Solo in Bali: April 2024

Eight Days in Bali: What I’d Actually Change

I booked this trip six weeks out. Singapore Airlines JFK to DPS with a stopover in Singapore, landed in Denpasar at 11am on April 7th, and had eight days to do something with. I’d been wanting to do a scuba certification for two years. I’d been telling myself I’d hike a volcano. I’d seen the rice terrace photos, the monkey forest, the temple gates. Bali checks a lot of boxes fast. See the 2-week Southeast Asia March route.

But a solo Bali itinerary with back-to-back diving, a sunrise hike, Ubud, and Nusa Penida crammed into eight days is not a rest trip. I came home more tired than when I left. Some of that is unavoidable. Some of it I caused. Here’s what I’d do differently.

Day 1: Nusa Dua, Zahra Spa, and the Only Smart Decision I Made Early

The Westin Nusa Dua is a resort property in the southern peninsula, separated from Seminyak’s bar crawl noise by about 45 minutes of traffic. That distance is a feature, not a bug. I was paying $150-190 a night depending on the night — not cheap, but with three consecutive days of scuba diving starting on day three, I needed somewhere I could actually sleep.

The beach at Nusa Dua is calm, clean, and groomed. You can rent a sun lounger, swim without current issues, and be left alone. On arrival day I did exactly that for two hours, then at 3:30pm I had a two-hour warm stone and foot massage at Zahra Spa. Thirty-five dollars. In New York that’s one mediocre hour at a franchise. Here it’s two hours of actual craft with people who have been doing this for decades. I booked Zahra again on day four for the same reason.

Dinner that first night was Hamabe’s Shabu Shabu counter. Japanese hot pot in Bali sounds odd until you realize the Westin has been catering to Japanese travelers for decades and the execution is genuinely good. It was also quiet. After 26 hours of travel I needed quiet more than I needed adventurous.

Day 2: The Ubud Day Trip — What Works and What to Skip

I hired a private driver for the Ubud tour at $40-50 for the full day. This is the right call. The distance from Nusa Dua to Ubud is about 90 minutes each way, traffic-dependent, and you’ll be stopping at five or six different sites. A driver who knows the order to hit them — and when to arrive at each to beat the tour buses — is worth every dollar. Book the night before through your hotel or directly with a local operator.

The standard Ubud circuit hits these in roughly this order:

Tegalalang Rice Terrace

Two dollars entry. Go before 9am if possible. By 10am the selfie stick situation at the main overlooks becomes a logistical problem. The terraces are legitimately beautiful — the irrigation system (subak) has been UNESCO-listed since 2012, and the scale of the carved hillside doesn’t fully register in photos. Walk down into the terraces rather than staying on the upper path. The lower trails are quieter and the light hits differently when you’re inside the green rather than above it.

Tegenungan Waterfall

Two dollars entry, and yes you can swim at the base. The stairs down are steep and the rock is slippery — wear shoes you don’t mind getting soaked, not sandals. I went in. The water is cold, the current around the falls is strong, stay to the edges. This one earns its reputation.

Sacred Monkey Forest Sanctuary

The monkey forest in Ubud is a legitimate temple complex — three Hindu temples inside old-growth forest, macaques everywhere. The monkeys are not tame. They are opportunistic, fast, and have no interest in your boundaries. Keep bags zipped. Don’t hold food visibly. Sunglasses on your head are a target. I watched a monkey pull earbuds directly out of someone’s ears and sprint into the canopy before the person had time to react. Still worth it. The forest itself is ancient and the temple architecture is stunning, but go in knowing the monkeys are the ones running this.

Ubud Art Market

The ground floor has tourist-facing fixed-price stalls. The upper floors and the stalls that wrap around the back have the same goods at negotiable prices. Start at 30% of the opening ask and be prepared to walk. The batik work, the carved wooden figures, the silver jewelry — most of it is mass-produced, but there are individual craftspeople mixed in. If a vendor pulls out a piece and says “I made this,” ask to see their workspace. Some will take you next door or upstairs. Those are the pieces worth buying.

Puri Saren Royal Palace

Free entry. The palace is still a functioning residence for the royal family; parts of it are open to visitors during the day. The architecture is intricate, the courtyards are shaded, and it’s one of the few places on the Ubud circuit that doesn’t feel like it exists primarily for tourism.

Tirta Empul Temple

The purification pool. You wade through a series of fountainheads in a stone pool fed by a natural spring considered holy since 962 AD. Sarong required — rentals available at the gate if you don’t bring one. The ritual involves submerging under each spout in sequence, except the two at the end which are for purifying the dead and are not for the living to use. A temple attendant will guide you if you’re unfamiliar. Go with genuine respect or don’t go; this is not a swimming attraction.

Dinner that evening was the 6:30 Ramadan dinner at Ikan, one of the Westin’s restaurants. April in Bali falls during Ramadan, and the hotel put together an iftar-style spread. The food was exceptional — I’d book it again purely on the quality of the meal.

Days 3-5: Getting PADI Open Water Certified in Bali

This was the centerpiece of the trip and the thing I’m most glad I did. A PADI Open Water certification in Bali runs $350-450 all-inclusive: gear, divemaster, boat fees, and tanks. In the US you’re looking at $500-700 minimum for the same certification, often at a cold-water quarry with zero visibility. In Bali you certify in warm, clear, Indo-Pacific water with actual marine life on your first dives. It’s not a close comparison.

Day 3: Pool Training and Knowledge Development

The first day is confined water — pool skills and the knowledge development modules. Mask clearing, buoyancy control, regulator recovery, controlled emergency swimming ascent. None of it is technically hard but it requires genuine focus. You’re building muscle memory for situations where panic is the enemy.

Day 4: Open Water Dives 1 and 2 — Padang Bai Blue Lagoon

The drive to Padang Bai on the east coast is about 90 minutes from Nusa Dua. Early start. The Blue Lagoon is a protected bay with visibility often exceeding 15 meters. Dive one and two for certification are shallow — staying mostly in the 5-12 meter range — which is fine because there’s plenty to see at those depths. Coral formations, reef fish, the occasional turtle moving through. The water temperature was around 28-29C with a thin 3mm wetsuit enough for comfort.

I went back to Zahra Spa that evening. The second time was intentional — my ears were pressurized and my shoulders were shot from the buoyancy vest. The massage was $35 again and worth double that after a full water day.

Dinner was 7pm at Robatayaki. Japanese grilled skewers. I ordered too much and don’t regret it.

Day 5: Open Water Dives 3 and 4 — USAT Liberty Wreck at Tulamben

Tulamben is 2.5 hours north on the coast road. The USAT Liberty is a World War II US Army cargo ship torpedoed by a Japanese submarine in 1942. It was beached at Tulamben and then pushed into the water by the 1963 eruption of Mount Agung. It now rests between 5 and 30 meters of depth, parallel to the shore, and has been colonizing coral for over sixty years.

This is the dive. The wreck is massive — 120 meters long — and because it’s so accessible from shore, it’s been documented obsessively. You can identify hundreds of species on a single dive: bumphead parrotfish, giant moray eels, barracuda, lionfish in the crevices. The hull at depth is thick with hard coral and soft coral and sea fans. Visibility was around 20 meters when I was there.

Dive four completed the certification. My divemaster handed me a temporary certification card in the water, hovering at around 8 meters, which is a detail I will not forget.

Day 6: Mt. Batur Was Booked — and Then the Body Voted

I had a Mt. Batur sunrise hike booked. 4am pickup, two-hour hike to the caldera rim, breakfast at the summit while watching sunrise over Lake Batur. This is a real highlight on any Bali itinerary — Batur is an active volcano at 1,717 meters and the views on a clear morning are the kind of thing that justifies getting on a plane.

I did not do it.

I woke up at 3:15am with a sinus headache, ear pressure from the diving, and a stomach that had decided overnight to register its objections to three straight days of saltwater ingestion. I cancelled the hike. This was the right call and also entirely preventable.

Instead of the hike, I went to Nusa Penida by ferry. This was an improvised decision and it was partially a mistake, not because Nusa Penida isn’t worth visiting — it absolutely is — but because April puts you squarely in Indonesian school holiday season. The ferry port at Sanur was operating at a level of crowding that I was not prepared for. Queues for the fast boat were unmanaged, departure times were suggestions, and by the time I reached Nusa Penida I had about three hours before needing to catch the last reliable return ferry.

Kelingking Beach viewpoint — the T-Rex cliff that’s on every Bali mood board — is genuinely dramatic in person. The trail down to the beach is steep and loose and takes about 45 minutes each way if you’re moving carefully. I got to the viewpoint, looked at the trail, looked at my watch, and didn’t go down. If you’re going to Nusa Penida, it deserves a full day or an overnight stay, not a half-day improvisation during peak holiday season.

Dinner that night was the Sushi Counter at Hamabe, 6:30pm. This was my third time eating at Hamabe across the trip and the sushi counter was the best version — smaller menu, better focus, the kind of omakase-adjacent experience that the broader restaurant can’t quite achieve with a full dining room running.

Day 7: Bali Zoo — Orangutans at Breakfast, Elephants After

The Bali Zoo’s breakfast with orangutans is one of those experiences that sounds gimmicky until you’re sitting at a table with a juvenile orangutan three feet away watching you eat. The animals are residents, not performers — rescues and those born in the program. Breakfast is a buffet at tables inside an open-air enclosure; the orangutans move freely through the space and will approach if they’re curious. You are not allowed to initiate contact, and the staff enforce this actively.

Book two weeks ahead minimum. This fills up. The breakfast session runs at a fixed morning time and capacity is limited. I booked at the three-week mark and had options; I’ve heard from people who tried to book five days out and found nothing.

The elephant mud bath program runs later in the morning. Wear clothes you’re prepared to discard, or at minimum clothes you’re prepared to launder twice. The mud is thorough. A waterproof phone case is not optional if you want photos. The elephants at the Bali Zoo are not working animals; they’re in a conservation program. The mud bath is enrichment activity, not performance.

Day 8: The 4am Departure

Pickup at 4am. DPS departure at 7am. Singapore at noon. JFK at 6:50pm the same calendar day, which is one of the things that makes the westbound transpacific route easier than the eastbound. You arrive roughly when you feel like you should — tired but not disoriented about what day it is.

The Honest Budget Breakdown

The Reordered Itinerary I’d Actually Book

If I were doing this trip again from scratch, here is how I’d sequence it. The total activities are roughly the same; the order prevents the day-six collapse.

This order keeps the most physically demanding days separated by buffer, puts Mt. Batur early enough that an illness doesn’t cascade into a scheduling disaster, and gives Nusa Penida a proper standalone day rather than a panic-substitute.

Practical Details Worth Knowing

Book hotels: Search Bali hotels on Booking.com

Transportation

Grab (the Southeast Asian ride-share) works well in the south. For anything outside the Nusa Dua-Seminyak-Canggu triangle, a private driver booked for the day is almost always the right call. The price difference between Grab and a private driver flattens out past 30 minutes, and the driver will wait for you at each stop while Grab requires rebooking. For Ubud: private driver, full stop. For Tulamben and Padang Bai: your dive operator will arrange transport as part of the course fee — confirm this when you book.

Money

Indonesian rupiah. ATMs are everywhere in the south; the rate at bank ATMs is reasonable. Avoid the exchange kiosks near tourist areas that advertise extremely favorable rates — the “commission” materializes at the moment of counting. Most restaurants and larger shops accept cards; smaller warungs and market stalls are cash only. Keep small bills for entry fees, offerings, and tips.

The Ubud Art Market Bargaining Rule

Start at 30% of the opening ask. Expect to settle around 45-55%. If the vendor starts at 300,000 rupiah, offer 90,000 and expect to close at 130,000-160,000. Walk away slowly if they don’t move — they will follow if there’s room.

Scuba Certification Logistics

Multiple reputable operators work out of Nusa Dua and Sanur. Ask specifically about where the open water dives take place — you want Padang Bai and Tulamben on the itinerary, not generic pool-adjacent shallow dives. Confirm the course price is all-inclusive: gear rental, boat fees, PADI registration, and certification card processing. Reputable operators include everything.

Bali as a Solo Trip

I get asked whether Bali works as a solo destination. It works extremely well. The infrastructure for solo travelers is mature — private drivers calibrate naturally to one person, tour operators run small groups that you slot into easily, and the resort area of Nusa Dua has enough dining options that eating alone at a table doesn’t require a plan. The culture is warm and oriented toward hospitality in a way that isn’t performative.

The solo certification dive is worth addressing directly: doing your open water cert alone is better, not worse. You get more divemaster attention, the instruction is calibrated to your pace, and you’re not waiting on a group to complete skills before moving on.

As I packed my bag at midnight for the 4am pickup, what I was sorting through was mostly gratitude that I’d come at all, and a specific frustration with my own scheduling that I’ve now turned into this post. Bali is generous with second chances — I’m already looking at what a return trip looks like with the revised order, a rest day before the volcano, and Nusa Penida getting the full day it deserves.

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Gear and Guides We Recommend

Planning a similar trip? Here are some items we found useful:

• Bali travel guide
• reef-safe sunscreen
• waterproof dry bag
• compact snorkel set
• travel insect repellent

These are affiliate links. If you purchase through them, we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you, which helps support this site.

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• Bali Tours & Activities
• Bali Day Trips

Book on Klook:

• Ubud Rice Terrace and Waterfall Tour
• Mount Batur Sunrise Trek
• Nusa Penida Island Day Trip

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Book Activities in Bali:

• Bali tours on GetYourGuide
• Bali activities on Klook
• Bali transport on 12Go

Compare flights on Skyscanner — and grab an Airalo eSIM before you land so you have data the moment you arrive.

Tours: NZ tours on Viator

Travel Insurance: We use SafetyWing for travel insurance on every international trip. It covers medical emergencies, trip interruptions, and lost luggage starting at $45/month with no fixed end date — perfect for multi-country itineraries.

Related: Southeast Asia Tours Worth Booking

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• Bali Warung Guide
• Bali Warung Guide — Where to Eat Like a Local for Under $3