Community-based tourism villages have now become a worldwide concern because of their tremendous impact on strengthening the empowerment of local communities as well as on enhancing social responsibility in a sustainable manner. This study aims to explore the meaning of self-reliance in tourism village communities since it is a key indicator of the progress of community-based tourism villages. This study adopted a qualitative approach with Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) to investigate the meaning of people's experiences from inter-subjective activities in a double-hermeneutic process between researchers and people who experience them. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with eight (8) research subjects from the tourism village community. This study demonstrates the meaning of community self-reliance in terms of (1) community self-assurance; (2) integrity; (3) community commitment; (4) community resilience; (5) sustainability. This study is limited to residents of the Pentingsari tourism village in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. This village rests on simplicity and a natural setting, as well as the community's self-reliance, resulting in an exemplary of a self-sustained tourist village in Indonesia.