Is it safe to travel to Indonesia?

Is it safe to travel to Bali, Indonesia?

• I'm thinking about volunteering with Habitat for Humanity to travel to Bali next summer. I've been doing some research and have gotten mixed results about safety. Can someone ...show more

• Answer:

  I live in Indonesia as a foreigner, I'm thinking I might want to stay here the rest of my life. Its a very safe place, I feel safer here than in my home country, which is supposed to be the safest place in the world (not for me it wasn't). You hear all sorts of official warnings due to the threat of an occasional bomb in some random location. But that's it, you can't plan to be in a random place, there's been bombings in Spain, London, Moscow, Thailand, several Arab and Middle Eastern Countries within the last two years, but they don't give a travel warning about the UK. Indonesia has a really low crime rate and people are really nice to foreigners because they don't see so many right now. They really look after foreigners. And you will have all sorts of people wanting to meet you and talk to you to practice their English. For many of them it will be the first foreigner they've ever talked to. I sometimes feel like I'm some sort of celebrity living here, the way people stare at me and greet me, and I guess I could let it go to my head. But I try to stay humble. I am just a nobody after all, with an average life. My advice to you would be to come and enjoy one of the most beautiful countries on this entire planet. Bali is still a paradise.