Kuta is where you sleep. The island is where the day goes.
Which Nusa Penida boat reaches Kelingking before the crowd does. What the Batur sunrise trek costs once the hot spring is added. Whether the Uluwatu fire dance is worth the drive at rush hour. Reviews of every tour you can book from the south Bali beaches.
A board on Kuta beach, a volcano at dawn, a boat east, a temple at dusk.
The four days a first week in south Bali gets built around. What each one costs, and what the people who took it say.
01The first morningSurf Lesson with a Personal Instructor at Kuta BeachA board and an instructor on the Kuta sand, where the whitewater is forgiving and every wipeout lands in waist-deep water.
02The two a.m. startPrivate Tour Mount Batur Sunrise Trekking and Natural Hot SpringPicked up in the dark, on the crater rim of Batur for sunrise, breakfast cooked over a steam vent in the rock.
03The island crossingNusa Penida day trip: boat, 4 snorkeling, Manta rays & Land tourFast boat east to Nusa Penida for the cliff at Kelingking and the manta cleaning station under it.
04The last lightPrivate Tour Bali Beaches and Uluwatu Temple with DinnerUluwatu on the clifftop as the sun drops, then the kecak chorus once the sky behind it has gone out.
Out of Kuta: inland, uphill or offshore. Pick which way you go.
Nobody comes to Bali to spend the week in Kuta. Three kinds of day out, what a seat on each costs, and how early you need to be standing in the lobby.
Kuta is the base. These are the places the day actually starts.
Board hire behind the Kuta sand, the flat resort bays at Nusa Dua, grilled fish on the Jimbaran flats, the watersports jetties at Tanjung Benoa, the clifftop temple at Uluwatu, and the two big runs inland and offshore.
The best hours in south Bali are spent wet.
Beginner whitewater rolling into Kuta beach, jet skis off the Tanjung Benoa jetties, manta rays holding station at a cleaning point off Penida, and reef walls that fall away into blue. The island is ringed with reasons to get in.
Nusa Dua: the calm end of the peninsula.
Everything in Nusa Dua →
A reef sits offshore here and flattens everything behind it, which is why the watersports operators, the family beaches and the big hotels all ended up on this side of the peninsula. Three days out that use the water properly.
Jet skis, parasails and the flying donut
The jetties sell everything from a fifteen-minute jet ski blast to a parasail winched off the back of a speedboat. Bought as a package it costs less than piece by piece, and the flat water means nobody is fighting swell on their first go.
The temple run out of the resort strip
Most temple days sold from this side pair the sea temple at Tanah Lot with a lake temple up in the hills, which puts a lot of driving either side of two very good hours. Worth doing once, and worth leaving early for.
Quad bikes through the rice country
The tracks run through paddy, a river crossing and usually a tunnel, in the country north of the resorts. You come back filthy, which is the entire point, and the transfer is normally thrown in.
The most-booked days out of south Bali.
Every tour reviewed here →More travellers take these than anything else on the island, and the reason is a different one for each.
1
️ Bali Instagram Tour: The Most Famous Spots (Private & All-Inclusive)
Review of Bali’s private Instagram tour, with Lempuyang Temple, Tirta Gangga, waterfalls, rice terraces, lunch, Wi-Fi, and swing tickets.
From · $114
Read our review →
2
Nusa Penida day trip: boat, 4 snorkeling, Manta rays & Land tour
from $78
3
Bali Nusa Penida West Private All-Inclusive Tour
from $80
4
Nusa Penida Snorkeling Adventure (Private & All-Inclusive)
from $129
5
Mount Batur Sunrise Trekking Private Tour with Breakfast and Hotel Transfer
from $49
6
Individual Bali Day Trip with Private Driver and Free WiFi
from $38
7
Nusa Penida One Day Trip with All-inclusive
from $51
8
Waterbom Bali Tickets – Single Day Pass
from $33
Jimbaran is a fish grill on a beach, with a temple road above it.
The bay curves south from the airport into a run of seafood warungs where the tables go straight onto the sand and the fish comes off ice you pick it from. Above the bay the road climbs to Uluwatu and the fire dance.
Every Jimbaran evening →
Nusa Penida is a rough island holding the best coastline in Bali.
Forty minutes east by fast boat, and then the roads turn to broken concrete. What you get for the shaking is Kelingking, Broken Beach, Angel’s Billabong and manta rays circling a cleaning station off the south coast.
- 1Nusa Penida day trip: boat, 4 snorkeling, Manta rays & Land tourfrom $78
- 2Bali Nusa Penida West Private All-Inclusive Tourfrom $80
- 3Nusa Penida Snorkeling Adventure (Private & All-Inclusive)from $129
What a day out of Kuta actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by what it costs. A good share of the best Bali days come in under the price of dinner on the Jimbaran sand.
Surf lessons, temple entries, cooking classes and most of the quad-bike mornings.
The full-day standards: the Penida crossing, the Batur trek, the Ubud loop with a driver.
A driver held for the whole day, dive charters, and the once-a-trip splurges that earn it.
Three things that happen nowhere else.
Beaches and beach clubs exist all over the tropics. A hundred men chanting a monkey army into being, a volcano you climb in the dark to eat breakfast on, and a split gate framing Agung do not.
The Uluwatu Kecak
There is no orchestra. Seventy or so men sit in rings on the clifftop and make the entire score with their voices, a chak-chak-chak running under the Ramayana until Hanuman sets the stage alight. It begins as the sun goes down behind the Indian Ocean and ends in the dark, which is why the sunset slot goes before the earlier ones do.
- 1Uluwatu Temple Entry and Kecak Fire Dance Ticket★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 479 reviews
- 2Kecak and Fire Dance Ticket at Uluwatu Temple★★★★★★★★★★ 4.0 · 222 reviews
- 3Kecak Fire Dance and Sunset at Uluwatu Temple All Inclusive★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 86 reviews
Batur at Sunrise
The pickup is around two in the morning and the walk starts at three, by torchlight, on volcanic grit that slides back half a step for every one you take. At the top the guides cook eggs in the steam coming straight out of the ground while Agung lifts out of the cloud opposite. A hard two hours for a breakfast, and nobody who does it regrets it.
- 1Mount Batur Sunrise Trekking Private Tour with Breakfast and Hotel Transfer★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 885 reviews
- 2Private Tour Mount Batur Sunrise Trekking and Natural Hot Spring★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 431 reviews
- 3Full Day Kintamani Volcano View and Ubud Village Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 183 reviews
The Gate of Heaven
The split gate at Lempuyang frames Mount Agung, and the mirror-perfect water in every photograph of it is a piece of glass an attendant holds under your phone. Knowing that does not spoil it. The queue does: it runs to several hours by mid-morning, so the numbered ticket you collect at dawn is the whole trick.
- 1Bali Instagram Tour – Lempuyang Bali Gate of Heaven★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 149 reviews
- 2Best of Instagram Tour: Gate of Heaven, Tirta Gangga, Bali Swing★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 52 reviews
- 3Instagrams Tour Lempuyang Temple, Tirta Gangga- Tukad Cepung , Tibumana Waterfall★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 52 reviews
Four Bali bookings that will not wait.
Most of this island can be arranged from a warung table the night before. These four run on boat manifests, sunrise slots and a queue that forms before it is light.
- 01Mount Batur Sunrise Trekking Private Tour with Breakfast and Hotel TransferPickups start around two in the morning and every guide caps the group. There is one sunrise a day and no second slot behind it.
- 02Nusa Penida day trip: boat, 4 snorkeling, Manta rays & Land tourThe fast boats run to a manifest and the good crossings fill days ahead in high season. Miss the sailing and the next one is hours away.
- 03Uluwatu Temple Entry and Kecak Fire Dance TicketOne performance a day, at sunset, in an amphitheatre with a fixed number of stone seats. It sells out and there is no standing room.
- 04Nusa Penida day trip: boat, 4 snorkeling, Manta rays & Land tourSea state on the south coast decides whether the boat rounds the headland at all, so operators release seats in short windows and pull them just as fast.
South Bali traffic decides your day. Plan around it.
Eight kilometres on the Ngurah Rai bypass can take an hour once the afternoon school run and the airport run collide, and the road up to Ubud is worse. Two answers: be in the car before six, or spend the day inside the belt. Everything here stays within about twenty minutes of a Kuta hotel.
Bali’s temples, and the ceremonies that fill them after dark.
A sea temple on black rock, a clifftop pura with a monkey problem, a split gate under Agung, and a chanting chorus once the sun is gone. Book the sunset ones first.
By place — the belt, and the runs out of it
Kuta, Uluwatu, Ubud, Batur, Penida: the week almost everyone does first.
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5 Star Private Cooking Class Experience in Bali, Lunch Included
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