It all started with what was supposed to be a trip to Europe. We had been planning on taking a few more trips before trying to start a family, and Europe has always been a go-to for us. We’ve loved the countries we’ve visited, and the people that we’ve met there. As an added bonus it was very easy to get to. However, as we kept searching, researching, and building our budget and travel schedule, one destination kept coming up: Bali.

Now you can either chalk this up to poor search engine optimization (or possibly so brilliant that we were being shown a destination that we didn’t even know we wanted to visit yet), but as we kept doing the math, we realized that it was going to cost us about the same whether we went to continental Europe, or if we took a leap of faith, and headed to Bali. Now getting to Bali from the United States isn’t easy, and it’s a very long journey. However, we thought “when are we ever going to have the chance to do this again?”. So we made our choice, booked our tickets, and headed to this incredible and magical island.

Twenty-six hours of travel later, we landed in one of the most simultaneously beautiful and chaotic places I’ve ever been to. To me, anywhere in Southeast Asia is a completely new and foreign concept. There’s nothing familiar there. I have no root in the language or culture. I have no bearings or experiences to draw from except what I had seen on the internet. The sights, sounds, smells, and culture were all completely new to me. The constantly honking horns and revving moped engines created an unbelievable din. The heat and humidity in the airport alone were stifling and it was late in the evening. What would we see and do? What would our experience be? Did we make a mistake?

The short answer is no. What we were set for though, was one of the greatest adventures of our lives.

Bali is impossible to encapsulate in the span of a single blog post. The longer we were there, the more we realized that the chaotic traffic and constant noise were more of a dance and a song. It was the voice of the island. The beep-beep of mopeds, the revving of engines, the stifling heat, all of it was the heartbeat of Bali.

You could spend a lifetime here and still never experience everything the Island of the Gods has to offer. If you immerse yourself in the chaos, if you allow yourself to find and experience the moments of quiet serenity among the trees, singing insects, and chirping birds, you will find a pure happiness that only a place like this can bring you.

Want to see more of our trip to Bali? Here’s a playlist of our vlogs from this trip