Bali: a first-timer's guide to temples, terraces and choosing your coast

At six in the morning in Ubud the air smells of frangipani and incense, and a woman in a sarong is setting down the day's first canang sari, a palm-leaf tray of flowers and rice, on the pavement outside her shop. By nine the same street is a river of scooters. Bali holds those two things together without apparent effort, and it is why the island keeps its hold on people long after the beaches have blurred together.

It is also small. You can drive its width in a couple of hours, which fools people into treating it as one destination when it is really half a dozen, each with a completely different temperature. Choosing the right base matters more here than almost anywhere.

Best time to visit

The dry season runs roughly April to October, with reliable sun, lower humidity and the calmest seas for crossing to the Nusa islands. July and August are the peak and south Bali feels genuinely busy. The shoulder weeks in April, May, June and September are the sweet spot: dry enough, noticeably quieter, and cheaper.

The wet season, November to March, is not a write-off. Rain tends to arrive as a heavy afternoon burst rather than an all-day grey, the rice terraces are at their most vivid green, and rates drop sharply. Diving on the east coast can be superb, though visibility varies.

One date needs planning around. Nyepi, the Balinese day of silence and the Saka new year, falls in March and shifts each year. For twenty-four hours the entire island stops: the airport closes, no flights land or leave, nobody goes outside including visitors, lights stay off or very low, and mobile data is sometimes restricted as well. Hotels stay open and will feed you, but you are staying in. The night before is the opposite: the Ngrupuk parade fills the streets with enormous demonic ogoh-ogoh effigies that are burned at the end. If your dates land on it, treat it as a rare thing to witness rather than a day lost, but do not schedule a flight anywhere near it.

Where to go

Ubud is the cultural centre, inland and green, with temples, craft villages, the Campuhan ridge walk and rice terraces at Tegallalang. It is no longer sleepy, but walk fifteen minutes from the market and it still is. Jatiluwih, further north, is the UNESCO-listed terrace landscape and far quieter.

The south coast splits by temperament. Seminyak is polished, with the best restaurants and beach clubs. Canggu is younger, scruffier and full of surfers and remote workers. Uluwatu and the Bukit peninsula deliver clifftop sunsets and the island's most serious surf. Sanur is calm, flat and shallow, the sensible choice with small children. Nusa Dua is resort Bali, gated and manicured.

North and east are the ones most itineraries skip. Sidemen is the Ubud of twenty years ago, all rice valleys with Mount Agung behind. Munduk has waterfalls and cool mountain air. Amed and Tulamben are quiet fishing villages with black sand and, at Tulamben, the wreck of the USAT Liberty close enough to shore to snorkel. Offshore, Nusa Penida has the cliff viewpoints and manta rays, while Nusa Lembongan is gentler.

Among the temples, Uluwatu at sunset with the kecak fire dance is the theatrical one, Tanah Lot sits on a rock the tide cuts off, Besakih on the slopes of Agung is the mother temple, and Tirta Empul has the holy spring where Balinese come to purify. A sarong and sash are required at all of them, and are usually lent at the gate.

Getting around

Traffic in the south is the single biggest drain on a Bali itinerary. A journey that looks like thirty minutes on a map can take ninety. Plan one main thing per day rather than three, and consider hiring a driver for the day, which is inexpensive and removes the problem entirely.

Grab and Gojek work well and settle the fare in advance, though some areas are informally controlled by local transport cooperatives and drivers may ask to meet you around the corner. Scooters are the local answer and a genuine risk: an international driving permit with the motorcycle category is required, helmets are enforced, and hospital visits after scooter accidents are the commonest thing that ruins a Bali trip. Bali drives on the left. Fast boats to the Nusa islands and the Gilis leave from Sanur and Padangbai, cost little, and are cancelled in rough seas.

Where to stay

Pick your area first, then the property. A honeymoon villa in Canggu will still leave you sitting in Canggu traffic; a family with young children in Uluwatu will spend the week driving to a beach they can actually swim from.

The range is exceptional: family homestays for very little, private pool villas for what a chain hotel costs in Europe, and genuine luxury along the Bukit cliffs. Splitting a week between two bases, one inland and one coastal, gives you the island properly and avoids long daily drives.

What to eat

Balinese food is distinct from the rest of Indonesia and worth seeking out rather than defaulting to the international menus of Seminyak. Babi guling, the spit-roasted suckling pig, is the island's celebration dish and is served from midday until it runs out, which it does. Bebek betutu is duck slow-cooked for hours in spice paste and banana leaf. Lawar, sate lilit wrapped around lemongrass stalks, and nasi campur assembled from whatever is good that morning are the everyday pleasures.

Bali being Hindu rather than Muslim means pork is common and beef treated with more reserve, the reverse of Java. Warungs are where the good food is, and the busy ones turn stock over fastest. Canggu and Ubud also have one of the best cafe scenes in Asia if you need a break from rice. Drink bottled or filtered water only, including for cleaning your teeth.

Culture and courtesy

Bali is a Hindu island in a Muslim-majority country, and religion is not a backdrop here; it is a daily timetable. Those small offerings on pavements and doorsteps are placed fresh several times a day. Step around them, never over or on them.

Cover shoulders and knees at temples and wear the sarong and sash provided. Do not climb on shrines for photographs. Menstruating women are traditionally asked not to enter temples, and signs at the entrance say so. Use your right hand to give and receive, and do not touch anyone's head. Bali has issued formal conduct guidance after a run of incidents at sacred sites, and enforcement is real, including deportations. Behave as you would in a cathedral and none of it will trouble you.

Ceremonies close roads without warning. When a procession comes through, wait, and do not try to cut across it.

Practical essentials

Bali arrivals use Ngurah Rai International Airport at Denpasar. Most visitors, including UK travellers, need a visa: the Visa on Arrival is currently 500,000 rupiah for 30 days, extendable once, and can be bought in advance as an e-VoA on the official immigration portal to skip the queue. Separately, every foreign visitor pays the Bali tourist levy of 150,000 rupiah, once per visit rather than per entry, through the official Love Bali portal, which issues a QR code to show on arrival. Only the government domain ending go.id is official; lookalike sites charge several times the real fee for the same thing.

Monkeys at Ubud's Sacred Monkey Forest and at Uluwatu will take sunglasses, phones and anything shiny, and bites carry a rabies risk that means a hospital trip. Stray dogs are best left alone for the same reason. Stomach upsets are common enough to have a nickname, so be sensible about water and ice. Power is 230V with European two-pin sockets. Bali sits beneath active volcanoes and Agung has disrupted flights within recent memory, so travel insurance that covers natural disruption is worth reading properly.

Staying connected. Coverage across south Bali, Ubud and Sanur is excellent, with fast 4G and 5G in the main centres, though it thins in the northern mountains around Munduk and in patches on Nusa Penida. Indonesia falls outside the inclusive roaming on most UK plans, so leaving your usual SIM on is an expensive way to check a map. Indonesia also enforces IMEI registration for phones on local networks, which trips up longer stays; devices using international roaming are exempt, so an eSIM from idealesim avoids the issue and the airport SIM counter altogether. Install it over Wi-Fi before you fly and arrive with Grab, Gojek and maps already working. Do bear in mind that data can be restricted island-wide during Nyepi, so download anything you need in advance if your trip covers it.

Stay east, stay longer

Almost everyone books south Bali and wishes they had given the east and the north a few more nights. Add them now, hire a driver for a day, and let a quiet valley in Sidemen show you the island the brochures skipped.