When entrepreneur and content creator Abra McField packed eight suitcases and left the United States for Bali with her toddler, she wasn’t chasing the glossy version of island life that floods Instagram.
She was running toward stability, and away from a business partnership she felt in her gut was about to implode.
In a deeply personal Instagram post and video series released this week, McField recounted how the island became the unlikely backdrop for her rebuilding.
Her story begins not in a sleek villa, but in a traditional Balinese family compound where she rented a modest two-bedroom home for $500 a month. The villa came with an outdoor kitchen, an outdoor shower, roaming lizards, ants, and mosquitoes that “could take you out between 3 p.m. and 7 p.m.”
It also came with mold during rainy season, no oven, and a reliance on motorbikes because cars couldn’t be parked inside the tight compound.
But what the home lacked in Western comforts, it made up for in something McField said she hadn’t felt in a long time: safety.
A local family “took me in, looked out for me and my daughter,” she wrote. They cleaned the villa twice a week, delivered mineral water, changed linens, and became the foundation of a community she didn’t know she needed. Fruit trees grew just outside her door — papayas, bananas, mangoes — a daily reminder that slower living wasn’t a setback but a lesson.
“I chose to live conservatively, modest, grounded and financially safe,” she said in the video. It proved to be a crucial decision. Months after settling in, McField said her former contractual partners in the U.S. “stole my product business and my six-figure main source income.” The collapse could have been catastrophic — but she was already out of reach, in a place she describes as steady and healing.
Life inside the compound forced her to adapt: brushing teeth with bottled water to avoid “Bali belly,” adjusting to the roosters that crowed before dawn, and salvaging belongings after mold overtook an unused section of the house. As a mother navigating a new country with a toddler, she admits the strain was real. But she also says it taught her “how to build a life from trust, not fear.”
Her second home on the island, which she moved into months later, brought more comfort and space. Then came a twist no amount of planning could have predicted. A small guest house on the property became the seed of a new venture — an Airbnb she launched just six months after arriving on the island with nothing but her child and the belief that life could look different.
“Somehow Bali handed me a home, a business and a completely new way of living,” she said.
For many Westerners, Bali is often marketed as an escape — lush jungles, beach clubs, infinity pools. McField’s story cuts sharply against that fantasy, spotlighting instead the humanity of the people who welcomed her, the imperfections of life outside tourist zones, and the emotional labor of starting over far from familiarity.
Her new mini-series, “My Bali Homes,” chronicles that transformation — the fear, the rebuilding, the unexpected community, and the peace she found in a home that looked nothing like the Bali most people think they know.
