Half of Bali leaves from Kuta at seven. The question is which van you get in.
What the Nusa Penida boat really costs. Whether Mount Batur is worth a two in the morning pickup. Which Ubud loop stops long enough to matter. Reviews of the tours you can book from the Kuta strip.
Four bookings a first week in Kuta hangs off.
The island across the strait, the volcano before dawn, the cliff temple at sunset and a morning in the shorebreak. What each costs, and what the people who went came back saying.
01The island crossingNusa Penida day trip: boat, 4 snorkeling, Manta rays & Land tourFast boat across the strait, four snorkel stops and the cliff coast in one long day. The trip people fly home talking about.
02The two in the morning startMount Batur Sunrise Trekking Private Tour with Breakfast and Hotel TransferPicked up in the dark, head torch up the ridge, breakfast cooked over the steam vents at the top.
03The sunset showUluwatu Temple Entry and Kecak Fire Dance TicketClifftop temple first, then the kecak circle in the amphitheatre as the sun drops behind the stage. One performance a day.
04The Kuta morningHOT PROMO. Beginner Surf Lessons in BaliThe break out front is soft sand and slow water, which is why every beginner in Bali learns here. Two hours and most people stand up.
Six directions out of Kuta, and the best day in each.
Nusa Penida across the strait, Ubud ninety minutes inland, the cliff temples at Uluwatu, a volcano rim at Kintamani, the water temples of the east and the waterfall country up north. Kuta is where you sleep. These are where you go.
Boat, volcano or rice terrace: how a day out of Kuta splits.
Three shapes of day trip leave the strip every morning. What it costs to board each one, and how much of it you spend in the van before anything happens.
The days out of Kuta more people book than anything else.
Every review on the site →The tours this end of the island actually runs on, in the order travellers take them, with what each one costs to board.
1
Nusa Penida day trip: boat, 4 snorkeling, Manta rays & Land tour
Spend about eight hours with Indo Compass Bali on a fast boat from Sanur, four snorkeling stops, and a short Nusa Penida land tour. Guides such as Fernando, Coral, Ariel, and Prima help with safety, photos, and spotting manta rays. Lunch, equipment, towels, water, and GoPro photos are included.
From · $78
Read our review →
2
Bali Nusa Penida West Private All-Inclusive Tour
from $80
3
Mount Batur Sunrise Trekking Private Tour with Breakfast and Hotel Transfer
from $49
4
Individual Bali Day Trip with Private Driver and Free WiFi
from $38
5
Waterbom Bali Tickets – Single Day Pass
from $33
6
Uluwatu Temple Entry and Kecak Fire Dance Ticket
from $29
7
Private Tour Mount Batur Sunrise Trekking and Natural Hot Spring
from $63
8
Private Tour Bali Beaches and Uluwatu Temple with Dinner
from $48
Kuta is a beach town, but the good water is a boat ride away.
The break out front will teach you to stand up and not much else. Manta Bay, the wall at Gamat, the wreck at Tulamben and the Ayung rapids are all day trips, and every one of them starts with a pickup outside your hotel.
Bali keeps its best temples on the edge of a cliff and opens them late.
Uluwatu sits on a headland with the kecak circle burning behind it. Tanah Lot stands offshore and cuts itself off at high tide. Lempuyang frames Mount Agung between the two halves of a split gate. All three are afternoon runs out of Kuta, timed to land you there for the light.
Ubud is ninety minutes inland and a completely different island.
Terraced rice above the Tegallalang valley, a macaque forest that will have your sunglasses off your head, swings hung out over the gorge and water temples with a queue at every spout. Most Kuta hotels have a van going at eight.
Every Ubud day out →
Nusa Penida is the day everyone comes home talking about.
Forty minutes across the strait on a fast boat, then a genuinely bad road out to a headland shaped like a sleeping dinosaur. Kelingking and Broken Beach are the west side, Diamond Beach and the manta water the east. One day does one side properly, and the boat back leaves mid afternoon.
- 1Nusa Penida day trip: boat, 4 snorkeling, Manta rays & Land tourfrom $78
- 2Bali Nusa Penida West Private All-Inclusive Tourfrom $80
- 3Bali Nusa Penida and Private Snorkeling (Manta Bay, Gamat, Wall)from $145
What a day out of Kuta actually costs.
Every priced tour on the site, sorted into three rungs. The cheapest full day on this island runs under ten dollars a head, and it is a real one.
Surf lessons, temple tickets, a massage on the strip, the Ubud loop in a shared van.
The full days out: Nusa Penida by fast boat, Batur before dawn, ten hours with a driver.
Two-tank dive trips, multi-day packages and the private cars that carry a whole family.
Three things you cannot book anywhere else.
Beaches and waterfalls exist everywhere. A hundred men chanting a monkey army into being on a clifftop at sunset does not.
The Kecak Fire Dance
A hundred men in checked sarongs sit in rings around a fire and chant cak, cak, cak with not one instrument between them, while the Ramayana is acted out in the middle. The form was assembled in the 1930s out of an older trance ritual. At Uluwatu it runs once a day in an open amphitheatre on the cliff, timed so the last act lands as the sun goes into the sea behind the stage.
- 1Private Uluwatu Temple and Kecak Fire Dance Evening Tour in Jimbaran Bay★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,199 reviews
- 2Uluwatu Temple Entry and Kecak Fire Dance Ticket★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 479 reviews
- 3Kecak and Fire Dance Ticket at Uluwatu Temple★★★★★★★★★★ 4.0 · 222 reviews
The Gate of Heaven
Pura Lempuyang sits at the top of a long flight of steps with Mount Agung framed dead centre between the two halves of its split gate. The mirror pool you have seen in every photograph is a piece of glass held under a phone by the man running the queue. Nobody pretends otherwise. The mountain is real, the light is best at six, and the line starts before it.
- 1Best of Instagram Tour: Gate of Heaven, Tirta Gangga, Bali Swing★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 52 reviews
- 2Bali Lempuyang Gate of Heaven and Besakih Mother Temple Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 31 reviews
- 3All-Inclusive Lempuyang Temple Gate Of Heaven Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 30 reviews
Dinner on the Sand
Twenty minutes down the coast from Kuta, the beach at Jimbaran fills with plastic tables set straight onto the sand and grills fired with coconut husks. You pick your fish by the kilo off ice at the front and it comes back charred and covered in sambal. The airport runway is right there, so the planes come in low over the bay while you eat.
- 1Private Uluwatu Temple and Kecak Fire Dance Evening Tour in Jimbaran Bay★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,199 reviews
- 2Uluwatu Sunset,Kecak Dance and Diner Seafood In Jimbaran★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 56 reviews
- 3Bali’s Best Sunset: Uluwatu Kecak Dance & Dinner Jimbaran Beach★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 49 reviews
Four Kuta bookings that will not wait until you land.
Most of this island can be arranged at the hotel desk the night before. These four run on boat timetables, one performance a day and a guide count that is fixed long before you get here.
- 01Nusa Penida day trip: boat, 4 snorkeling, Manta rays & Land tourThe fast boats run to a published timetable and the last one back leaves in the middle of the afternoon. Miss it and you are staying the night.
- 02Mount Batur Sunrise Trekking Private Tour with Breakfast and Hotel TransferPickup is around two in the morning and every operator runs a fixed number of guides up the ridge. The good ones are gone days ahead.
- 03Private Uluwatu Temple and Kecak Fire Dance Evening Tour in Jimbaran BayThe amphitheatre on the cliff seats what it seats, and there is one performance a day, at sunset.
- 04Fast Boat Transfer: Sanur to Nusa Penida by PenidagoBoats to the Gilis sail once or twice a day and stop altogether when the swell gets up.
When the afternoon rain arrives, Kuta has an indoor plan.
From November to March the mornings are usually clear and the sky opens somewhere around three. Put the volcano and the boat days early in the week and keep the spa, the cooking class and the silver bench for the afternoons. The waterfalls, for once, are better in the rain.
By place, or where the van is headed
By kind of day, from water to workshop
Kuta, Ubud, a volcano and the island across the strait: the week most people end up doing.
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