7 Days in Bali: Like a Local
Seven days in Bali means the loop the 5-day itinerary doesn’t have room for: Ubud, a full Nusa Penida day, the quieter east through Sidemen and Amed, and the north through Munduk and Jatiluwih, closing on the Bukit. Bali is a province and island of Indonesia, not a country of its own, and even a week only breaks out of the south-Ubud-Penida triangle; it still isn’t the whole island, and traffic eats more of each day than the map suggests.
Less time on your hands? The 2-day , 3-day , 4-day and 5-day itineraries stay inside that triangle. The 6-day itinerary adds one detour east or north; this one adds both. The Bali travel guide covers what a week still leaves out.
Book these before you go:
- A Nusa Penida day trip , boat, driver and entrance fees to Kelingking and Angel’s Billabong bundled in; the island’s roads are rough enough that arranging your own driver on arrival is a bad first move.
- A Munduk waterfalls and lakes tour , if you’d rather a guide handled the north’s back roads than navigating them yourself after five days of driving already.
- Your Sidemen stay , booked ahead rather than on arrival, since the east’s small guesthouses with rice-terrace views fill fast.
| Day | Focus | Rough daily cost (IDR) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Arrival, transfer to Ubud, settle in | 300,000-500,000 |
| 2 | Ubud: Campuhan walk, rice terraces, water temple | 400,000-700,000 |
| 3 | Nusa Penida: Kelingking, Angel’s Billabong, boat both ways | 700,000-1,000,000 |
| 4 | East: Sidemen rice terraces, Besakih mother temple | 500,000-900,000 |
| 5 | Amed: black sand coast, snorkeling, transfer north | 500,000-900,000 |
| 6 | North: Munduk waterfalls, Twin Lakes, Jatiluwih | 500,000-900,000 |
| 7 | South: Bukit beach, Uluwatu Temple, Kecak, departure | 500,000-900,000 |
Day 1: Arrival and settling into Ubud
Land at Ngurah Rai International Airport (DPS) and transfer straight to Ubud, budget 1 to 1.5 hours by private driver, longer if traffic out of the south is heavy. Don’t schedule anything demanding on top of a long flight. Check in, walk the main street and the art market for an easy first afternoon, and eat at a warung rather than the cafes lining the tourist road, nasi goreng or mie goreng for a fraction of a sit-down restaurant’s price. Save the temples and the rice terraces for tomorrow, when you’ve actually slept.
Day 2: Ubud before the tour buses arrive
Start at the Campuhan Ridge Walk by 7am if you can manage it, a free ridge trail through grassy hills just outside central Ubud that’s quiet and cool for the first hour, then fills with heat and other visitors by mid-morning; it’s an easy 30-45 minute out-and-back with no ticket and no guide required.
From there, head to Tegallalang, and get the correction most guides skip: the famous stepped green terraces are worth the stop, but they are not Bali’s UNESCO listing. That designation belongs to the Subak System, the rice-irrigation cooperatives inscribed in 2012 as the Cultural Landscape of Bali Province , and its actual listed terraces sit at Jatiluwih, which this route reaches properly on Day 6. Tegallalang runs the same subak irrigation tradition and looks the part in photos; it simply isn’t the site UNESCO named.
In the afternoon, visit Tirta Empul, the sacred spring water temple at Tampaksiring where Balinese Hindus bathe in the purification pools; it sits inside the Pekerisan watershed, one of the actual component zones of that UNESCO listing. A sarong and sash are required, usually available to borrow at the entrance for a small fee.
Want the Sacred Monkey Forest instead of, or alongside, Tirta Empul? It’s a short detour from the Campuhan trailhead. Keep bags zipped and don’t let the macaques grab anything; bites and scratches carry a genuine rabies risk in Bali and call for immediate medical attention, not a shrug.
Day 3: A full day on Nusa Penida
Fast boats to Nusa Penida leave from Sanur, typically well under an hour each way. A full-day tour bundles the boat and a driver on the island, which matters more than it sounds: Nusa Penida’s roads are rough and its distances deceptive, so a driver who knows the island beats renting anything yourself for even one day.
Spend the day at the two sights everyone comes for, Kelingking Beach’s cliff, the “T-Rex” shot, and the turquoise pool at Angel’s Billabong, and add Broken Beach’s rock arch if the tour has time. Catch the last realistic boat back to Sanur rather than the actual last one; missing it strands you on an island with accommodation options you haven’t booked.
One correction worth making here: this is not the Gili Islands. The Gilis (Trawangan, Meno, Air) sit off Lombok, an entirely different island in a different province, and the crossing from Bali runs 1.5 to 2.5 hours each way, not a quick hop. They don’t fit into this route, and any itinerary that lumps them in with Nusa Penida has the geography wrong.
Day 4: East Bali: Sidemen and Besakih
Drive east from the south to Sidemen, roughly 1.5 to 2 hours depending on traffic, a valley of working rice terraces without Tegallalang’s crowds or its souvenir stalls; this is the same subak irrigation tradition, just lived in rather than performed for a bus tour. Check into a guesthouse with a terrace view and slow down; the point of coming this far east is the quiet, not another checklist stop.
In the afternoon, continue to Besakih, Bali’s largest and holiest temple complex, spread up the slopes of Mount Agung. It’s often called the “mother temple,” and unlike Uluwatu or Tanah Lot it draws more worshippers than tour groups. A sarong and sash are required, and guides at the gate offering unofficial “donations” for entry beyond the standard ticket are a known friction point; agree a price or decline politely before you’re inside.
Day 5: Amed’s black sand coast
Continue east and down to the coast at Amed, roughly an hour from Sidemen, a strip of black sand fishing villages that has become Bali’s low-key diving and snorkeling base rather than its party one. The USAT Liberty wreck at nearby Tulamben, a WWII-era shipwreck sitting just off the beach in shallow water, draws divers and snorkelers who’d never normally do either.
Keep the day simple: swim, snorkel or dive in the morning while the water’s calmest, eat grilled fish at a beachfront warung, and use the afternoon to actually rest, since tomorrow’s drive north is the longest one on this route. Skip the scooter here if you haven’t already; Amed’s coast road is narrow, shared with trucks, and not the place to be riding without a proper licence.
Day 6: North Bali: Munduk, the lakes, and Jatiluwih
Budget a genuinely long drive today, 2.5 to 3 hours from Amed through the north coast or over the central highlands, to reach Munduk. The reward is a cooler, greener Bali most first-timers never see: a waterfall trek through coffee and clove plantations, then the Twin Lakes, Buyan and Tamblingan, framed by forest rather than beach clubs. Lovina, a further stretch west along the coast, adds a black sand beach and an early dolphin-watching boat trip if you’d rather add a morning than a waterfall.
Save the afternoon for Jatiluwih, the rice terraces that are actually the UNESCO-listed component of the Subak System, not Tegallalang. The scale here is bigger and the crowds thinner; a small entrance fee goes toward maintaining the terraces the farmers still work. This is the payoff for the correction made back on Day 2.
Day 7: The Bukit, Uluwatu, and departure
Transfer south, budget 2.5 to 3 hours back toward the Bukit Peninsula, close enough to DPS that today doubles as an easy exit-day plan. Spend the late morning at a Bukit beach, Padang Padang or Bingin both work, cliff-backed coves with a real beach club scene if you want one.
In the late afternoon, visit Uluwatu Temple, perched on cliffs with Indian Ocean views that have drawn worshippers for centuries. A sarong and sash are required again here, and belongings need watching closely around the resident macaques, who are practiced at grabbing sunglasses and phones. Stay for the Kecak fire dance at sunset if your flight allows it, the cliffside version of the chanting, firelight and Ramayana story that’s run since the 1930s; buy tickets ahead, since the sunset slot sells out first.
Flying out the same evening? Budget the drive back to DPS before the crowd leaving the show clogs the road.
Do you need a visa for Bali?
Yes, for most Western nationalities. It’s a paid Visa on Arrival, not a visa-free stamp: IDR 500,000, valid 30 days, extendable once for another 30 days for another IDR 500,000. Apply through evisa.imigrasi.go.id , the only official portal, since scam sites impersonating it are a known problem.
What is the Bali tourist levy?
IDR 150,000, paid once per foreign visitor and separate from the visa. It’s been in force since February 2024 and funds cultural and environmental upkeep. Pay online through the official Love Bali portal before you land, or at a counter on arrival, cashless only; you’ll get an emailed voucher with a QR code as proof.
When should you go, and what about Nyepi?
Dry season, roughly April through October, is the safer bet for a route this spread out, with July and August the busiest and most expensive stretch. Wet season, November through March, brings short intense downpours rather than all-day washouts, plus fewer crowds on the roads you’ll be driving a lot of this week. One date to build around rather than land on: 19 March 2026 is Nyepi, the Day of Silence, when the entire island including the airport shuts for 24 hours and no flights move at all. If your dates land anywhere near it, check the calendar before you book flights.
Skip the scooter for a route this long, especially on Nusa Penida’s rough roads and Amed’s narrow coast road. Riding one without a motorcycle-endorsed International Driving Permit is illegal here and can void your travel insurance outright, and UK government travel advice points to a real rise in fatal moped and motorbike accidents on the island. A private driver for the week, cheap by Western standards next to the ground you’re covering, beats the risk everywhere on this route. Book the Nusa Penida boat, the Sidemen guesthouse and the Uluwatu Kecak tickets before you land, not the morning of.