Where to stay in Canggu | Frii Bali Echo Beach review

When I travel where I stay is more than just a place to rest my head. A good (or bad) hotel, for me, can really change my perception of a destination and massively affect the quality of the holiday. As a solo traveller the location and safety rating of a property is crucial, as are being able to eat meals and book activities and transport through the hotel, in case for some reason I don’t feel comfortable going too far on my own.

It was factors like these that led me to check into Frii Bali Echo Beach.

Just 2 years old, Frii Bali Echo Beach is a fresh and funky as they come in Canggu. It’s a boutique Indonesian owned-property and you get a feeling they’ve really thought about their target customers – mainly surfers and solo travellers like me.

Pool Access Rooms

I booked myself a pool access room because there are not many times in one’s life you get to plop from your bedroom to the pool. The property has 2 lap pools and offers pool access rooms into each one. It’s quite smart how the pools are split up as you don’t get too many people passing by your room on their morning swim.

Compact but clever rooms

The rooms are not massive but they’ve been smartly designed. I loved the desk area near the patio doors with plug sockets (crucially) in useable places and there’s no wardrobe but heaps of shelving to put your items on and a wooden ladder for you to hang any wet things. The shower was great, TV had a decent range of channels and the artwork and furnishings in the room were very Insta-worthy.

My one criticism (of the whole hotel) is that the bathroom towels are on the small side. I like to wrap one around me after the shower and theirs went nowhere near my hips. I would suggest bringing your own (I used my pool towel) or hopefully management will read this and buy bigger ones!

Food with a view

The Seaduction Rooftop Bar and Lounge on the 4^th floor has staggering 360 views – with ocean out the front, mountains to the back and rice paddies on all sides, it’s got to be one the best views in Canggu. A simple breakfast buffet with freshly cooked eggs is laid on for hotel guests here each morning. You can dine here all day though, even if not a hotel guest, and I often came back for dinner and drinks at sunset.

Like the rooms the food prices at Seaduction are very reasonable. They serve a range of Indonesian and Western dishes and none of them are more than 45 Rp including tax. I had the chicken satay for dinner one evening (which came out on their own personal mini grill!) and a Nasi Goreng another night, which was honestly better than any I had in Ubud.

Back-cracking Balinese Massage!

There’s a couple of spa treatment rooms in a quiet part of the hotel where I had a firm, back-cracking Balinese massage from the in-house therapist. Whilst challenging at the time I definitely felt good afterwards! The treatments here are well priced compared to the spas on the main street – with some massages up to 100k Rp less than I saw advertised elsewhere.

Little Extras

As I said before, Frii have really thought about their guests. They provide 2 complimentary bottles of water in the room each day and you can buy extra from the front desk at any time. There’s also a food corner that pops up at reception at night if you get the munchies – they provided me with some much-needed M&Ms.

There’s free parking under the building so if you’ve driven or rented a scooter there’s somewhere to park it. There’s also somewhere to store and wash surfboards.

Wifi is free, fast and very reliable and there’s a free daily shuttle into Seminyak if you want to go shopping. There’s a modern safety deposit box in each room and rather cleverly the door to the room makes a beep if you haven’t shut it properly.

Great Location

For me the location of this property is spot on. The beach is a 10-minute walk away, much shorter if you hop on a scooter, and Canggu’s best cafes are just around the corner. (Crate and Betelnut are a 5-minute walk away and Nalu Bowls and Old Man’s are about 10 depending on how fast you walk.)

Bali Fit is just across the road if you want to get working out and there’s also a cool restaurant and bar in the laneway that was busy most evenings. I didn’t hire a taxi or scooter the whole time I was in Canggu and got around just fine – apart from when it rained and the unpaved roads got a bit flooded, you might have to jump over a few puddles on the path outside the hotel but where doesn’t that happen in Bali!

Great value

I can’t believe the price of this place really, I think it’s one of the best value properties I’ve ever stayed in. I booked via booking.com and paid 2 million Rp (approx. $210AU/£107UK) for 3 nights in a pool access room. Standard rooms are even cheaper.

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