Getting around Bali without wasting your holiday

Distances in Bali are short and journeys are long. Twelve kilometres between Canggu and Seminyak can take twenty minutes at ten in the morning and an hour at seven in the evening. Everything below follows from that.

The three options

A car with a driver. The default for groups, for evenings, and for any day with more than two stops. The driver waits while you eat, nobody negotiates, nobody counts drinks, and the air conditioning is the point by two in the afternoon. Booked by the day or by the trip.

A scooter. The fastest way to move and the reason a large share of visitors go home with bandages. Worth it if you already ride, in daylight, on roads you know. Wear a helmet, carry your licence, and never ride after drinking — the coast roads have no lighting and plenty of dogs.

Ride-hailing apps. They work, unevenly. Some streets and villages refuse them outright, pickup can take twenty minutes at peak hours, and finding a car outside a club at closing time is a gamble. Fine for a short hop, not for an evening's plan.

Airport arrivals

Ngurah Rai is a slow airport at the wrong hours, and the arrivals hall is where every trip either starts well or badly. Two rules: book the pickup before you land, and give the flight number rather than the time — the driver watches the flight, so a delay is his problem and not yours. On the way out, leave far more time than the distance suggests: the airport road at five in the afternoon is its own weather system.

Timing, if you only remember one thing

• 7:30–9:30 and 16:30–19:30