Most people turn up in Ubud with a list. Monkey Forest, the rice terraces, a swing over the jungle, a smoothie bowl with a view. All of that’s there and most of it is worth seeing. But if you are travelling on your own, the thing that tends to stay with you is something else: the slow morning before the scooters start, the offering someone sets down on the step outside your room, the conversation you fall into over dinner with a stranger who is also travelling alone.
Ubud is in the hills of central Bali (about an hour from the airport depending on traffic). It has been the island’s centre for art, dance and craft for a long time, and it is still the place where Balinese daily life is the most visible to the visitor. That makes it one of the easiest places in Asia to arrive alone. People here are used to solo travellers, and the town rewards anyone who is willing to slow down.
Here’s how I’d spend a week there if it were my first visit and I was on my own.
The best hours in Ubud are between 6 and 9 in the morning. The air is cool, the streets are quiet and the light on the rice fields is soft. Walk the Campuhan Ridge path just after sunrise, when it’s mostly locals and a few runners. In town you will see women placing canang sari, the small woven palm leaf baskets of flowers and rice, in front of homes, shops and temples. They are made fresh every day as an offering, and you will be stepping around them all week, so it is worth knowing what they are.
Later in the day the central streets around the palace and the market get busy. Go to the art market in the morning if you want to look around without the crowds, and save the afternoons for a long lunch, a nap or a book.
Ubud the town is tiny. The Ubud most people fall for is the one around it: villages, temples and rice fields a short ride away. Tirta Empul, the water temple where Balinese families come to purify themselves in the spring-fed pools, is absolutely worth the trip if you go with the right attitude and with a sarong. The rice terraces north of town are absolutely gorgeous in the early morning, before the tour buses arrive. If you are up for it, the sunrise trek on Mount Batur is a long night but an absolutely unforgettable morning.
The easiest way to do these trips if you’re going alone is to have a local driver for the day. Agree the price before you set off and ask him about his own village. Most drivers are happy to explain the ceremonies you’ll pass on the road, and there’s pretty much always a ceremony somewhere.
Bali’s Hindu culture is not a show for the tourists. The ceremonies, the gamelan you hear in the evening, the processions which bring traffic to a standstill are part of everyday life. If you get the chance to join a cooking class with a Balinese family, take it. You will learn more about the island in three hours spent grinding spices and wrapping food in banana leaves than in a week of sightseeing. The same goes for a traditional dance performance in the evening; the stories are old, the costumes are extraordinary and the musicians are invariably from the village next door.
The one thing that travelling alone can’t always give you is a sense of rhythm. Many people who come to Ubud on their own end up spending at least part of their trip at a small retreat, not because they want a strict programme, but because it gives the week a shape: yoga in the morning, a shared table at meals and a group of people to explore with.
That was the idea behind Firefly Retreat, a small yoga retreat in Bali set among the rice fields just outside Ubud. It has run since 2013 and welcomed more than 9,000 guests, most of them travelling solo. Everyone arrives on a Sunday and leaves on the Saturday, so the group goes through the week together. The days mix daily yoga and meditation with vegetarian meals, a Balinese cooking class and outings to temples and villages, and there is a pool that looks straight out over the paddies. With 15 rooms and no more than 20 guests at a time, it feels more like a shared house than a hotel.
If you are weighing up a retreat in Bali for a solo trip, look for one that is small, keeps the group together for the whole week and gets you out into the villages rather than just onto the mat. The friendships people make in a week like that are usually the ones they remember.
The dry season runs roughly from April to October, and the wetter months from November to March bring short, heavy afternoon rain rather than grey days. Carry a sarong for temple visits; some temples will lend them but it’s easier to have your own. Cash is still useful in villages and small warungs. And just leave a few days with nothing at all planned. Ubud is at its best when you let it surprise you, whether that is a ceremony on your street, an invitation to a family compound or just an afternoon watching the rain move across the rice fields.
You can get to Ubud on your own. It’s very difficult to leave feeling that way.
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