Bali for Repeat Visitors: 7 Day Plan
Seven days for a repeat visit means the same eastern-and-highland spine as the shorter plans, stretched with a full detour to Lovina’s north coast on Day 3, a slower two-night stay on Nusa Penida instead of a rushed day trip, and a genuinely empty last day. None of it revisits Ubud’s monkey forest or Uluwatu’s cliffs.
This route extends the 6-day plan , which already reaches Sidemen, Amed, Munduk, Jatiluwih, Tanah Lot and a Nusa Penida overnight; here Day 3 keeps going down to Lovina’s black sand coast, the Nusa Penida stop becomes two full days instead of one, and a seventh day opens up for nothing but a market and the drive back. The 2-day , 3-day , 4-day and 5-day plans all compress this same spine into less time. The guide to Bali’s offbeat corners covers more of these places outside a fixed schedule.
Book these before you go
- A Nusa Penida day trip on GetYourGuide , worth locking in ahead since the popular boat slots for Days 5 and 6 sell out first
- A room on Nusa Penida on Booking.com , since two nights there means booking before the island’s limited beds fill up
- An east and north Bali tour on Viator , useful for Days 2 and 3 if you’d rather have a driver who already knows the road from Amed through Munduk to Lovina
| Day | Focus | Rough daily budget (IDR, excl. lodging) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sidemen valley rice terraces, arak distillery | 200,000-400,000 |
| 2 | Tirta Gangga water palace, Amed coast, Tulamben | 250,000-450,000 |
| 3 | Munduk waterfalls and Twin Lakes, on to Lovina’s coast | 300,000-500,000 |
| 4 | Jatiluwih Subak terraces, Tabanan, Tanah Lot at sunset | 300,000-550,000 |
| 5 | Crossing to Nusa Penida: Kelingking, Angel’s Billabong | 450,000-700,000 |
| 6 | Nusa Penida’s west side or Nusa Lembongan, second night | 350,000-600,000 |
| 7 | Slow return: a local market, drive to the south coast | 150,000-300,000 |
If your last trip predates this one, budget for two things that either didn’t exist yet or worked differently. Entry is a paid Visa on Arrival, applied for through the official evisa.imigrasi.go.id portal , roughly IDR 500,000 for 30 days and extendable once for the same fee, never visa-free for most passports. Separately, a one-time Bali tourist levy of IDR 150,000 per visit has applied since February 2024, paid through the official Love Bali portal before or on arrival, by card, bank transfer or Indonesia’s QRIS code rather than cash alone. It’s unrelated to the visa fee, and a longer trip doesn’t change what either one costs.
Day 1: Sidemen valley
Base yourself in Sidemen, a rice-terrace valley east of Ubud that a first Bali trip rarely has time for. Spend the day walking the paddy paths on foot, tracing subak cooperative irrigation channels that have moved water between terraces on the same system for centuries, then visit a small arak distillery in the afternoon to watch the palm-sap spirit come off a wood-fired still. That’s worth doing specifically because Indonesia’s real methanol poisoning deaths trace to counterfeit bottled spirits sold cheap in tourist bars, not to arak you watch being made. Stay the night in Sidemen rather than pushing on toward the coast.
Book a car and driver for the full seven days rather than a scooter. The roads get narrower and steeper from Day 3 onward, and riding without a valid motorcycle-endorsed International Driving Permit is illegal in Indonesia and voids most travel insurance regardless of experience.
Day 2: Tirta Gangga and the Amed coast
Drive down out of the hills to Tirta Gangga, the water palace built in the 1940s by the last king of Karangasem, where stone paths cross ponds of koi. It’s a garden rather than a temple, so no sarong is needed here. Continue to Amed, a string of black volcanic sand villages that never turned into a second Kuta. Snorkel or dive at nearby Tulamben, where the USAT Liberty, a WWII cargo ship, has sat in shallow water since a 1963 eruption pushed it off the beach, then eat grilled fish on the sand at sunset and stay the night on this stretch of coast.
Stray dogs are common here, and rabies is present in Bali, so keep your distance and get checked immediately if one bites or scratches rather than waiting to see how you feel. UK FCDO’s Indonesia health advice is direct about this, and its safety advice is equally direct about the scooter accident rate among tourists, still the island’s single biggest safety risk.
Day 3: Munduk’s highlands to Lovina’s coast
The drive from Amed toward Munduk crosses the island’s central highlands, and it’s worth breaking at Ulun Danu Beratan, the temple that appears to float on Lake Bratan. A sarong and sash are required past the outer courtyard, usually available to borrow at the gate. Past Bedugul, the road runs along a ridge with a viewpoint over Lake Buyan and Lake Tamblingan side by side, the Twin Lakes, before dropping into Munduk itself, a cooler highland village with coffee grown on the slopes and a handful of waterfalls within a short walk or drive.
Rather than stopping for the night in Munduk the way the shorter plans do, keep going another half hour down to Lovina on the north coast. It’s the quieter side of Bali’s coastline, black volcanic sand and a fraction of the south’s traffic, and a genuinely different stretch of the island from anything the first six days of this route have touched. Stay the night in Lovina.
Day 4: Jatiluwih and the road west to Tanah Lot
From Lovina, drive south to Jatiluwih. This is the actual UNESCO-listed component of the Cultural Landscape of Bali Province, the Subak System, inscribed in 2012 for the temple-run cooperative irrigation that has shaped these terraces for centuries. Tegallalang, photographed on most first Bali trips, is not part of that listing; Jatiluwih is the one that actually carries the World Heritage status. Walk one of the marked paths through the paddies and get lunch at a warung overlooking them.
Keep driving west and south into the Tabanan region, then time the last stretch of the day for Tanah Lot, the offshore rock temple that’s a genuinely striking sunset shot and also one of the busiest stops on the island. Go for the view and the tide pools around the rock rather than expecting a quiet moment; it’s worth the crowd once, especially on a trip that has spent three days somewhere quieter first. Overnight near Sanur to set up tomorrow’s boat.
Day 5: Crossing to Nusa Penida
Catch a fast boat from Sanur to Nusa Penida, an island off Bali’s southeast coast with the crossing’s marquee sights: Kelingking, a cliff shaped like a T-Rex from above, and the tidal pool at Angel’s Billabong. Pay for boat tickets and tours by QRIS or card where you can; cash still works with smaller operators, but carrying less of it helps on a day that involves a boat, wet sand and a bag you can’t always watch. Stay on the island for the night.
Day 6: Nusa Penida’s west side or Nusa Lembongan
Rather than racing back to the mainland the way a shorter trip has to, spend a full second day here. Head to the island’s west side for Broken Beach and Crystal Bay, or take a short boat hop over to the calmer Nusa Lembongan if diving or snorkeling matters more than another cliff photo. Either way, stay a second night rather than crossing back the same afternoon. The point of this extra day isn’t covering more ground, it’s not having to rush the first one.
Day 7: A slow return
Take the morning boat back to Sanur. Rather than filling the last day with one more temple or terrace, spend it slowly: a walk through a local market such as Sukawati for woodcarving and batik on the way south, lunch somewhere without a view to chase, and an early stop wherever you’re staying before departure. A repeat visitor has already seen enough of the island in a hurry; the seventh day is deliberately for not doing that again.
Do repeat visitors still owe the Bali tourist levy?
Yes. The IDR 150,000 levy applies per visit, not per lifetime, so a second, third or later trip pays it again the same way a first one did. It’s paid once online through Love Bali and covers the whole stay, separate from the visa fee above.
Is Jatiluwih really Bali’s only UNESCO site?
Yes. Jatiluwih is one of the component areas inside the Cultural Landscape of Bali Province inscription. Tegallalang uses the same subak irrigation tradition but was never part of the World Heritage listing itself, whatever a caption online might imply.
Does a full week change anything about timing or Nyepi 2026?
Dry season, roughly April to October, makes the highland roads on Days 1 through 3 and the two boat crossings on Days 5 and 7 more predictable; wet season, November to March, brings shorter but harder downpours and a quieter Sidemen, Munduk and Lovina. If any part of the seven days lands near 19 March 2026, check it against Nyepi: the entire island shuts down for 24 hours that day, the airport included, and nothing flies in or out, so don’t schedule a flight or a boat crossing around it.
Book the driver for Days 1 through 4 as one job rather than four separate half-days. On a route that runs from the eastern coast up to the north coast, back south through the highlands to Tabanan, and down again for a boat, the time saved by not renegotiating a new driver each morning is worth more than any per-day discount.