The Broad Place is a brand centred around tools for high grade living. At The Broad Place we have an absolute love of exploration and travel. Is there a richer experience than being pushed outside your comfort zone and your daily routine, being faced with the unknown that a day abroad holds, absorbing all the little details that you notice when you’re in the present moment and not in regular life?
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We personally adore places where cultures are far different from that of Australia. Where there is rich diversity. Where the cities are cramped, where the food is fragrant and full of flavour, where the streets are dirty and gritty. Places where you sweat just picking up a glass of water or the air is so cold that speaking means puffs of steam come from your mouth. Spots where the surf is great, the salt crisp on your body and coconuts are a foodstuff in every meal. Places where no one speaks English and you have very little idea of what it is you are ordering from the menu. Cities where the streets are narrow, the hotels slick, the restaurants gobsmacking. Beaches were the huts are sandy, the food simple and the locals kids swim naked in clear, clean water and wild dogs roam the beach.
Modern wellbeing is at the core of everything we do, and our travel experiences constantly expand on this. We research like crazy before we travel. No stone is unturned in our endeavour to find out where to go once we land. Where to find the most interesting food, the most inspiring of art galleries, the finest ceramics, the furniture that makes one swoon. Where do the locals eat, where to stay on a budget and where to stay for extravagance. Where is the best spot for reflexology? Can we practice yoga there? What about allergies and food intolerances? Where has the best staff? Where can we feel at home while away and where can we feel completely shocked with contrast.
Never will we refer to Trip Advisor and its ilk. For us, it is all about where our well travelled friends have eaten and where have they shopped. We go from the word of mouth of people we trust, from written within sophisticated magazines, from blogs and online journals we trust and from sometimes unexpected emails that we send to people we have never met in our quest for information. We seek advice from people that seem to think like us that we meet in shops, bars and restaurants while there. The advice of a well heeled local trumps all advice. All of this gets scribbled in notebooks, saved onto ipads and iphones and pumped into colour coded spreadsheets. When we depart from a trip we arrive home to folders full of business cards and scratched on coasters and torn pages of information. All of this is then collated into our Exploration Manuals.
Ubud in Indonesia is the first of our Exploration Manuals and we hope you enjoy it. It’s by no means perfect and it’s incredibly personal. We have centered the information around certain categories that are non negotiable for us like Feast, Balance and Meditate and we have added in specific things about travelling with Kids for parents like us. There were many non- fabulous experiences had, cafes that dissapointed and venues that underdelivered. However we don’t believe that you need to read about negative things and we don’t wish to discuss them in detail. So we only included the very best, the highest grade.
The Exploration Manuals are a work in progress. We have decided to make them free as we know that travel is expensive enough on its own. We are lucky enough that we can photograph, write, edit and design all our Manuals between the two of us, such is our backgrounds. The brilliance of online platforms is that we can edit them at any time, so we invite you to help us correct any information that you find incorrect with addresses etc. All feedback is welcomed, including your favourite spots, so that we can expand and grow our experiences and Manuals over time. Thanks for reading, and happy travels.
Jac and Arran
To download your free copy of our Ubud Exploration Manual, become a FREE member, HERE.