The First-Timer’s Travel Guide to Ubud, Bali, Indonesia (2019)

Everyone has a list of their favorite destinations. Every city or town is unique and special in its own way, be we all have a short list of places that are just a little bit more special than the others. For us, one of those places is Ubud.

We first visited this Balinese town in 2009. Ren and I aren’t beach people so we skipped the coastal areas of southern Bali and went straight to Ubud. It was late at night and I’ll never forget the feeling I had when we first drove into town. We turned the corner past the sacred monkey forest to find a constellation of colorful lanterns hanging from trees and quaint shopfronts on either side of the road. We both gasped and released a collective “wow”! It was such a beautiful sight, and one we didn’t expect knowing so little about this town.

We…