For lizard-like laziness, you just can’t beat a hammock. That soothing, slouching, swinging motion that sends you straight off to the land of Nod.
Part of a hammock’s appeal is in the simplicity of it. All you need are two solid uprights and you’re in business – whether you’re camping in a Scottish forest, lounging on the front porch, or rocking gently on the cargo deck of a riverboat somewhere on the Ucayali.
King of the swingers as far as we’re concerned is Bali-based company, Ticket To The Moon. For the better part of 30 years they’ve been producing featherlight hammocks in durable parachute nylon. It’s a story that all started on a beach in western India...
Frenchman Charles-Antoine ‘Charly’ Descotis was 26 when he jerry-rigged his first hammock by tying knots in the corners of polyester bed sheets.
It was the mid-'90s, and he was backpacking around India as part of a two-year adventure living the hippy dream. He often found himself sleeping on the beach – and a makeshift hammock was a simple way of keeping himself off the ground and away from the snakes, bugs and other crawly critters (at least the ones that couldn’t fly). Sometimes he and his mates would have up to 30 hammocks hanging off the same tree.
On his way home, Charly journeyed via Indonesia with a vague idea that he would stock up on Asian handicrafts to sell in the markets of Europe when he got home. This was the 1990s, remember, and anyone who was anyone was wearing a nice batik sarong on their beach holiday (or on the streets of Paris in David Beckham’s case).
But Charly wasn’t destined to become just another festival tat salesman. In a fabric shop in Denpasar, he came across a super-strong Indonesian-made parachute nylon, and the cerebral cogs began to turn.
This remarkable material was tough, elastic, rot-resistant and remarkably lightweight – and Charly realised he was looking at the perfect stuff for crafting vastly superior hammocks to the ones he’d used in India.
His prototypes were triple-stitched for strength, supplied in a storage pouch with a simple but effective adjustable hook-and-rope attachment system. It was the first iteration of what would become Ticket To The Moon’s best-selling Original Hammock. Their Nautical Rope Kit is still one of the simplest and most reliable ways to hang it.
Back home in Europe, Charly loaded his first shipment of Balinese hammocks onto a truck and set off with a mate to tour the markets and music festivals. Back then, he had no real expectations beyond hoping to finance the nomadic lifestyle he’d enjoyed so much in Asia – but the appetite for his new product turned out to be a lot keener than he’d anticipated.
Within a month, Charly was completely sold out of hammocks and scrabbling to source more. What’s more, he’d started getting wholesale enquiries from people wanting to stock his wares in their shops. An intriguing possibility began to present itself.
The next year – 1998 – Charly went back to Bali with a plan. He began by opening a shop, then in 2000, he started his own tiny workshop in a bungalow. Right from the start, the local people making Charly’s hammocks worked with him, not for him – and some of them still do, a quarter of a century later.
The demand grew and grew, and by 2002 they had to move production to a proper factory – upsizing again to a larger and more modern facility in 2014. These successive moves have allowed the brand to expand their product range considerably.
Nowadays they offer several different-sized hammocks alongside the tried-and-tested original – from extra-light compact ones to two-person ‘Honey Moon’ models and large group hammocks. For committed tree-dwellers, there are also camping-specific hammocks with integrated bug-nets and attachment points for quilts and other gear. You can find the full range here.
Hanging options have widened too, from their trusty nautical ropes kit to robust wall anchors and tree-friendly ‘Moonstraps’.
While hammocks are their bread and butter, Ticket To The Moon love a bit of innovation. They produce a range of accessories from tarps and mosquito nets to quilts and beach blankets, and an established fan-favourite is their 2000 invention, the ‘Moon Chair’. This lightweight hanging chair works off a single attachment point – and while it might look a bit unusual with its dedicated foot sling, it’s honestly one of the comfiest chairs you’ll ever hang out in.
They’re also always looking for ways to minimise waste by spinning up their off cuts into new products, and one of the best ways they’ve found to do that is by making bags. Lightweight, packable and durable, they produce a selection of different models from backpacks and slings to totes and packing cubes.
In fact, Ticket To The Moon hates waste so much that even the smallest scraps of fabric usually get made into something. You can get cute little wallets in parachute nylon, and one of our favourite TTTM products is a packable frisbee called a ‘Moon Disc’.
In an interview with Indonesian Expat magazine, Charly once admitted feeling slightly conflicted about ending up in manufacturing and export. After all, his hippy dream as an idealistic 20-something was to opt out of that system and choose a different path. But in some ways, he has – and the decision to base the business in Bali in the long-term is a big part of that.
Life hasn’t always been straightforward for a Frenchman trying to wrangle Indonesian red tape without much support from the local government, and it would have been much easier and cheaper to work with a reliable manufacturing partner in China like so many others do – but that was never what Ticket To The Moon was about.
To start with, there’s the ecological aspect – their fabric is still made in Bandung, Java, and so having a factory in the same part of the world means they avoid shipping the base textile long distances.
And then there’s Ticket To The Moon’s loyal workforce in Bali. There are hundreds of local people working for the company, and some have been with them for decades – like factory manager, Made Sandi, who’s worked for Ticket To The Moon since the first workshop opened in 2000. Staff are well-paid with good social security and pensions, and they work much shorter hours than the Balinese standard. In fact, the company claims that since Charly started Ticket To The Moon in 1996, no-one’s ever left.
This is a brand that’s absolutely committed to its homeland – and the work of the Ticket To The Moon Foundation is a good example…
When Charly first flew over the eastern Indonesian island of Sumba and spotted a deep blue inland lagoon, he thought he’d discovered paradise. He started visiting the island on camping trips with friends, and it wasn’t long before he encountered an acute version of that classic dilemma that has always troubled adventurous tourists.
Charly realised that his idyllic island experience was at odds with the reality of life for the people who lived there. Sumba is one of the poorest islands in Indonesia, and the local Kodi tribe in the western part of the island – with whom Charly had already made friends – led a precarious existence as subsistence farmers and fishermen. The island had a very high incidence of malaria, and access to fresh water was perilously limited.
So Charly and his mates set up a relief project, which they formalised officially a few years later by founding the Ticket To The Moon Foundation in 2009. In the years that followed, profits from the hammock business were ploughed into roads, wells and schools. They paid for malaria screenings, mosquito nets and waste management, and provided fishing nets as an alternative to the destructive and dangerous practice of bomb fishing. The foundation also promoted local crafts including Sumba’s famous ikat weaving.
In fact, the whole operation was so successful that in 2022, the Ticket To The Moon Foundation decided its job was done for the time being. They still donate substantially to local initiatives and charities, but the broad support of the foundation is no longer needed. Ticket To The Moon has since gone on to work with other Indonesian charities including a recycling village and a disability organisation.
From the workers in its factory to the communities and projects that benefit from its charitable work, this big-hearted Balinese brand is inextricably linked with its Indonesian homeland. But the wider Ticket To The Moon community is even bigger than that. Their hammocks are used and loved all over the world – with a 10-year guarantee as standard, and various repair or replacement options if anything goes wrong.
We stock a wide range of their products here at WildBounds – so whether you’re a seasoned tree-dweller or just looking to hang out for a while, there’s never been a better time to join the tribe.
