Complete Bali Airport Arrival Guide 🇮🇩 Don't Make These 5 Mistakes

You've been dreaming about your trip to Bali for months. You can't wait to dive into the crystal blue waters, explore those lush jungle waterfalls, eat the delicious food, watch world-class sunsets, and experience the unique culture here on the island of the gods. But first, you have to get through the airport. In this complete Bali airport arrival guide, I'll be taking you step-by-step from the airplane to your accommodations. You'll learn how to beat the lines at immigration, what ATMs and SIMs to choose, how to save money on transportation, as well as five critical mistakes that trip up most travelers, so that you can get through the airport as quickly as possible and start enjoying paradise. Now, your smooth arrival in Bali actually begins before you leave home. Make sure that your passport has at least six months before it expires, and that you need three specific QR codes saved on your phone before you even get on the plane. The first one is the EVOA or the electronic visa on arrival. This is a super simple process, and you don't need to pay anyone to do it. That's a mistake a lot of people make. You can just go directly here on the Indonesian immigration website and register all on your own. The price is 500,000 rupiah, which is approximately 32 U.S. dollars, the same if you get it at the airport. And if you're here for standard tourism, select the B1 visa. Now, if you do this before you arrive, this pre-registers you for the brand new biometric auto gates and immigration that will let you breeze right through and skip the lines. If you don't do it before you come, then you could be stuck for hours in the manual payment line. Another important thing to realize is that in order to get this form, you need to have an onward ticket out of the country. And if you're like me and need a flexible travel schedule, that can be tough. So I use Onward Ticket, which is a website that gives you a legitimate, verifiable ticket that's good for 48 hours that will fulfill this requirement. I'll put a link in the description down below so you can check it out for yourself. The second QR code that you need is the All Indonesia Arrival Card, which you can fill out 72 hours before your flight on this website right here. It is super easy to do and absolutely free, so don't make the mistake of paying a service to do it for you. And the third and final QR code is the Bali Tourist Levy, which you can fill out on this website right here. It is 150,000 rupiah, which is about 9 US dollars, and you only have to pay it once per trip to Bali. Now that you have all three of your QR codes, make sure to screenshot them and put them into your favorites folder, because if you're planning on doing it when you get to the airport, the Wi-Fi is not always reliable. So you're going to have to show these in order to get through immigration, and having them ready to go is a huge time saver. Now that we have our pre-arrival QR codes all sorted out, it's time to get off the plane and follow the green international arrival signs through the concourse. Your first stop is passport control. Now if you took my advice and filled out your EVOA before you got here, then look for the auto gate sign. Simply walk up to the gates, put your passport in the little scanner, look up at the facial recognition camera, the gates will open, and you can walk into Bali in like 15 seconds. If you didn't follow my advice, then this is where you're going to have to fill out the same forms you could have done at home. They do have Wi-Fi, though it's not always very good, and they have some codes that you can scan to fill out the forms on the spot. And now it's time to go get in line. Once you're through immigration, walk straight through the duty-free area and into the baggage claim. Here you can grab yourself a trolley and check your flight number on the overhead screens, then go and grab your bags. As you exit the baggage claim, there should be a small kiosk where they're going to check your Bali tourist levy QR code. If it's not there, that's totally fine. Just continue past it into the customs exit area. Here you're going to get in line and make sure to have that all Indonesia arrival card ready to be scanned. Then head through. If you don't have anything to claim, then get in the green line that goes through customs. They might ask you to x-ray your bag, but either way, there are some sliding glass doors you go through, and now you're in Bali. As soon as you go through, you are going to find the money changers and ATMs, and this can be kind of a confusing area. Now, my first tip is don't change your money at money changers in the airport. Typically, there's hidden fees or they're not giving you the best rate, so just try to avoid it if possible. And this is where the ATMs come in. There's about 10 different kinds here, but don't just go to a random one. Most of them only have about a 1.125 million rupiah withdrawal limit, which is like $70. So your bank at home is probably going to be charging you a flat fee, so if you have to go there multiple times, you're just losing money. I recommend using the BNI Bank one because they let you take out $2.5 million, which is double what the normal ones do. Make sure that it has the little 100,000 red sticker on the front, and if they ask you if you want the conversion to be done, just decline it. Now that you have your money, it's time to get yourself a good SIM card to travel around Bali with. They have about four different companies here, but I prefer the telecom cell. They have the best 4 to 5G data for the entire island, and they are super helpful. Indonesia requires that you actually register your passport when you get a physical or eSIM here, and they will do everything for you right on the spot and offer some competitive prices for a whole different range of packages. Just beyond that, you'll continue through the concourse and pass some restaurants and more duty-free. You can even stop and grab yourself a beverage like a bintang before you start your journey in Bali, and then continue out into the exterior of the airport. Now when you get out here, you're going to see a big line of people with signs. These are the taxi drivers, and if you have already booked your transportation or your hotels arranged for you, this is where you're going to find them. But I don't ever do that because I don't ever stay in fancy places. So from here, you're going to continue out and get your own transportation. Now if you make a right turn just past those cab drivers with the signs, you will come out to the main taxi area. And I don't recommend just going out to here because the prices can be extremely high for taxis, especially because you don't know how much they should cost. So what I do recommend doing is instead of making that right turn out to the main taxis, continue straight down the little hallway and you will come to the Grab and Gojek waiting area. Now if you don't know what those are, they are applications you can get for your phone which I definitely recommend downloading before you come to Bali. And they deliver things like food, do transportation, and a whole bunch of other services. So head down, get there, put in the address of your hotel into your phone, and then you can check on the price. Click go. They even usually have some sort of a special airport coupon available. And then your cab will come up and you can just go hop in and head to your accommodations. Now sometimes, depending on what time your flight arrives, you might not be able to get a Grab or Gojek. And in that case, you are going to want to go back out to that main taxi area. Now I'm not saying abandon the Grab or Gojek just yet. Take the app and have your address already input with the price that it should cost. Then you have a starting point to negotiate with the drivers. Now these guys are not doing anything illegal by charging the prices that they're charging, but a lot of the times they're two to four times as expensive as they should be. So this is just a great way to have a little idea of what you should be paying and then you can figure it out with the individual driver. Man, we made it through the airport and it doesn't have to be a painful experience, though I've definitely been through those myself. I hope that these tips have helped you out just a little bit and that they're going to help you not waste any of that precious Bali vacation time that you have. And one more tip before I go is that you should definitely get yourself some good travel insurance before you get here. Now having fun here is amazing, especially when you're driving around on a motorbike, but accidents do happen. You can slip and fall at a waterfall, you can stub your toe on a piece of coral, who knows? But having something to help you at the hospital is definitely important and I've been there myself several times. So I use Safety Wing, which has never let me down in the 10 years that I've been using them. They have some great pricing and are extremely reliable. So I'll put a link down in the description below if you want to check them out. And now it's time for you to just go and enjoy your amazing adventure here in Bali. So if you enjoyed this video, please give me a big thumbs up, comment, subscribe and don't forget to bling bling bling bling bling Bali and wherever you end up, have the most fun that you can. I'll see you soon with some more fun Bali videos. Makasih bonyek!