“Stay ahead of the blacktop,” the old Australian Outback opal miners used to say. Once the sealed road—the “blacktop”—arrived, plus a cop, a café and rubbernecks, a place was truly stuffed. Time to move on. Perhaps these days, the best that a traveler can do is gamely try to stay ahead of the Instagrammers, cigar bars, and selfie obsessives.
Canggu, far up the sands from Bali’s frenetic Kuta-Legian-Seminyak strip, is a case in point. Not much more than a decade ago, its beachfront was still a gaggle of local warungs that sold jaffles, juice, and smoothies to surf-sated wanderers. Nowadays, Canggu (‘Cang-gone’) is looking like Seminyak 2.0 with its motorbike jams, boutiques, quinoa-and-kale menus, rice paddies paved-over by villas, and five-star resorts.
What to do? Keep heading west, traveler, past the thriving surf schools and restaurants of Echo Beach. Farther up the sands sits Pererenan, the last outpost of kicked-back afternoons, sunset homage, and low-key accommodation. Beyond here, it’s all volcanic sands, local temples, and seafront estates. Enjoy it, as it is, while you can.
