Day Trips from Ubud: East Bali's Gates and Water Palaces, Sidemen, the North, and Nusa Penida

Ubud is roughly central on the island, which makes it a good base for day trips in every direction except the far south. The trade-off is that Bali's roads are slow: thirty kilometres is an hour, and most of the day trips below involve three to four hours in the car in total. Choose one direction per day and do it properly.

The east is the classic Ubud day trip. Lempuyang temple's split gate, with Mount Agung framed between the halves, is the most photographed spot in Bali, and the photograph is produced by a man with a phone and a piece of glass under the lens to create the reflection. There is no lake. Expect to queue for that photo, often an hour or more by mid-morning; a 6am departure from Ubud is how you avoid it.

Tirta Gangga, the water palace with its stepping stones across carp pools, is twenty minutes away and far calmer. Sidemen valley, between the two and Ubud, has terraces as fine as Tegallalang's with almost nobody in them, and is the place to stop for lunch.

The whole loop is a ten-hour day with an early start.

North is the volcano and the highlands. The Kintamani rim road looks down on Batur and its lake and is where the sunrise trekkers eat breakfast. From there a loop west takes in the Jatiluwih terraces, the lake temple at Ulun Danu Beratan, and the twin lakes and waterfalls around Munduk.

It is a long loop, the roads are winding, and the highlands are cool and often cloudy by afternoon. Start early and do not try to combine it with the east.

Nusa Penida is reachable as a day trip from Ubud, but be honest about what it involves: an hour to Sanur, a 45-minute fast boat, a full day on rough island roads to Kelingking, Broken Beach and Angel's Billabong, the boat back, and an hour home. Twelve hours, most of it moving.

It is worth it once. If you are also staying on the south coast, do Penida from there instead and save two hours. If you are staying only in Ubud and have the time, a night on the island is a far better version of the trip.

The normal way to do any of these is a private car with a driver for eight to ten hours. Drivers know which sites have queues that morning, where the road is closed for a ceremony, and which warung to stop at. The tours listed on this site for these routes are exactly that: a driver, a car, and a route, with a guide added where the site needs one.