DESTINATION · BALI
Bali, and three payments before you land
A visa, a provincial tourist levy and a customs declaration, all separate, all online, all easy to miss. Then the furthest flight on this board, to an island where twenty kilometres can take two hours.
- Airport
- DPS · Indonesia
- On sale
- 12 of 12 months
- Airport spread
- £104 across 2 UK airports
Today's best fare
Manchester Bali
£967 −%
Measured on a live search, refreshed hourly. Prices move — confirm on Kiwi.com.
Departure airports
£104 apart, depending where you take off
Every UK airport searched separately for this destination, cheapest first, as a return fare for one person with taxes in. Manchester to Bali and London to Bali are not the same route and we do not price them as one. Each figure is a fare of one stop at most — the same limit as the price at the top of this page — and each is that airport's own cheapest week, so the dates change from row to row. Every link opens on the dates its price was found on.
2 of 10 airports have a fare to Bali within one stop today. The rest either need two connections and most of a day to get there — which we will not print a price for — or did not answer the last search. London covers Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Luton, City and Southend in one search.
The year, month by month
When Bali is worth the airfare
Average daytime high for each month. The greyed months are ones we refuse to advertise — not because they are cheap, but because the place cannot deliver what the page promises.
- Jan 31°
- Feb 31°
- Mar 31°
- Apr 32°
- May 31°
- Jun 30°
- Jul 29°
- Aug 29°
- Sep 30° today's fare
- Oct 31°
- Nov 31°
- Dec 31°
12 of 12 months on sale. No closed season.
Bali sits close enough to the equator that temperature is effectively a constant, and the year is divided by rain rather than by heat. The dry half is the one everyone books: lower humidity, clear skies, and the surf on the western beaches at its most consistent because the trade winds blow offshore there. The wet half brings afternoon downpours rather than all-day rain, and the island stays entirely functional through it — which is why this destination carries no closed months.
The distinction worth knowing is between the two coasts. In the dry season the wind is offshore on the west, which is where Canggu, Seminyak and the famous surf are; in the wet season it reverses and the eastern side around Sanur and Nusa Dua comes into its own. Divers follow the same logic in the other direction — the mola mola season off Nusa Penida falls in the middle of the dry half, and the currents that bring them are cold enough to want a thicker suit.
For a British calendar the dry season is our summer, which puts Bali in direct competition with Europe and keeps prices lower than they would otherwise be. The peak is the European and Australian school holiday overlap, when the south of the island is at its most congested. Nyepi, the Balinese day of silence, shuts the entire island for twenty-four hours once a year — the airport closes, nobody leaves their accommodation, and the lights go off. It is extraordinary to experience and impossible to travel through, so check the date.
Hire a driver, not a scooter
A car and driver for ten hours is about £30 and covers the whole island. A scooter is £5 a day, is the commonest cause of serious injury to visitors here, and voids most travel insurance without a motorcycle licence.
The case for it
Why Bali
Bali is a Hindu island in the largest Muslim country on earth, and that anomaly is the whole culture. Its Hinduism arrived from Java in the fifteenth century and evolved separately, so the temples, the offerings left on every doorstep each morning, the cremation processions and the calendar of ceremonies are found nowhere else. The island is volcanic, terraced for rice by a thousand-year-old irrigation system that UNESCO lists, and about the size of Norfolk.
It has become the most travelled-to island in Asia for reasons that are genuinely there: the food, the surf, the prices, the diving off the eastern islands, and a service culture that is hard to explain to anyone who has not been. A comfortable villa with a pool costs what a chain hotel room costs in Europe, a good meal costs a few pounds, and a driver for a whole day costs about thirty.
The reservations are traffic and crowding, and they have got worse rather than better. The south of the island has one main road system and it is saturated — Canggu to Ubud is twenty-five kilometres and can take two hours. The temples people photograph are queues by mid-morning. And there are three separate payments to make before arrival, none of which any airline will remind you about.
On the ground
Five things worth doing
- 01
Pay the three things before you fly
This is the most useful item on the page. The visa on arrival is IDR 500,000 (about £24), buyable online as an e-VOA. The Bali tourist levy is a separate IDR 150,000 (£7), paid through the Love Bali portal, and inspectors do check. The All Indonesia customs and health declaration must be filed within 72 hours of arrival. None is expensive; all three are easy to miss, and the queues to fix them at Denpasar are long.
- 02
See Tirta Empul rather than the famous gates
The purification springs at Tampaksiring are a working temple where Balinese families come to bathe in a sequence of spouts, and visitors are welcome to join with a proper sarong. Entry is about IDR 75,000 (£3.60). It is a functioning religious site rather than a photo queue — unlike the 'gates of heaven' at Lempuyang, where the reflection is a man with a mirror under his phone and the wait is regularly two hours.
- 03
Walk the Campuhan ridge at dawn
A paved path along a ridge between two rivers just outside Ubud, free, and about two kilometres each way through elephant grass with the valley falling away on both sides. Start at six. By eight it is hot, the light has gone flat and the path is a queue; before seven you will share it with a handful of runners and the mist still sitting in the valleys either side. It ends at a cluster of warungs where breakfast is about IDR 40,000 (£2). No ticket, no gate and no guide — which makes it the one thing in Ubud that has not been packaged, and the reason to stay near the town rather than in it.
- 04
Climb Batur or skip the sunrise trek
The dawn ascent of Mount Batur is Bali's signature hike — a two-hour climb in the dark to a crater rim above the cloud, at around £35 to £55 with a compulsory local guide. It is genuinely fine and it is also a procession of several hundred people in single file with head torches. If that is not the picture in your head, the Sidemen valley on the eastern side offers rice-terrace walking with almost nobody on it.
- 05
Dive or snorkel at Nusa Penida
Forty-five minutes by fast boat from Sanur, at about IDR 250,000 (£12) each way, to an island with limestone cliffs, manta cleaning stations and the mola mola in season. A two-dive day runs roughly £75 to £95. The currents here are strong and this is not a beginner site for diving; for snorkelling, Manta Point is reliable and the operators know it. Day-trip road transport on Penida is genuinely rough — book a boat plus driver package rather than hiring a scooter.
After the flight
What it costs once you land
Local prices rather than beach-club ones, and the gap between the two is enormous. Bali remains among the cheapest destinations on this board once the flight is paid for.
- Beer, local warung £1.50 a large Bintang; a Seminyak beach club is four times it
- Dinner for two, mid-range £18 a good restaurant; two warung plates is under £4
- Airport to Seminyak £10 about IDR 200,000; Canggu is nearer £16 and takes twice as long
- Driver for a full day £30 car and driver, ten hours, anywhere on the island — the best value here
- Visa and Bali levy £31 per person, paid separately online before you land
- Nasi campur from a warung £1.60
Checked August 2026. Sources at the foot of this page.
Before you book
Practical, for a British passport
Entry rules are for a British Citizen passport holder and come from gov.uk, read on 2026-08-07. They change; check before you fly.
- Airport
- DPS, Ngurah Rai, in the south between Kuta and Jimbaran. Twenty minutes to Seminyak in light traffic and up to an hour and a half to Canggu or Ubud at the wrong time of day — the distances are short and the roads are not. Ride-hailing apps cannot legally collect from inside the terminal zone, so either pre-book a car or walk to the designated pickup area.
- Entry
- Visa on arrival or e-VOA, plus a Bali levy and an arrival card. IDR 500,000 visa + IDR 150,000 Bali levy (about £31) — the levy is per visitor, paid through the Love Bali portal. Up to 30 days, extendable once by 30. Expiry at least 6 months after the date you arrive, and at least two blank pages. Three separate things, and people miss the second and third. The visa is IDR 500,000, bought on arrival or online as an e-VOA. Bali charges its own tourist levy of IDR 150,000 on top, best paid on the Love Bali portal before you land rather than in the queue. And the All Indonesia arrival card — customs and health in one form — must be filed within 72 hours of arriving. The FCDO has warned specifically about fraudulent e-visa agencies charging many times the real fee.
- Currency
- Indonesian rupiah, in denominations large enough that a hundred thousand note is about five pounds — count the zeros. Cards work in hotels, restaurants and larger shops; warungs, markets, temples and drivers want cash. Use bank ATMs inside branches, and be aware of skimming reports on freestanding machines in tourist areas.
- Language
- Indonesian, with Balinese spoken at home and English widely used across tourism. No real barrier in the south or in Ubud; it thins in the east and north. Terima kasih goes a long way.
- Time zone
- Eight hours ahead of the UK in winter and seven ahead of British Summer Time. Indonesia does not change its clocks, so the gap moves when Britain does. Being near the equator, sunrise and sunset barely shift through the year.
- Plugs
- Type C and F, 230V. A British type-G plug does not fit; bring an adapter. Power cuts are not unusual outside the main tourist areas and villas often run on a generator with a short gap.
- Health
- The GHIC does not apply. BIMC and Siloam in the south are the international-standard hospitals and expect payment or an insurer's guarantee up front; anything serious means evacuation to Singapore, so cover for that is the point of the policy. Check it covers scooter riding, which most exclude without a motorcycle licence. Rabies is present in Bali — do not touch the monkeys or the dogs. Drink bottled water.
- Safety
- The FCDO has no warning against travel to Bali and notes that Indonesia is seismically active. The single biggest risk to visitors is the scooter: road injuries among tourists riding without a licence, insurance or a helmet are common and are the reason most claims here fail. The FCDO also warns specifically about fraudulent e-visa agencies charging many times the official fee.
A bed
Where to stay in Bali
The south is one traffic system and the choice within it matters more than the map suggests — twenty-five kilometres between two of these can take two hours at the wrong time of day.
Seminyak
The established resort strip on the west coast, with the widest choice of hotels and villas, the best concentration of restaurants and beach clubs, and sunsets over the sea. Twenty minutes from the airport in light traffic. It is developed, commercial and no longer cheap by Balinese standards, and the beach has a strong shore break rather than calm swimming.
Stays in Seminyak Opens in a new tab INLAND AND GREENUbud
An hour inland among rice terraces and river valleys, and the cultural centre of the island — temples, dance performances, the monkey forest and the walking. Cooler than the coast and a completely different holiday. There is no beach and the town centre has become congested; stay a few kilometres out and the valley is still there.
Stays in Ubud Opens in a new tab SURF AND CAFÉSCanggu
North of Seminyak, and what a rice-paddy surf village became: beach breaks, coffee shops, co-working and the largest concentration of long-stay visitors on the island. Younger, cheaper than Seminyak and the best of the food scene. The traffic on the two roads in and out is the worst in Bali and the black-sand beaches are for surfing rather than swimming.
Stays in Canggu Opens in a new tabEvery area pinned on one map, set to the dates of the fare above. Change them for your own trip and it reloads live availability.
Open the Bali map Opens in a new tabGetting around
Hire a car with a driver. Ten hours costs about thirty pounds, which is less than two long taxi rides, and it removes the parking, the navigation and the question of which route avoids the worst of the traffic. This is the standard way visitors see the island and it is priced as an everyday service rather than a tour. Agree the itinerary and the hours in the morning.
For short hops, Grab and Gojek work across the south and are much cheaper than street taxis — a few pounds for most journeys, with a motorbike option at half that. There are areas where local taxi cooperatives block app pickups and you will be asked to walk to a corner; that is normal rather than a problem. Bluebird is the reputable metered taxi firm and its cars are genuinely metered.
Do not hire a scooter unless you hold a motorcycle entitlement and would ride one at home. Indonesian law requires an international permit covering motorcycles, police checkpoints are frequent, and most travel insurance excludes the whole category without the licence — which turns a five-pound-a-day convenience into an uninsured hospital bill. This is the commonest serious mistake visitors make in Bali.
Food and local tips
The warung is the institution: a small family-run place with a handful of dishes, where nasi campur — rice with a selection of whatever has been cooked that day — costs under two pounds and is the best value on the island. Babi guling, the whole spit-roast suckling pig that is a Balinese ceremonial dish, is worth seeking out at a specialist; Ibu Oka in Ubud is the famous one and there are better ones with no queue. Bebek betutu, duck slow-cooked in banana leaf, needs ordering a day ahead.
Two practical points. Balinese food is not Indonesian food generally — the island eats pork, which most of the country does not, and the spicing is its own. And the price gradient is extreme: the same grilled fish is three pounds at a Jimbaran beach warung and twenty-five at a Seminyak restaurant. Tap water is not drinkable but ice in established places is made commercially and is fine.
Nasi campur from a warung
Rice with five or six spoonfuls of whatever was cooked that morning — sate lilit, tempeh, long beans, sambal, a boiled egg. About IDR 30,000 (£1.60), and better than most restaurant meals on the island.
Ready for Bali?
Pick your departure airport and see what the route costs today from each of the ten we track.
See the £967 fare Opens in a new tabSame band
Other long-haul destinations
Where the numbers came from
- Temple and attraction entrance fees baliindotour.com Opens in a new tab read 2026-08-08
- Airport transfer costs and ride-hailing restrictions balinusatransport.id Opens in a new tab read 2026-08-08
- Visa, the Bali tourist levy and the arrival declaration gov.uk Opens in a new tab read 2026-08-08
- Entry rules for a British Citizen passport gov.ukOpens in a new tab read 2026-08-07