(Please note: This is part of an academic project and the figures below are illustrative, not based on actual traveller data.)

I've been building a travel budgeting tool and wanted to answer one of the most common questions I see across travel subreddits:

"How much should I budget for Bali?"

To explore this, I ran a hypothetical AI analysis on 500 anonymised Bali trip profiles and looked for spending patterns across flights, accommodation, food, transport and activities.

Here are the results for a typical 5-day Bali trip from India.

Average Cost Per Person

• Budget Traveller: ₹45,000–60,000
• Mid-Range Traveller: ₹65,000–90,000
• Luxury Traveller: ₹1.2L+

Where the Money Actually Goes

• ✈️ Flights: 35%
• 🏨 Accommodation: 25%
• 🍜 Food & Cafés: 15%
• 🏄 Activities & Experiences: 15%
• 🚕 Local Transport: 5%
• 💸 Hidden Costs: 5%

Biggest Surprises

1. Most travellers underestimate food spending by 25–35%.

Bali café culture adds up quickly.

1. Activities are rarely included properly in initial budgets.

People budget for flights and hotels, then forget:

• Nusa Penida tours

• Beach clubs

• Water sports

• ATV rides

1. Hidden costs are more significant than expected.

Common misses:

• Airport transfers

• SIM cards

• Forex charges

• Travel insurance

• Convenience spending

Most Expensive Time to Visit

December–January

Average trip cost was approximately 20–30% higher than shoulder season.

Best Value Period

May–June and September.

Lower flight prices, good weather and lower accommodation rates.

Question for the community

For those who have been to Bali recently:

What ended up costing much more than you expected?

And what cost much less?

Would love to compare real experiences against the AI analysis.