BALI HIGH

This Indonesian island has long enchanted travelers with its natural beauty, bohemian attitude and dreamy resorts. Maria Shollenbarger makes a long-awaited return and finds a hospitality scene that's better than ever.

- Maria Shollenbarger

"BACK ON BALL."

This was the mantra I'd repeated to myself for weeks leading up to my return to this beloved island-one I had visited regularly from 2013 until the world shut down in 2020.

Almost three years the day since my last trip, I found myself walking along the 2¹2-mile stretch of Jimbaran Beach just after sunrise, watching the waves roll in with their gentle, predictable rhythm. Fishermen pushed brightly painted boats past the breaks while an older woman knelt to place a canang sari the traditional Hindu offering of flowers-near the water's edge. I had never seen the water in Bali so clear or the sand so pristine.

The island felt different, in more ways than one. Over the course of my weeklong visit, I discovered that the pandemic had acted as an unintended reset, both for the physical landscape and for the people of the island. It had also slightly redefined Bali's modern-day identity: remote work and "the great resignation" brought in a wave of digital nomads drawn by nostalgia for the hippie days of the 1970s, allowing them to shed the constraints of home.

This new, youthful spirit was on full display as I traversed southern Bali on a quest to take the temperature of a place I had missed so much. The feeling was especially evident in the hotels, restaurants, and beach clubs that had opened or been renovated since my previous trip. A new generation had blossomed, creating a revived, island-grown energy.