Ubud Travel Guide

Updated October 2026

Overview and Things to Consider

Ubud isn't really a town. It's fourteen villages, each run by its own banjar, or neighborhood council, that grew together around a palace and a market in the hills of Gianyar regency. The central village has about 12,000 residents and the wider district about 75,000, and visitors outnumber them by a wide margin. Gianyar counted 3.8 million tourist arrivals back in 2017, 1.3 million of them at the Monkey Forest alone. The first thing you'll notice is the traffic on Jalan Raya Ubud and Jalan Monkey Forest. The second, if you turn down any lane behind them, is a family compound with offerings on the step and a rice field behind it.

You'll love Ubud if you came to Bali for something other than beaches: nightly dance, painting, temples, walking, yoga, long lunches. It also works well for staying put, because a week of day trips into the hills from one homestay beats moving every two nights. You'll hate it if you want surf, nightlife or a sense that you found it first. Bars and cafes now share the main streets with the galleries, and the Eat Pray Love pilgrims who arrived after the book, and after the 2009 filming with Julia Roberts, never left.

The 2026 moment is Ubud being recognized and regulated at the same time. Locavore NXT climbed to 44th on Asia's 50 Best Restaurants in March 2026, and Capella Ubud picked up two Michelin Keys in September. In August the governor named Ubud one of five low-emission zones, pushing hotels toward solar power and electric vehicles. Meanwhile Bali as a whole took 6.95 million foreign arrivals in 2025, nearly 10 percent more than in 2024, and the road up from the coast feels every one of them.

Overrated? Tegallalang's terraces, which Wikivoyage's editors fairly call a tourist trap of trinket sellers, and the Campuhan Ridge Walk, still sold as a rural escape long after development crowded its views.

How Ubud Got Here

Ubud's story starts with water. In the eighth century, by Balinese tradition, the Javanese priest Rsi Markandya meditated where two branches of the Wos River meet at Campuhan, and founded Pura Gunung Lebah on the valley floor, still the southern start of the ridge walk. The area was known for medicinal plants, and the town's name comes from ubad, Balinese for medicine. The carved cave at Goa Gajah dates to around the ninth century and the royal tombs at Gunung Kawi to the eleventh, and the rice terraces around them run on the subak system of shared irrigation, which UNESCO listed in 2012. The listed landscapes include the Pakerisan river watershed, the oldest known irrigation system on the island.

The modern town is the work of a royal family that bet on art. In the late nineteenth century Ubud's lords, vassals of the king of Gianyar, patronized the dancers and painters around them, and in 1900 Ubud accepted Dutch protection at its own request, which spared it the worst of colonial interference. The German painter Walter Spies moved here in 1927 and drew a stream of Western artists and anthropologists through the 1930s, and the palace itself opened as one of the town's first hotels in that decade. Museum Puri Lukisan opened in 1954 as Bali's first private museum. In the 1960s the Dutch painter Arie Smit started the Young Artists movement, and Antonio Blanco painted here from 1952 until his death in 1999.

The rest is tourism and its shocks. The 2002 Kuta bombings emptied Bali, and the Melbourne-born Janet DeNeefe launched the Ubud Writers & Readers Festival in 2004 to bring people back. It still runs every October.

Getting There and Around

Most travelers come up from the south of Bali, and the trip is short on a map and long in traffic. Fly into Ngurah Rai International Airport (DPS) at Tuban, between Kuta and Jimbaran. The airport's prepaid taxi counter quotes Rp300,000 to Rp350,000 (about $17 to $20) to Ubud, and walking past the counter to the Grab lounge usually gets you a fixed app fare. Without traffic the drive from south Bali along the Sanur bypass and up through Batubulan and Sukawati takes about 45 minutes, but traffic on that road rarely cooperates. If you're already in Kuta or Sanur, the Kura-Kura Bus runs four shuttles a day from Kuta to Ubud via Sanur for Rp100,000 (about $5.60) one way or Rp160,000 return, plus Rp20,000 per piece of luggage, with seats reserved in advance.

The cheapest way up is the public bus. Trans Metro Dewata, the provincial bus network that relaunched in April 2025 after a four-month shutdown, charges Rp4,400 a ride, paid by card or QRIS code, not cash. Corridor 2 loops from the airport to Terminal Ubung in Denpasar from about 5:00 a.m. to 6:30 p.m., and route 4 goes from Ubung to the Monkey Forest central parking building in about an hour, every 15 to 20 minutes. It's a commuter service, so expect stops at every junction. Perama's tourist shuttles also link Ubud with Kuta, Sanur, Padang Bai and Lovina, but their Ubud office is about 2 kilometers south of the center on Jalan Hanoman.

US, UK, Canadian, Australian and EU passport holders all need a visa, and the easy one is the B1 visa on arrival. It costs Rp500,000 (about $28), gives 30 days, can be extended once to 60, and is best bought online at evisa.imigrasi.go.id before you fly, though it's also sold at the airport. Your passport needs six months' validity and you need an onward ticket. Fill in the free All Indonesia arrival card in the 72 hours before landing and ignore look-alike sites that charge for it. Bali also charges foreigners a Rp150,000 tourist levy, payable through the province's Love Bali site. Overstaying costs Rp1 million a day.

In town, walk. Central Ubud runs along three streets, Jalan Raya Ubud east to west and Jalan Monkey Forest and Jalan Hanoman running south, and most of what's in it sits within a 20-minute walk of the market. The sidewalks are another story, broken in places and parked over by scooters, so watch your feet. There are no metered taxis in Ubud. Local drivers with the Ubud Transport Association's yellow E sticker do short trips and day charters, and you should agree on the price first. Grab and Gojek work in the center, and Wikivoyage's editors report short hops rarely top Rp60,000, but drivers' cooperatives post no-pickup signs in some villages. Scooters rent for Rp40,000 to Rp80,000 a day, and you need an International Driving Permit endorsed for motorcycles.

What's Changed Since 2016

Bali started charging foreign visitors a Rp150,000 tourist levy on February 14, 2024. Collection has been patchy. Governor Wayan Koster said in January 2026 that only about 35 percent of foreign visitors paid it in 2025, raising Rp369 billion against a Rp500 billion target, and since August 2025 at least 150 hotels and other accommodation providers collect it from guests for a 3 percent commission. Pay it online and keep the receipt on your phone.

In March 2025 the province issued Circular Letter No. 7 of 2025, a code of conduct for foreign tourists. It requires modest dress at temples and public places, bans entering the inner and middle courtyards of temples unless you're there to pray, bans climbing sacred trees and using single-use plastics, and says to change money only at licensed exchangers and pay in rupiah. A national change landed on January 2, 2026, when Indonesia's new criminal code took effect, including penalties for sex outside marriage and cohabitation if certain close family members file a complaint.

Getting up the hill got cheaper and then wobbled. Trans Metro Dewata started running buses across greater Denpasar, Ubud included, on September 7, 2020, stopped on December 31, 2024 over funding problems, and came back on April 20, 2025 with fewer buses and longer gaps. Corridor 2 now links the airport with Terminal Ubung, where route 4 leaves for Ubud.

Ubud's food reputation went from cafe scene to award lists. Locavore NXT rose from 92nd to 44th on Asia's 50 Best Restaurants, announced on March 25, 2026, for its hyper-local, seasonal cooking. In September 2026 Michelin's hotel guide gave Capella Ubud two Keys and Amandari, Four Seasons Sayan, Bisma Eight and Samsara one each. On August 6, 2026 the governor named Ubud one of Bali's five low-emission zones.

Volcanoes now shape flight plans more than they used to. On June 18, 2025, eruptions of Mount Lewotobi Laki-laki on Flores forced the cancellation of more than 80 flights at Bali's airport, including routes to Perth, Sydney, Melbourne and Singapore, before services resumed the next day. If you're connecting onward, leave a spare day.

What the Usual Advice Gets Wrong

"Ubud is a peaceful jungle village." Central Ubud is a traffic jam with yoga studios. The junction of Jalan Raya Ubud and Jalan Monkey Forest, where the market and palace sit, is close to permanently gridlocked, and pedestrians dodge scooters on broken sidewalks. The quiet is real, but it's on the side lanes and in villages like Nyuh Kuning, Penestanan and Kutuh, so pick a room there or behind Jalan Kajeng.

"Just use Grab or Gojek everywhere, like in the south." Apps work for drop-offs and for pickups in central Ubud, but local transport cooperatives post signs banning app pickups in some villages and actively stop them at Bangkiang Sidem, the top of the Campuhan Ridge walk. Plan to walk out, or hire an Ubud Transport Association driver for return trips and agree on the price before you get in.

"Tegallalang is where you see Bali's rice terraces." Tegallalang, about 9 kilometers north, is a crowded photo stop lined with trinket sellers. The rice landscapes UNESCO listed in 2012 are elsewhere, including the Pakerisan watershed in Gianyar and the Jatiluwih terraces under Mount Batukaru, a long day trip west. For a free version, walk the Sweet Orange or Kajeng lanes north of town at 7 a.m.

"The Campuhan Ridge Walk is Ubud's best walk." It's a pleasant 2-kilometer paved path from Pura Gunung Lebah, but development has crowded its views, which Wikivoyage's editors now call ruined. Do it downhill, starting at Bangkiang Sidem at dawn, or skip it for the Sweet Orange Walk through working rice fields, looping back down Jalan Kajeng.

"Stop at a kopi luwak plantation on the way to the volcano. It's part of the culture." Many of these stops are commission traps. Wikivoyage names Satria Agrowisata, where drugged civets are kept on show and the coffee doesn't contain what it claims, at inflated prices. The same commission system runs the craft showrooms between Ubud and Sanur. Tell your driver no stops, and drink Bali coffee at Seniman Coffee Studio in town.

Ideas to Consider for Your Visit

Have you thought about seeing a dance every night for a week? Ubud stages one somewhere almost nightly. The palace courtyard at Puri Saren, across from the market, hosts Legong and other dances from about Rp75,000, and Pura Dalem Ubud stages its kecak with a fire dance on Monday and Friday evenings for about Rp80,000. The Peliatan troupe, the first Balinese dance group to perform abroad, still dances Legong a short walk east. Watch the same story twice and you start to see the differences between troupes.

Give the museums a morning each. ARMA, the Agung Rai Museum of Art in Pengosekan, charges Rp150,000 with a coffee or tea included, and holds Walter Spies and Rudolf Bonnet canvases plus the only Raden Saleh painting on show in Bali. The Neka Art Museum on Jalan Raya Campuhan has a room dedicated to the Balinese master I Gusti Nyoman Lempad. Museum Puri Lukisan, Bali's oldest private museum, is the mustiest of the three, which has its own appeal.

Eat your way across the price range. Ibu Oka's original babi guling warung, off Jalan Suweta, serves spit-roast pig from 11:00 to 15:00; order the special, which gets you a bit of everything, offal and blood sausage included. Out west, Warung Nasi Ayam Kedewatan Ibu Mangku does Balinese chicken rice from about Rp25,000. Sun Sun Warung's nasi campur runs Rp67,000. Bebek Bengil, the Dirty Duck Diner, runs about Rp100,000 a head. At the far end, book Locavore NXT well ahead.

Take a day for the temples east and north, with a driver. Start early at Goa Gajah, the ninth-century Elephant Cave 2 kilometers southeast of town, then walk 45 minutes through the paddies with a local guide to Yeh Pulu, rock carvings from the 14th or 15th century that most tour groups skip. Continue to Gunung Kawi at Tampaksiring, eleventh-century royal tombs cut into a river gorge 371 steps down, and finish at Tirta Empul, where Balinese bathe in spring-fed pools. Sarong rental comes with entry at all three temples, so there's no need to buy one.

Climb Mount Batur for sunrise if you accept the rules. Kintamani is about 45 minutes north, and the 1,700-meter volcano takes about two hours to climb from Toya Bungkah. You must hire a guide from the Association of Mount Batur Trekking Guides, which Wikivoyage describes as a cartel, at about Rp300,000 to Rp400,000 per guide. Pre-dawn starts give you the best chance of a view before the cloud comes in, with the sun rising over Mount Agung.

Learn to cook where people actually live. Paon Bali in Laplapan village runs classes in a family compound and picks up in Ubud, and Putu's class in Pejeng charges US$60 for one person or $45 each for two to four, five dishes and the meal included. Putu's morning market visit costs extra and is worth it. If you'd rather get wet, the Ayung River below Sayan has Class II and III rafting, best in the rainy season.

The Part Most Guides Miss

Every evening around 5:30, thousands of white birds come home to Petulu, a village about 10 minutes north of town, and few visitors go to watch. Between 15,000 and 20,000 cattle egrets, plus little egrets and Javan pond herons, fight for roosting spots in the trees above the road, and villagers sell drinks from warungs set up for the view. Entry is about Rp15,000. Local legend says the birds first came in such numbers after one of the worst massacres of suspected communists in 1965, that they are the souls of the dead, and ceremonies are still held for them. Get there by 5:30 and don't stand directly under the trees.

Where to Base Yourself

Central Ubud: Jalan Kajeng, Jalan Goutama and the Monkey Forest lanes. The pick for a first visit without a scooter. The palace, market, dance stages and most warungs are on foot, and family homestays on the side lanes still rent doubles from about Rp200,000 to Rp275,000. The catch is noise and traffic on the main streets, so take a room behind a compound wall on a lane like Jalan Kajeng rather than on Jalan Monkey Forest itself.

Penestanan, Sayan and Kedewatan. West of the Campuhan bridge, on the ridges above the Wos and Ayung gorges, this is where the views and the luxury resorts are, including Amandari and Four Seasons Sayan. Penestanan has garden bungalows and yoga studios like Intuitive Flow. The catch is the hills, steep enough that walking or cycling into town is hard, sweaty work, so most people end up on scooters or hotel shuttles.

Nyuh Kuning and Pengosekan. South of the Monkey Forest, Nyuh Kuning is a calm village of wide lanes and gardens, and Pengosekan has ARMA, the Yoga Barn and Pizza Bagus's Saturday organic market. By day you can walk to central Ubud through the Monkey Forest. The catch is that the forest closes at 6 p.m., so after dark you're walking the road or riding.

Peliatan. East of the center, home of the Peliatan Legong troupe, with Goa Gajah close by. It suits people who want village life and the dance scene without the middle of town. The catch is the traffic on the main road east toward Gianyar.

Realities to Be Aware Of

Budgets stretch further here than in the south if you live like the homestays do. On a budget, a dorm at $5 to $12 from Hostelworld's Ubud listings, warung meals from about Rp25,000 and one entry fee keep a day near $25 to $30. Mid-range, a homestay double at Rp200,000 to Rp275,000, a yoga class at about Rp150,000 and dinners near Rp100,000 a head land around $50 to $80 for two. Comfortable means the valley resorts, priced like anywhere in the world. Read menus for "plus plus": Ubud restaurants add 10 percent tax and 6 to 7 percent service, and hotels add 21 percent.

Ubud is a safe town in the ordinary sense, and most trouble is petty. Some money changers count your rupiah, recount it, and palm some of the notes. The UK Foreign Office says to use only licensed changers showing a Bank Indonesia logo and a QR code you can scan. In Ubud Market, sellers downstairs ask up to ten times the going price, and the upstairs stalls are cheaper; go before 11:00, when the tour buses arrive. Don't buy spirits from unknown sources, since methanol in counterfeit drinks has killed visitors in Indonesia. Drugs carry long prison terms or death.

The monkeys bite, and the forest's own guidance says it happens when people touch or feed them. Bring no food, zip your bags, and leave sunglasses in your pocket. The Monkey Forest says its research partners have never found rabies in Bali's monkeys, but the UK Foreign Office says rabies exists in wild and domestic animals and flags the monkeys around temples. If you're bitten or scratched, go to the forest's first aid clinic and then a doctor. Ubud has no full hospital, the nearest are in Denpasar about 20 kilometers south, and Toya Medika in Pengosekan runs 24 hours. Dengue is common, so use repellent.

Temples have a dress code, and the 2025 provincial rules made it official: modest clothes at temples and in public, a sarong and sash where they're provided, and no entering the inner courtyards unless you're there to pray. Service is already added to most restaurant bills. LGBT+ travelers face no specific national ban outside Aceh, but the Foreign Office advises discretion in public, and the 2026 criminal code's cohabitation clause applies to any unmarried couple.

If Ubud Is Part of a Longer Trip

Ubud is the natural middle of a Bali loop. Candidasa and the east coast are about an hour away through Klungkung, Lovina's black-sand coast is over the central highlands to the north, and Kura-Kura's Line 1A runs Kuta to Kintamani via Ubud for Rp200,000. For Lombok and the Gilis, Padang Bai is the closest port. The public slow ferry to Lembar on Lombok leaves about every hour, around the clock, takes about 5.5 hours and costs Rp46,000, while fast boats to the Gilis also leave from Padang Bai.

To head west into Java, go overland or fly. Ferries from Gilimanuk, at Bali's western tip, cross to Ketapang near Banyuwangi every 20 minutes, 24 hours a day, in about half an hour, but Gilimanuk is a long way from Ubud and flying is faster. Garuda Indonesia and Super Air Jet link Denpasar with Yogyakarta, whose Borobudur and Prambanan temples make a natural second stop after Ubud's, and many daily flights to Jakarta.

Internationally, DPS has direct flights to Singapore on Singapore Airlines and Scoot, Kuala Lumpur on AirAsia and Malaysia Airlines, Bangkok on Thai AirAsia and Thai Lion Air, and Perth on Jetstar, Batik Air and AirAsia, plus long-haul links to Doha, Dubai, Istanbul and Amsterdam. That makes Bali an easy stop between Australia and Asia or Europe, and a multi-stop ticket through AirTreks can put Ubud in the middle of a longer route without backtracking.

Yearly Things to Consider

Rain sets the calendar. The west monsoon runs roughly October to April, heaviest from December to March and peaking in January at about 12.8 inches in Ubud, though rain usually arrives in the late afternoon or evening. April to October is drier and the best walking weather, and July and August are the busiest months. The best deals run October to April, apart from Christmas and New Year. Ubud's hills run a few degrees cooler than the coast, with average highs around 84°F to 87°F (29°C to 31°C) year round.

The Balinese calendar matters more than the weather. Nyepi, the Day of Silence, shuts the whole island for 24 hours, airport included: it fell on March 19, 2026 and falls on March 9, 2027, and the night before brings ogoh-ogoh effigy parades worth planning around. Galungan, when bamboo penjor poles line every road, comes every 210 days, next on January 13, 2027, ending with Kuningan on January 23. The Ubud Writers & Readers Festival runs October 21 to 25, 2026.

Ideas for Itineraries

3 Days in Ubud

Three days is enough to see why people stay longer. Day one, walk the Sweet Orange lanes north of the center at 7 a.m., come back down Jalan Kajeng, and get to the Monkey Forest when it opens at 9:00, before the coaches. Have babi guling at Ibu Oka for lunch, spend the afternoon at ARMA, and see kecak at Pura Dalem if it's a Monday or Friday. Day two, hire a driver for Goa Gajah, the walk to Yeh Pulu, Gunung Kawi and Tirta Empul, then get to Petulu for the egrets at 5:30. Day three, take a cooking class in the morning and walk the Campuhan ridge downhill in the late afternoon.

5 Days in Ubud

Add two days that take you out of the center. Do the Batur sunrise climb on day four, starting in the dark for the two-hour climb from Toya Bungkah, take an afternoon nap, then catch a palace dance at night. On day five go west for the Neka Art Museum and lunch at Ibu Mangku's nasi ayam warung in Kedewatan, then raft the Ayung below Sayan or spend the afternoon in Penestanan's lanes. If it's a ceremony day in any banjar, follow the gamelan and watch from the edge.

1 Week in Ubud

With a week, base yourself in Nyuh Kuning or behind Jalan Kajeng and slow down. Add a long day for Jatiluwih's UNESCO-listed terraces, with Batukaru temple nearby, and a day east to Bangli for Pura Kehen, a temple founded in 1206 with an eleven-tiered meru that sees few visitors, and Penglipuran village. Shop the craft villages with your own driver rather than a tour: Mas for woodcarving, Celuk for silver and Batuan for painting, with Sukawati market for bargains. Leave a day blank for a festival or rain.

2 Weeks or More in Ubud

Two weeks or more in Ubud usually means yoga or work. Penestanan and Pengosekan have the long-stay crowd, and the Ubud Yoga Centre sells monthly unlimited passes for Rp2,250,000, while drop-in classes at the Yoga Barn and Radiantly Alive run about Rp150,000 to Rp165,000. Cafes have Wi-Fi and the town has 5G coverage. For weekends, take the Padang Bai ferry to Lombok, a fast boat to the Gilis, or a short flight to Yogyakarta. Watch your 30-day visa and extend it online before it runs out.

Sources

What this guide is built on. Every page below was read for this guide; prices and rules were checked in October 2026.

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