Best Beaches in Bali

Part of the Bali travel guide — see every topic in All Bali Guides.

Bali is not one beach, it is four distinct coastlines, and the mistake most first visits make is assuming the famous names are the good ones. The south-west strip from Kuta to Canggu is where the surf and the sunsets are, but the sand is grey-brown and the current is genuinely dangerous. The Bukit peninsula in the far south has the white sand and turquoise water people picture. The east coast around Sanur and Candidasa is calm and shallow, which makes it the family coast. The north, past Lovina, is black volcanic sand and almost empty.

The white-sand south

The Bukit — the limestone peninsula hanging off Bali's southern tip — holds the postcard beaches. Padang Padang is small, framed by rock, and reached through a cleft in the cliff you have to turn sideways to pass; go at high tide and it half disappears. Bingin is a scramble down a staircase of warungs built into the cliff face and is the prettiest of them. Nyang Nyang and Green Bowl are longer walks down and correspondingly emptier. Melasti has a dramatic paved switchback road cut through white limestone and enough parking to have become busy. All of these are surf beaches first: swim only where you can see the sand, and never past the break.

Where you can actually swim

Sanur, on the east coast, has a reef a few hundred metres out that flattens the water into a lagoon, plus a five-kilometre paved beachfront path that is the best flat cycling on the island. Nusa Dua is the same idea with a resort budget behind it. Jimbaran bay is calm, shelves gently, and has the seafood grills at the southern end. Amed and Tulamben in the far east are black sand and pebble, unremarkable to lie on, but you can walk into the water with a snorkel and be over coral within twenty metres — the USAT Liberty wreck at Tulamben starts in three metres of water.

The surf-and-sunset strip

Canggu's Batu Bolong and Echo Beach, Seminyak's long grey stretch, Kuta and Legian are one continuous beach broken by river mouths. Nobody comes here for the sand. They come for the beach clubs, the sunset, and the fact that the waves break a long way out over a forgiving bottom, which makes this the best learn-to-surf coast in Asia. Red-and-yellow flags mark the patrolled zones and the lifeguards are real; the rip currents here kill people every year, almost always outside the flags. The water quality drops noticeably during the January–February rains when the rivers run.

Worth the extra drive

Bias Tugel, a tiny cove near Padang Bai on the east coast, is a ten-minute walk from an unpromising car park and is one of the few genuinely quiet white-sand beaches left. Virgin Beach (Pantai Perasi) near Candidasa is the same idea with warungs. In the north, Lovina's black sand is more useful as a base for the early-morning dolphin boats than for lying on. And the sand at Pink Beach on Lombok and the Nusa islands — reachable as a day trip — is better than anything on Bali proper, which is worth knowing before you spend a week chasing the perfect beach on the wrong island.

Best Beaches at a glance

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