When I go to a new country, I love starting my trips in the spot that is the most authentic and holds the
most culture for where I am traveling through.
Ubud is a jungle full of not only mosquitos and large lizards but also religion, Balinese cuisine, deep culture and genuine, warm people (The Balinese people are some of the nicest people ever)!
If you’re planning on adding Ubud to your itinerary (which I very much hope you do), then get
ready for some real adventure!

MY TRIP:
• Fly into Denpasar Airport
• Taxi (offered by hotel for 300,000 Indonesian Rupiah (or R) – the local currency)
Getting taxis from the airport can sometimes be a headache. You don’t always know who to trust and what the average price to pay is.
I found Lost Leblanc’s video helpful (although we didn’t personally end up needing to use this advice). I would recommend watching just in case it can help you! [Click Here To Watch]
For us personally we were in contact with our hotel which offered a taxi pick up which was 300,000 R (about $21) which seems fair since the drive from the airport to Ubud took us about 1.5 hours.

• AirBnB experience (most epic guide ever) - $55
Link: https://www.airbnb.com/experiences/481378
I cannot recommend this tour enough! Apparently all their guides are amazing based on the reviews. Our guide we got was so incredible! His name is Bagus Rastika (see if you can request him), he added to our experience so much! He was the biggest sweetheart! He was efficient in getting us to each location, never rushed us, and he even helped carry our stuff when we were off shooting photos.
We actually took longer than scheduled, and he didn’t even mind! He truly wanted us to enjoy our experience! So much so that when it got to sunset and the last two locations to visit on our trip’s itinerary were closed, he offered to take us the following morning to finish the tour! We just paid him a small taxi fee since he was going to have to go out of his way to pick us up again on a day he had off!
On this tour all the entrance fees were covered and so was water. The only thing that wasn’t was the buffet lunch.
Here is what we saw on the tour:
- Gates of Heaven
- Tirta Gangga
- Lunch (buffet) looking over rice fields
- Waterfall
- Coffee and tea tasting (really cool! We got to learn all about the famous Luwak coffee and try it)
- Tegallalang Rice Terraces (the most Instgram-able and most manicured)
- Bali swing
All of these activities are so cool, and I highly recommend adding each of these onto your itinerary.
• Ubud market
Going to markets is one of my favorite things! Ubud market was the most affordable out of everywhere else we went shopping in Bali, so I definitely recommend you pick up all your goodies when you are here! Oh and don’t forget to bargain your butt off because they will try to getcha!
Just to give you an idea of what we paid (we could have probably got it cheaper if we really wanted to, so consider this a challenge to beat):
- Straw backpack (small size) 300k R (about $21)
- Straw purse with leather 180k R (about $12)
- Wood bowl with chopsticks, and you can get things like sarongs and smaller circle straw purses for under 80k R (about $5)
• Cooking course - $30 pp
Link: https://www.airbnb.com/experiences/280331
This is a must, must, must! We did a cooking course in Thailand originally and we vowed to always do it in any foreign country from then on out, preferably at the start of the trip! Not only do you get to make a homemade meal, but you get to know more about their local ingredients and cuisines (which are very different from other places around the world)!
It’s a longer activity, but it is totally worth it because you also have a local there to teach you more about their culture and lifestyle! This adds a whole new element to the experience, and was great info for us to know for the rest of our trip!
Our host also teaches you from inside her compound (home) which is fricken epic! I learned more in that 4-5 hour cooking course than I ever could have surfing the internet or reading up in school! I have SO much information I want to share with you from this day, but honestly it’s better if you go and experience it yourself!
10/10 would recommend you book with this amazing woman!

SOME OTHER PLACES I WISH I HAD TIME TO VISIT:
Sacred Monkey Forest Sanctuary
Goa Gajah
Campuhan Ridge Walk
Saraswati Temple Ubud
Tjampuhan's Sacred Hills
Tegenungan Waterfall
Mount Batur (Sunrise hike)
WHAT I WOULD CHANGE:
• When planning your trip, leave a good amount of free space/time
Since we only had about 3 days in Ubud, I wanted to get as much done as possible. When I first booked the trip I thought it was definitely going to be enough time, however the deeper I got into researching Ubud the longer my list of places to go became.
One of the things that make Ubud so special is how easy it is to get distracted into doing something else! You’ll be riding down one road with the intention to get to that one coffee shop and all of a sudden you’re chasing a sunset and end up at a huge rice field only feet from the coolest waterfall.
Go with the flow and let Ubud show YOU around.
• We stayed for only about 3 days, yet I would have loved to add an additional 3 days to a week more to our trip in Ubud.
• Choose more central hotel location
TIPS:
• February isn’t a bad month to travel to Bali! We read on Google that January and February were the most rainy months in Indonesia (the rainy season) and to rather go closer to high season (the less rainy and more busy time in Bali). I’m so glad we didn’t because the prices were better when we went, we only had one full day of rain the whole 9 days we were there (it rained twice at night but didn’t affect our plans), and it was so nice not to have the place over populated – especially if you are like us and only planned on going a few short weeks prior to the actual trip.
• There is SO much to do! I was under the impression that Bali was just about eating vegan food and surfing haha, but actually Bali has SO much to offer and endless amounts of things to do. After this trip it makes so much sense to me why this isn’t just a one time destination for most travelers.
• Massages are the cheapest in Ubud -> enjoy as many as possible! A one hour full body massage was 80k (about $5) - crazy!
• Balienese people can NOT guesstimate time at all lol! I can’t tell you how many times we were told one time prediction (for us to arrive somewhere, for example) and it ended up being double if not triple the amount of time. I think there is a bit of a language barrier when it comes to numbers lol
Overview
I had the most epic time in Bali. I wish I could have stayed longer to fully see everything this beautiful area has to offer. If you were to tell me I would find such magic in a place full of mosquitos and nearly unbreathable humidity, I would have wrote you off as crazy, but Bali has something so special about it that you find yourself just wanting to get out and explore more of it!
Bali is not a luxury travel destination, and I really love that about it! It’s real traveling and real adventure!
One thing that I repeatedly noticed was that each time we finished something on my to-do list, the list would grow even longer! I had FOMO so bad that I finally had to start telling myself I would come back sometime this year to finish more of it.
The more time you spend in Bali, the more you realize how much more time you need to spend in Bali haha.
* Make sure to read my other blog posts from Bali. I have some tips that may apply to other
locations you are planning to travel in Indonesia…

Comentarios