Ubud, Indonesia · Asia

6 ideal things to do in Ubud

The short list, pulled out of the long essay. No opening hours, because they change and I would only get them wrong — just what is worth your morning, roughly when to turn up, and where I have wasted time so you don’t have to.

By Ščenza

Last checked September 15, 2025

1. 01

   The Campuhan Ridge Walk, before the heat arrives

   Ubud, starting at Pura Gunung Lebah·First light; be off it by eight

   Paved path running along a grass spine between two river gorges, starting at the temple down in the ravine and going out a couple of kilometres before the cafés begin. Go at nine and you will spend it stepping around people photographing each other in white dresses. At six there were four joggers, a woman with a broom, and a man carrying a rooster under one arm. Short, easy, and it puts you above Ubud instead of in its traffic.

2. 02

   Museum Puri Lukisan

   Central Ubud, just off Jalan Raya·Late morning, when the streets turn unpleasant

   Bali's oldest art museum, opened in 1956 by the ruling family of Ubud together with the Dutch painter Rudolf Bonnet, specifically so that the good work would stop leaving the island in other people's suitcases. Six pavilions set in a garden, mostly twentieth-century Balinese painting and woodcarving, and almost nobody in them. I walked past that gate on three separate trips assuming it was a hotel, which says more about me than about the signage.

3. 03

   Tirta Empul, the holy spring at Tampaksiring

   About thirty minutes north-east of Ubud·At opening, ahead of the coach groups

   Water has been coming out of this spring since at least 962, and Balinese families still queue along the stone tank to pass under the spouts for the melukat cleansing. Visitors are welcome in the water, wearing the sarong, and are also correctly expected to know that you take the spouts in order and do not skip any. I skipped one. A grandmother behind me put a hand on my shoulder and moved me back, and she was entirely right to.

4. 04

   The rock-cut shrines at Gunung Kawi

   Tampaksiring, in the Pakerisan valley·Morning; the stairs are unkind after eleven

   Ten memorial facades, each about seven metres high, cut directly into the rock walls of a river gorge in the eleventh century — not built, carved, which takes a moment to land. You reach them down a long staircase through working rice terraces, which is delightful, and you leave by the same staircase, which is a different proposition entirely. Far quieter than anything else in the valley, largely because of that staircase.

5. 05

   The Sacred Monkey Forest Sanctuary

   Padangtegal, southern Ubud·Early, while the macaques are still eating

   Roughly 1,260 long-tailed macaques live in a patch of forest at the bottom of Ubud, along with three temples dating to about 1350 and an enormous quantity of moss. The monkeys are wild and have no interest in your personal boundaries. Keep sunglasses in a bag rather than on your head — I learnt this in the usual way, at the usual price, watching a juvenile assess my prescription lenses from a branch six metres up.

6. 06

   The Jatiluwih rice terraces

   Tabanan, about two hours west of Ubud·Dry-season morning, ahead of the midday coaches

   Six hundred hectares of terraces on the flank of Batukaru, farmed under the subak system — water councils that have been settling who irrigates when since roughly the ninth century, which is more governance than my building in Split can manage over a single shared meter. Marked trails run through the working fields rather than past them. It is a long drive, Tegalalang is far closer, and I would still do the drive.