Your luggage stays in the car
Two hotel changes over five days means two check-outs where the bags simply move with you rather than being rebooked, reloaded and renegotiated.
Planning · five days
A 5-day Bali itinerary that never doubles back
South coast, then inland, then north, then back down. Five days is the point where Bali stops being a checklist and starts being a route.
In short
Five days buys you the thing three days cannot: a route instead of a loop. You sleep in the south, then in Ubud, and every drive moves you forward rather than back across ground you have already covered.
- Two bases, not five — one in the south, one in Ubud
- Adds east Bali and Sidemen, which the 3-day route cannot reach
- One car and one driver across all five days
Day by day
The five days, in order
Drive times are off-peak. The airport corridor and the Ubud road both add half an hour in the late afternoon.
Day one
Land and go straight to the cliffs
Ngurah Rai to the Uluwatu peninsula is about 20 kilometres and 45 minutes to an hour, so you can be looking at the Indian Ocean within the hour of landing. Spend the afternoon at the villa. In the late afternoon your driver takes you to Pura Luhur Uluwatu on its 70-metre cliff, and the Kecak fire dance starts around 18:00 and runs an hour, with the sun going down behind it.
- DPS airport
- Uluwatu peninsula
- Pura Luhur Uluwatu
- Kecak fire dance, 18:00
Day two
Inland to Ubud, and the terraces
Uluwatu to Ubud is roughly 50 kilometres but 1.5 to 2 hours — the road crosses the whole southern sprawl. The landscape changes completely on the way, from limestone coast to rice paddy. Afternoon in Ubud proper: the Neka Art Museum, or the galleries on the Campuhan side. Then Tegalalang, where the terraces are part of the UNESCO-listed subak irrigation system, and a walk through them takes about 45 minutes.
- Uluwatu check-out
- Neka Art Museum
- Tegalalang rice terraces
- Ubud
Day three
Up to the volcano rim
North from Ubud to Kintamani, about 40 kilometres and 1.5 hours, climbing the whole way. Lunch on the caldera rim looking across at Mount Batur, which stands at 1,717 metres. It is noticeably cooler up here. A coffee and spice plantation on the way back takes an hour, and Tegenungan waterfall is a short detour before Ubud if you still have daylight.
- Kintamani and Lake Batur
- Coffee plantation
- Tegenungan waterfall
- Back to Ubud
Day four
East Bali, where the tour buses do not go
About 40 kilometres east and 1.5 hours to Besakih, the mother temple, a complex of 23 temples on the slope of Mount Agung — Bali's highest volcano at 3,031 metres. Allow a couple of hours. Then down into the Sidemen valley, which is terraced rice, weaving villages and very little else. Tirta Gangga, the royal water palace built in 1946, is close enough to add if the day is running well.
- Besakih mother temple
- Sidemen valley
- Tirta Gangga water palace
Day five
Back down to the coast, and out
Ubud to Seminyak or Canggu is about 30 kilometres and an hour. Boutiques, a last spa, a beach club if that is your thing. Seminyak to the airport is 30 to 45 minutes, which becomes an hour in the evening — tell the desk your flight time and the day gets built backwards from it rather than forwards from breakfast.
- Ubud check-out
- Seminyak or Canggu
- DPS airport
Days three and four are the two most often swapped. If it has been raining, the Kintamani rim clouds over and east Bali is the better call — your driver will know by breakfast which way to go.
The difference
Why five days needs one driver, not five taxis
The gap between a good week and an exhausting one is almost entirely logistics.
On request
What the five days cost
Per vehicle, not per person. Driver, fuel and standard parking are included.
| What | Price |
|---|---|
| One full day, 10 hours | Ask for price |
| Five full days, as written above | Ask for price |
| Airport transfer — DPS to Uluwatu, one way | Ask for price |
| Airport transfer — Seminyak to DPS | Ask for price |
Before you commit
Four straight answers
Send us your five dates
Arrival and departure times, where you have booked to stay, and how many of you. The route comes back rebuilt around your actual bookings, with a written rate.
If your hotels sit somewhere else, we will say so before you book the car.