Bali is two islands wearing one name. The green, slow interior around Ubud, and the coast. Most five-day itineraries try to do both badly by driving between them every day. The fix is simple: split the trip in half and stay put.
The hour that matters
Be at the Tegallalang rice terraces at 6:30 in the morning. Not 8:00. Not 9:00, when three coaches arrive and the light has gone flat and every photograph has forty people in it. At 6:30 there is mist in the valley, the light comes in sideways, and you will have it more or less to yourself. This single hour is the best of the trip and it costs nothing but an alarm.
Ubud, two nights
- Tegallalang at dawn. Non-negotiable.
- Tirta Empul: go for the spring, stay for the ceremony rather than the photograph.
- The Campuhan ridge walk at dusk. Forty minutes, flat, and free.
Leave a day empty
Our Bali itinerary has an entirely unscheduled day in it, and people occasionally ask us to fill it. We do not. Every time we have surveyed travellers afterwards, the free day is the one they name as the best. Sometimes it is Nusa Penida. More often it is a beach and nothing at all.
“Every time we ask afterwards, the free day is the one they name as the best.”
The visa is a non-event
Indonesia issues an e-VOA, approved before you board, extendable once for another 30 days from inside the country. It takes us two to four days. It is genuinely the easiest part of the trip.
Send your file to DD Visa Hub and we will tell you what is missing before you submit.