Quick answer: Most Bali regrets are predictable: renting a scooter without skills or helmet, trusting airport touts, packing the itinerary like a conquest, flashing phones near monkeys, and treating temples as photo sets. Dodge the dozen below and the island repays you tenfold.
Transport mistakes
1) Scootering with zero experience: Bali traffic is jazz: take lessons or hire drivers. 2) No helmet/IDP: fines and worse. 3) Unmetered airport “taxis”: use the official counter or pre-book. 4) Underestimating distances: 30km can mean 90 minutes: cluster your days by area.
Money & haggling mistakes
5) Sketchy money changers with too-good rates (count twice, use banks/ATMs in daylight). 6) Not carrying small notes for warungs and temples. 7) Haggling joylessly: smile, it is a game, then pay fairly.
Culture & temple mistakes
8) Bare shoulders/knees at temples: sarongs are lent: wear them graciously. 9) Stepping on canang sari (the little offerings) on every pavement. 10) Monkey Forest bravado: sunglasses, phones and snacks WILL be taxed by professionals with tails.
Itinerary mistakes
11) Trying to “do” Bali in 4 days from Kuta: base smart (where to stay). 12) Skipping travel insurance for scooter days and volcano hikes: the one boring purchase that matters.
FAQ
Is Bali safe for tourists? Broadly yes: traffic and surf are the real risks: respect both.
Can I drink tap water? No: bottled or refill stations: ice in proper cafes is fine.
Biggest single mistake? The scooter-with-no-experience cocktail: lessons first or drivers always.
When is Bali overcrowded? July-August and holiday weeks: shoulder months feel like a different island: see timing.
Entry paperwork mistakes: the levy and visa that trip people up
The single most common arrival-day mistake is showing up without the Bali Tourist Levy sorted. Since 2024, every foreign visitor (children included) owes a one-time IDR 150,000 (about USD 9) provincial levy. Pay it before you fly through the official Love Bali portal at lovebali.baliprov.go.id or the Love Bali app, then save the QR-code voucher to your phone. Ignore the lookalike sites that charge a markup. If payment fails, there is a BRI Bank counter in the International Arrival Hall at Denpasar (DPS), but the queue at peak times is brutal.
The second trap is the visa. Most nationalities use the Visa on Arrival, which costs IDR 500,000 (about USD 35) and is valid for 30 days. Smart move: buy the e-VOA in advance at evisa.imigrasi.go.id (no earlier than 14 days out) so you can skip the airport VOA line entirely.
- Passport validity: you need at least 6 months remaining from your entry date, or you can be denied boarding.
- The 30-day count includes arrival and departure day — people miscount and overstay.
- The VOA extends only once, for another 30 days, for another IDR 500,000. Overstaying costs IDR 1,000,000 per day.
Scooter and driving mistakes that can void your insurance
Renting a scooter the day you land, with no licence, is the mistake that ends trips in a hospital or a police shakedown. To ride legally you need a physical International Driving Permit (IDP) endorsed for motorcycles, carried alongside your home licence — a photo on your phone is not accepted in 2026. Police now run roadblocks across Canggu, Seminyak, Kuta, and Uluwatu, actively checking paperwork, helmets, and registration.
The fine is the small problem. The real one is insurance: nearly every travel policy excludes claims arising from an illegal act, so if you crash without a valid motorcycle IDP, your insurer can refuse the bill — and a serious scooter injury easily exceeds USD 20,000 in medical costs. Bali’s roads are not the place to learn.
- If stopped, you must show your STNK (vehicle registration), home licence, and IDP — each missing document is roughly IDR 300,000–500,000.
- No helmet is a fine of about IDR 250,000; riding shirtless or with a modified exhaust can run up to IDR 1,000,000.
- Always wear the helmet and photograph any pre-existing scratches on the bike before you ride off, so the rental shop can’t bill you for them later.
Health and safety mistakes: water, drinks, and animal bites
Bali belly ruins more itineraries than any scam. The tap water is not potable — drink only sealed bottled or filtered water, and use it even for brushing your teeth. Skip ice you can’t vouch for, raw salads, and unpeeled fruit from street stalls; stick to freshly cooked, hot food from busy vendors. Pack oral rehydration salts and an anti-diarrhoeal so a rough night doesn’t become a wasted day.
The dangerous one is alcohol. Arak, Bali’s cheap local rice spirit, is sometimes adulterated with methanol, which causes blindness or death. Warning signs are blurred or tunnel vision, severe headache, and nausea hours after drinking. Protect yourself by ordering only at reputable bars and hotels, refusing suspiciously cheap cocktails and unlabelled spirits, and buying sealed bottles from supermarkets if you drink at your villa.
- Rabies is real here — Bali logged over 39,000 animal bites in 2024, roughly 90% from dogs. Don’t pet street dogs.
- If bitten or scratched, wash the wound with soap and water for 15 minutes and get post-exposure shots immediately at BIMC, Siloam, or Kasih Ibu (a full course runs under USD 500).
- Monkeys at Ubud and Uluwatu carry low rabies risk but other infections — keep food and sunglasses out of sight; they grab.
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Written by
John Morrison is the founder and lead travel writer at Packzup. Over the past decade he has explored destinations across Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Oceania — always self-funded, never on a press trip.