parties and intimate destination weddings. Each of the four bedrooms has an ensuite and there’s a cosy sofa lounge and swinging chairs for taking in the sunset views. Villa Aamisha also has a chef onsite who can prepare everything from nasi goreng to a Caesar salad.

6. NicoNico Mansion

Sleeps 12.

PurePods NicoNico Mansion — Enjoy funky interiors and short walks to the beach.

Picture this: you’ve opened the door to your dreamy mansion and are lounging by your private pool, sipping a chilled glass of rose, within minutes of your arrival. There is no lengthy check-in, no crowds to contend with, just you and your girl gang swanning around the luxe mansion in Seminyak in your sarongs. NicoNico Mansion is one of 1055 Bali villas listed on the Villa Finder website and the 9.8/10 rating is spot on. The six-bathroom, six-bedroom villa, which has five staff on hand, has ping pong and billiards and large private garden with swimming pool. The villa tucked down a leafy lane in the heart of Petitenget is within walking distance to Potato Head and Petitenget Beach.

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7. Villa Alam Mountain

Sleeps four.

PurePods Villa Alam Mountain — Stay in luxury in the middle of Indonesian jungle.

Watch the buttery light of dawn pour over the jungle as the sun rises over Mt Agung in the distance from your day bed. It’s one of many lovely aspects of a stay at Villa Alam Mountain, which has two detached bungalows with exclusive access to trails that run like rivulets into the rice fields and mountains. This 10/10-rated two-bedroom villa has a 6:4 staff ratio. Located on the slopes of Mt Adeng, Villa Alam Mountain is aimed at adventurers who like a few creature comforts after a jungle trek or hike up Adeng Mountain. Using the treetop villa as your base, you can set off for Angseri Hot Springs, work on your handicap at Handara Golf Course or visit Ulun Danu Beratan temple. An extra perk is the private chef who is on hand to create nourishing meals from locally sourced ingredients.

About Villa Finder

PurePods — Book your favourite locations.

Whether you’re seeking a beachfront villa for the family or a jungle-clad retreat for your entourage in Ubud, Villa Finder will ensure your escape to the Indonesian island will be nothing short of extraordinary.

Villa Finder goes beyond being just a booking platform, offering a concierge service and experts when it comes to finding the very best group travel accommodation. All villas listed on the site are also inspected and intentionally selected, which is an important point of difference.

Start booking your dream Bali getaway at villa-finder.com.

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 — 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…

bouda stupa prayer flags — 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.

Boudha Stupa vendors — 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 — 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.

community homestay entrance — 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.

food at community homestay — 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

community homestay owners in Nepal — 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.

Sonara community room — 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.

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.

“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.

7 of the most incredible Bali villas for your next getaway

Renting a villa in Bali allows large groups and families to split costs while enjoying shared amenities and communal spaces. Here are seven of the best villas in Bali.

1. Akashi Residence

2. Villa Babadan

3. Villa Kubu Dewi Sri

4. Villa Suka Sawah

5. Villa Aamisha

6. NicoNico Mansion

7. Villa Alam Mountain

About Villa Finder

The ultimate guide to the best Bali accommodation

The best stays in Seminyak right now

The best Ubud accommodation for a relaxing Balinese getaway

Your ultimate guide to Bali’s vibrant Seminyak

These community homestays are changing how travellers experience Nepal

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?

How tourism is changing in Nepal

A new generation demanding more

Life unfiltered in the Terai region

The power of community homestays

Weekly travel news, experiences
insider tips, offers, and more.

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