One car for three days
The same vehicle and the same driver from arrival to departure. Your luggage stays in the car between the Ubud check-out and the coast check-in.
Planning · three days
A 3-day Bali itinerary that fits in three days
Ubud first, the volcano second, the south coast last — so you never cross the island twice. Written around real drive times, not map distances.
In short
Three days is enough for Bali only if you stop treating it as a small island. It is small on a map and slow on the road — 35 kilometres from the airport to Ubud takes 60 to 90 minutes — so this plan moves in one direction and doubles back once.
- Two nights in Ubud, one on the south coast — not three hotel changes
- Temples early, coast late: both are timed to the light
- One car and one driver for all three days
Day by day
The three days, in order
Drive times are off-peak. Add thirty to forty-five minutes on the airport corridor between 16:00 and 19:00.
Day one
Land, then go straight up to Ubud
Your driver meets you at Ngurah Rai and heads north. It is about 35 kilometres and 60 to 90 minutes, and the scenery turns from city to rice terrace roughly halfway. Check in, eat, then spend the afternoon at Tegalalang — the terraces are part of the UNESCO-listed subak irrigation system, and a walk through them runs about 45 minutes. A coffee plantation nearby takes an hour. In the evening, a Legong or Barong performance in a temple courtyard runs 60 to 90 minutes.
- DPS airport
- Tegalalang rice terraces
- Coffee plantation
- Balinese dance, evening
Day two
Holy spring, volcano rim, mother temple
Start at Tirta Empul by 08:30 — it is a working temple with thirteen spouts fed by a spring, founded in 962, and the hour matters more here than anywhere else on the trip. Allow 1.5 to 2 hours. Then 45 minutes north to Kintamani for lunch on the rim, looking at Mount Batur across the caldera. Besakih, the mother temple, is a complex of 23 temples on the slope of Mount Agung. Sarongs are provided at the gates.
- Tirta Empul, 08:30
- Kintamani and Lake Batur
- Besakih mother temple
- Back to Ubud
Day three
Down to the coast, and the Kecak at sunset
Check out and drive south — 40 to 50 kilometres to Seminyak or Jimbaran, but 1.5 to 2 hours, because this is the direction everyone else is going too. Uluwatu Temple sits on a 70-metre cliff about 45 minutes further on. The Kecak fire dance starts around 18:00 in the open-air amphitheatre and runs an hour, with the sun going down behind it. Dinner on the sand at Jimbaran, then 15 to 20 minutes back to the airport.
- Ubud check-out
- Uluwatu Temple
- Kecak fire dance, 18:00
- Jimbaran Bay
- DPS airport
This is a blueprint, not a fixed tour. Tell the desk what you would rather skip and the day gets rebuilt around it — the temples in particular reward being visited early or not at all.
Paid on the day
What you pay at the gate
Entrance and ticket prices, per person, settled at each site. These are not ours and are not in your transport quote.
| Where | Per person (IDR) |
|---|---|
| Tirta Empul temple | ≈ 50,000 |
| Besakih mother temple | ≈ 60,000 |
| Besakih local guide, optional | ≈ 200,000 |
| Balinese dance, Ubud | 100,000 – 150,000 |
| Kecak fire dance, Uluwatu | ≈ 150,000 |
The difference
What the driver actually changes
Not the comfort. The timing — which on this particular route is the whole trip.
On request
What the three days cost
Per vehicle, not per person. Driver, fuel and standard parking are included.
| What | Price |
|---|---|
| One full day, 10 hours | Ask for price |
| Three full days, as written above | Ask for price |
| Airport transfer — DPS to Ubud, one way | Ask for price |
| Airport transfer — Jimbaran to DPS | Ask for price |
Before you commit
Four straight answers
Send us your three dates
Arrival time, departure time and passenger count. You get the route back with the drive times filled in for your actual dates, and a written rate.
We will tell you if three days is the wrong shape for what you want to see.