Bali reminds you how to move. Think incessant honking horns from the moment you step outside the arrival hall at DPS - get out of the way! Bali reminds you how to feel too. You have to slow down your Western ways.
I showed up to walk the Astungkara Way with my heart chasing stillness and my body wanting to get some steps in. This trail doesn’t usually make the bucket list. It’s more of an “if you know, you know” kind of thing. Eighty-five miles of green and grace, if you want to walk it all.
This story isn’t about adventure for the sake of it. It’s about how walking slowly through a place can change how you see it, and how you see yourself.
This is what I found on the trail that walks you back to life:
Somewhere between the sound of rain on palm leaves and the smell of clove in the air, Bali was teaching me to move slower than I usually want to.
The Astungkara Way stretches from the southern beaches to the northern sea. It’s not a hike so much as a pilgrimage through the island’s heart. The name means by the grace of God, and that grace shows up in small, quiet ways: hands in the soil, offerings of marigolds, a meal cooked over wood smoke.
My section was just two days, but time stretched out. We wandered through terraced rice paddies, chili fields, and rows of red, yellow, and white flowers grown for daily temple offerings. Farmers waved as we passed, their sickles shining in the gray light. Bali rain leaves everything glistening.
My accommodation was inside a family compound tucked behind stone walls and frangipani trees. The host, Putu, wore a crisp polo and a traditional udeng (headcloth), his presence patient as he introduced his world. He spoke of ancestors, karma, and the art of keeping balance. I learned to grind chili into sambal by hand, to eat with my fingers, to play gamelan badly but with heart. I even became a Balinese dancer - graceless, but enthusiastic nonetheless.
“Tourism used to take our young people,” Putu told me, pouring a shot of home-brewed arak. “Now the travelers come here, and we keep our culture.”
Morning arrived with several roosters calling off the walls and black coffee strong enough to wake the gods. Thank God. We set out again, led by Oka, a former teacher who turned to guiding to share Bali’s stories. She stopped beside a waterway and spoke about the subak, the thousand-year-old UNESCO-protected irrigation system that still connects hundreds of farming collectives.
Later came a glorious agriturismo, run by two young farmers, a permaculture plot carved out of family land. “Our parents thought we were crazy,” they said, laughing as they showed me how rabbit urine becomes fertilizer. “Now they bring us food scraps for compost.” Dinner was jackfruit curry, cassava fritters, and ginger flower sambal served on banana leaves. Perfection.
The next morning, clouds hung low over the jungle as the trail snaked toward the mountains. Sacred trees wrapped in sarongs marked the path. We walked through the bamboo forest and the jungle and toward the Java sea.
The Astungkara Way is not a measure of distance. It’s a rhythm. A deep listening. Regeneration is not a concept. It’s a way of being. One step, one meal, one story at a time.
Author’s Note
The Astungkara Way proves that slowing down is luxury. Walking with intention changes everything, how we listen, how we connect, how we care for what’s around us.
If you’ve been craving travel that feels meaningful, join me.
Robinson & Roam curates journeys that move at the speed of wonder, from Bali’s trails to Tokyo’s design districts, and beyond.
Walk with me.
