8 Places to Visit in Ubud

The town grew from a cluster of temple villages around the confluence (campuhan) of the Wos and Cerik rivers into Bali's centre for painting, woodcarving, and dance under the patronage of the Ubud royal family (the Puri Saren) from the early 20th century onward, later cemented by resident foreign artists such as Walter Spies and Rudolf Bonnet, who helped found the Pita Maha artists' collective in 1936. That legacy still shapes the town: the Ubud Palace and Ubud Art Market sit at its central crossroads, museums devoted to Balinese and Indonesian painting cluster along Jalan Raya Ubud, and dozens of surrounding banjar (hamlet) communities still hold regular temple ceremonies that visitors will see, and should not interrupt, on the street. There is no train service in Bali; Ngurah Rai International Airport (DPS) in the south is the arrival point for nearly all visitors, connected to Ubud by a 60–90 minute drive depending on traffic through Denpasar. Ubud has no central bus terminal for tourists — travel is by private car, scooter, or ride-hail app (Grab and Gojek operate with some pickup restrictions in the town centre). The rice-terrace and temple sites in the surrounding countryside — Tegallalang, Goa Gajah, Tirta Empul, Tegenungan — are all short drives rather than walks, and are usually combined into a single half-day loop by hired car or scooter. The dry season, April to October, is the most reliable window; late afternoon downpours are common November to March but rarely last past an hour.