Ubud is Bali's cultural heart, set in the hills above the southern beach resorts and surrounded by terraced rice paddies and river gorges. If you want to get beyond the sunbed-and-cocktail version of Bali, this is where you come. The town is famous for traditional Balinese arts — dance, painting, woodcarving, silverwork — and for the foreign artists who have settled here, drawn by the landscape and the atmosphere.
The centre is walkable but increasingly busy. The Royal Palace hosts evening dance performances, the Monkey Forest draws crowds to its temple-dotted woodland on the southern edge of town, and four museums display Balinese art from the sixteenth century onward — Museum Neka and ARMA are the standouts. Beyond the town, the countryside rewards exploration by bicycle or on foot — small craft villages sit between the rice fields, the Campuhan Ridge Walk takes you above the valley in an hour, and Tegallalang's terraced paddies and the Goa Gajah elephant cave are easy half-day trips.