• I stayed at a resort in Sidemen, a more rural part of Eastern Bali, for under $50 a night.
• While in Sidemen, I enjoyed a private bike tour and incredible waterfall views.
• I'm happy I chose to skip more popular spots in Bali, which helped me avoid crowds of tourists.

Before I visited Bali, I was convinced by posts on Reddit and TikTok that it was little more than a crowded playground for influencers trying to get the perfect photo for Instagram.

Knowing that many of its popular areas, like Seminyak and Kuta, have struggled to deal with high levels of tourism (and the pollution and damage that can cause) in the past few years only added to the image I'd created in my mind.

I don't travel just to snap photos, and I enjoy getting to explore without crowds, so when I finally visited, I decided to head to a less popular and more rural region of Eastern Bali: Sidemen.

I'd heard about Sidemen from a friend who had visited Bali a few months prior. After seeing images of the area's lush green landscape and reading about its incredible waterfalls and laid-back feel, I was sold.

My resort in Sidemen felt like an excellent value

When I arrived in Sidemen, I was delighted to find the lush valley was filled with rice terraces, artisan silver workshops, and otherworldly landscapes.

I stayed at Cepik Villa Sidemen, a resort where I paid $45 per night for an air-conditioned bungalow with a king-sized bed and complimentary breakfast each morning.

It had a pool, a rooftop spa, a yoga pavilion, and a restaurant where I had the best nasi goreng (an Indonesian fried rice dish) of my entire trip.

The luxe-feeling hotel, which only has six rooms, was surrounded by rice terraces. It looked immaculately maintained, and I even saw staff walking the grounds multiple times a day to tend to the wide variety of tropical plants.

A highlight of my stay was a private tour of the area with a local guide

My favorite activity at Cepik Villa Sidemen was a private scooter tour of the area with a staff member at the hotel who was born and raised in Sidemen.

Early in the morning, I hopped on the back of his scooter, and we drove about five minutes to the local market, which was already bustling before 8 a.m. I bought and tried things I'd never heard of, like snakeskin fruit, a sweet-and-sour fruit with scaly skin.

After exploring the market, we hopped back on the scooter and wove through the beautiful surrounding scenery until we reached Gembleng Waterfall.

My guide dropped me at the base of it, where I walked up a steep series of steps to access a few small pools that the waterfall feeds into.

I didn't see a single other person hiking up the steps or lounging in the pools during my visit. Looking out over the valley with the sound of the waterfall behind me, I was struck by how beautiful the area was and how lucky I was to have the view all to myself.

After that, we stopped to taste locally brewed Arak (a strong Balinese liquor) and visited Pertenunan Pelangi, where I watched crafters go through the complex process of designing, dyeing, and weaving colorful fabrics.

Choosing the right spot to base your stay in can make all the difference

As it turns out, I'd underestimated Bali and how much it has to offer.

Much to my delight, Sidemen felt so much different from the crowded, influencer-filled Bali I'd expected — yet it still felt luxurious and beautiful.

Unlike some of the other places I visited in Indonesia, Sidemen offered me a unique opportunity to connect with the landscape and the people.

I don't think I could've had the same personalized, private experiences in a more crowded place.

Although I don't necessarily dislike "touristy" destinations, I think there's something to be said for straying from the most popular recommendations online and seeking out something a little different.

I'm sure there are many reasons Bali's trendiest destinations draw so many visitors — but I feel my choice to spend time in a lesser-known part of the province was a good one.

• My friend and I boarded a 10-hour economy flight between Denver and Munich.
• Like most long-haul flights, the journey was filled with highs and lows.
• We celebrated an empty middle seat and dined on OK plane food.

Long-haul economy flights are a roller coaster of highs and lows.

I hate cramped quarters but love plane food. I struggle to fall asleep but crave an excuse to binge movies for hours.

Jet lag is a nightmare, but the stomach drop from taking off and gaining a bird's-eye perspective on a destination are two of my favorite things.

My most recent long-haul flight was filled with similar highs and lows.

For the first time in years, I wasn't traveling solo. I had a friend by my side. Together, we were heading to Italy's Dolomites for a week of skiing — a high.

To get there, we had to embark on a 10-hour Lufthansa flight from Denver to Munich in economy — a low.

Here's how we spent every hour of the journey.

Hour 1: A TSA hiccup

Like any long-haul flight, the journey starts long before stepping on the plane.

Thankfully, dropping off ski bags was a breeze, and my friend and I were eager to zoom through TSA PreCheck and get to the Capital One Lounge.

Like any plan, something is bound to go wrong. I was supposed to have PreCheck, but it wasn't showing up on my boarding pass. After getting turned away at TSA, I waved farewell to my friend Emma and headed to general check-in.

It was no big deal. Then, the TSA agent's face filled with confusion when she scanned my passport and boarding pass. The name on the screen and my passport didn't match.

She sent me back to the Lufthansa desk, where they printed me a new boarding pass. Two lines later, I was in front of a new TSA agent. Again, the incorrect name popped up.

After flagging a supervisor, they let me through with no explanation.

My friend and I have no theories about what happened or how a completely wrong name could be attached to my profile. We ultimately shrugged it off, attributing it to Denver International Airport's many quirks.

The fiasco reminded me that I needed to get to the airport early. Many things are out of your control when you fly — from traffic to technology issues — and creating a buffer for things to go wrong is always key when traveling.

Hour 2: A quick lounge bite

Our planned lengthy break before boarding turned into a quick bite.

My friend wrapped up a last-minute work assignment, I sent off an email, and we toasted to making it through security.

As I sipped my spritz, I sat in disbelief that I had gone years without lounge access. Late last year, I finally caved and bought a travel credit card with lounge perks. It only took one trip to make the card worth the cost, and now, every time I fly out of Denver, I drink and dine for free.

Our time in the lounge flew by, and after about an hour, we both realized our flight had already started boarding.

Once again, stress set in. We scrambled to shove our laptops in our bags, use the bathroom quickly, and pack a few lounge snacks for the flight ahead.

Hour 3: A race to our gate

Emma and I rushed to the gate. I often travel alone, so I was thankful we had each other for reassurance.

"Boarding doesn't end for another 7 minutes," we reminded each other as we hopped on and off moving walkways and darted between passengers to get to gate A45.

We were some of the last passengers to board, and as we looked around, we noticed the back of the plane was practically empty. No one was seated in our middle seat, and the row in front of us was empty. There was plenty of overhead storage for our carry-ons and personal items.

My unpopular opinion that the back of the plane is the best place to sit was proven right again. Later, when I walked to the front of the cabin, I noticed a much more crowded area.

After settling in, Emma and I celebrated the legroom and extra space.

Then, we eyed the pros and cons of our Lufthansa A350-900 aircraft.

The seats felt a little bigger and comfier than my other long-haul flights. We had TV screens and larger tray tables. What we didn't have were outlets, so getting work done was going to be a challenge.

Still, as the plane pulled out of the gate, I felt the giddy excitement of starting an adventure.

Hour 4: Skeptical about a new travel pillow

I've been on the hunt for the best travel pillow. I tested an inflatable one on a recent 33-hour travel day and didn't love it.

I've tried traditional pillows and foot hammocks, and I'm convinced something better has to exist.

I packed a sleep mask that attaches to a plane's headrest for this flight.

Our journey had just started. Dinner hadn't been served, and we were less than an hour into the flight. But something about getting on a plane immediately makes me sleepy, or maybe that's just the lounge cocktails.

Thankfully, the eye mask was easy to set up. Emma and I laughed at how ridiculous I looked strapped in, but I wasn't too worried about that as long as it helped me sleep.

After getting it set up, I debated sleeping. There were still 5,000 miles left in the trip. If I slept now, would I regret it?

Instead, we watched the sunset. The striking sky and watercolor of pastels were gorgeous. It felt like a good omen for our trip, and I snapped images of the plane's wings.

"As if I don't already have enough plane pictures," I thought as I added about a dozen more to my camera roll.

Hour 5: Perplexing plane food

Suddenly, the plane cabin was enveloped in smells. Drink service started about an hour into the flight, and with eight hours left, food arrived.

Only the vegetarian meal was left when the flight attendants reached my seat.

I wasn't sure what I was smelling, and as I uncovered the aluminum lid, I was even more confused. The flight attendants didn't give me a description, and there wasn't a label on the tray. It looked like some sort of quinoa loaf.

I could pinpoint some ingredients. There was zucchini, I'm sure. The loaf was on a bed of rice, and there was a white sauce that I couldn't identify. My meal also included what looked like melted vanilla ice cream, but instead, it was a room-temperature mousse.

The meal was fine, but I was thankful I had dined at the airport lounge beforehand.

A Lufthansa representative told Business Insider that the airline is working on upgrading its food and beverage services.

Hour 6: Attempting to sleep

My desire to sleep had vanished, so I spent the next hour listening to a podcast and deleting old photos from my phone.

I knew I needed to attempt to sleep soon, so I headed to the bathroom for a quick break to stretch my legs.

I found an empty area, did a few calf raises, touched my toes, stretched my hamstrings, and returned to my seat.

By this point, most of the passengers were already sleeping. I strapped into my eye mask and hoped sleep would come easily.

Instead, I was restless. After about 20 minutes, I turned on a TV show.

Hour 7 - 10: Begging sleep to come

There were less than six hours left, so I turned off my TV show, strapped back into the eye mask, and willed myself to sleep.

I dozed off for a bit, but after about an hour, the pressure from the eye mask was too much. I ripped it off, grabbed my jacket, and used that as a pillow instead.

I continued tossing and turning. At hour nine, I mistakenly checked the flight's remaining time. Four hours remained, and sleep wasn't coming. I was antsy and ready to be off the flight.

In the past, flight attendants have shared tips and tricks for successful long-haul flights. I should've packed melatonin and had a healthy snack midair, and ultimately, I regretted not being more prepared to sleep for the journey.

Hour 11: Groggy with a grumbling stomach

I woke up dazed and more tired than I was 10 hours ago.

With less than two hours left, a new smell filled the plane's cabin. This time, I knew exactly what it was: coffee.

It was breakfast time, and I was hungry.

I was handed another cryptic tray, and I crossed my fingers that it would be better than the dinner.

Unfortunately, I thought breakfast was worse than dinner. There wasn't much flavor, and the textures felt off. The scrambled eggs were dry, and the hashbrowns were soft and greasy.

I longed for airport lounge food and regretted not packing more snacks for the flight.

Hour 12: Surviving and thriving

The pilot announced our landing, and my friend and I eagerly opened the plane windows to catch our first glimpses of Europe.

We were tired, hungry, and thrilled to be one step closer to our ski destination.

We landed in a dreary Munich and headed to our next gate, where a plane was waiting to take us to Venice.

Our ski trip was just hours away, and the dreaded long-haul flight was finally behind us.

I've taken plenty of long-haul flights, but each one teaches me something new

It's been a while since I've traveled with a friend on this long of a flight, and I forgot how much a travel partner can ease the stresses of flying.

Instead of panicking when my name was incorrect or when we were late for boarding, we reassured each other, soaked in sunsets, and celebrated the small wins of what is often the miserable experience of long-haul flying.

The flight also reminded me that long-haul flights require preparation. Next time, I'll pack the sleeping essentials, get to the airport early, and, of course, book my back-of-the-plane seat days in advance.

• Whitney Synder, who has worked at HuffPost his whole adult life, is the site's new top editor.
• Snyder's predecessor left in January amid layoffs.
• Snyder says the audience at his left-leaning site shrank after the election but is bouncing back.

HuffPost has been around for nearly 20 years. Whitney Snyder has been around for almost all of it: He joined right out of college in 2008, as an assistant to cofounder Arianna Huffington, and never left. Now he's running the place.

HuffPost has named Snyder, 39, the site's newest editor in chief. He fills the slot vacated by Danielle Belton, who left last month as part of a round of layoffs. Huffington originally conceived of the site as a place for her famous friends to publish blog posts. But it has gone through several owners and iterations since then, and the lefty, populist site is now one of the remaining pieces of the BuzzFeed publishing business.

I talked to Snyder about working for BuzzFeed founder Jonah Peretti, gauging his audience's interest in Trump, and how it ended up with office space at the Pentagon. Here's an edited excerpt of our conversation.

Business Insider: Your boss Jonah Perreti just put out a memo explaining that he wants to fight back against something he calls SNARF online — that's "Stakes, Novelty, Anger, Retention, Fear." But then he also said that he wants HuffPost to use "SNARF for good.'" I'm looking at your homepage. Can you show me examples where you're using SNARF for good?

Whitney Snyder: I think that what we do is totally consistent with that memo. We have tabloid roots. We want to be journalistically responsible, but tabloids try to appeal to people in a lot of different ways, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

I think what Jonah's memo gets to is that doing that at the scale of these platforms that are using machine learning, along with an endless supply of content to optimize to an unhealthy extent — that's where it becomes a problem. But we want people to come to us.

You've had a lot of experience covering Trump, and satisfying an audience that wanted to read a lot of Trump news during his first administration. What is surprising you now, a month into his second term?

When we were planning last fall for the year ahead, we thought about a scenario where Trump wins and it's total chaos and, in some ways, kind of a replay of his first term. And then we also thought there's a scenario where he wins, and people are thinking, "You know what? I just don't want to be a part of this. I can't be in this headspace every day."

Anecdotally, I hear from a lot of people in that group.

Same here. But what's interesting is I feel like we've already gone from one scenario to the other.

We definitely did see, after the election, a lot of people checked out. We did see a drop-off in our audience. We felt confident it would come back. But it came back more quickly than I expected. I think that is in parallel with what's happening in the country.

The thing is, I still think there are people that are in that other place. That are sort of like "You know what? I'm not ready to read about this stuff every day." But from the numbers we look at, that's already a smaller number of our readers than we would have expected.

One surprising thing the Trump administration did is give you guys office space at the Pentagon, alongside some right-wing/conservative outlets. How did that come about?

I would love to have been in the room when that list was drawn up because it was news to us when it came out. We have credentialed Pentagon reporters, and we cover the Pentagon, but we didn't ask to have that space. We had no plans to use that space. Our assumption is that the Pentagon leadership wanted to punish a number of the mainstream media outlets that really do have a long history of in-depth on-the-ground everyday Pentagon coverage.

Did you accept the slot?

Our attitude is that if they want us there, we're ready to deliver and we have a reporter who's been there several times already. We're gonna rotate in some other reporters as well. We aren't planning on having daily news broadcasts from the Pentagon, as NBC might have. But we're happy to be there if that's what's asked of us.

Given that you didn't ask for it, and that you don't have a full-time Pentagon correspondent, did you consider handing the space back to an outlet that does do that coverage?

Our assumption is that if we did that, then they would just take it away.

You've worked at HuffPost for a long time, under several different owners: It was independent, then it was owned by AOL, then by Verizon, now by BuzzFeed. I don't want to ask you to comment on different owners …

I am kind of happy to cover the different owners. I think that different eras have had their own strengths and weaknesses.

I really like being owned by BuzzFeed. Because when we were at Verizon, for instance, we were a rounding error on a rounding error. And I think that really showed in some of the sort of investment and care that was put into what we do.

For instance, our front page really, really languished from a product perspective. Not that it just didn't get better — it actually got worse in our time at Verizon. Because we were just an afterthought. Understandably. The great thing about being at BuzzFeed is that we're actually a strategically important part of the whole business.

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