20+ Tips for Hiking Mt. Batur at Sunrise in Kintamani!
I just went on a fantastic weekend trip to Kintamani, Bali’s wonderful Volcano Capital. On my trip, I hiked the famous Mt. Batur volcano for sunrise, as well as soaked in the natural hot springs, and visited some Kintamani cafes with astounding views – Please enjoy these travel tips for trekking Mt. Batur!
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✔️Quick Guide
👉 What You Need to Know: Due to the “Volcano Association” (tourism mafia) you need a guide or tour to be allowed to hike Mt. Batur.
🌋 The Best Mt. Batur Sunrise Tour → Check Rates & Dates Here!
🚗 If You Don’t Want to Trek: You can take a Jeep tour to Mt. Batur’s peak instead of climbing.
🛵 How to Get Around Kintamani: There is no Grab in Kintamani, instead I recommend taking a guided tour that includes transport or renting a scooter and driving yourself to get around. For scooter rentals in Bali, I recommend Bikago.
🥾 How Hard is the Hike? Mount Batur is a moderate trek that is 500 meters in elevation and should take 1-2 hours to complete depending on your fitness level. If you don’t want to hike, you can pay to take a motorbike taxi 4/5 of the way up.
All About Mount Batur – The Most Famous Volcano in Bali
Climbing Mount Batur for sunrise is the most popular volcano trek in Bali, and it’s the second tallest peak after Mount Agung. Every day, hundreds of tourists make the trip to Kintamani, starting the hike up to Batur’s caldera in the middle of the night to see the best sunrise in all of Bali. Although Mount Batur is considered an active volcano, you won’t see any lava there. Gunung Batur hasn’t erupted since the year 2000, and while it’s monitored for volcanic activity, Mount Batur is generally considered safe for climbing.
The Government Trying to Shut Down Mt. Batur: In June 2023, the Balinese government announced that they would be shutting down all volcano hikes in Bali, due to poor behavior from tourists – However, this new legislation hasn’t come to pass yet, so you should climb Mount Batur while it’s still open to the public.
My Top Tips for Climbing Mt. Batur
Be Aware You NEED a Guide to Climb Mount Batur Dur to The Volcano “Association” (Mafia)
While Mt. Batur is a relatively easy hike, you still need to have a guide! This is because the locals have banded together to form a “Volcano Association” that enforces the mandatory guide rule. Every week, new stories come out from tourists who tried to bypass the guide rule and sneak onto the mountain, resulting in them being harassed, and sometimes physically barred entry to Mt. Batur. I asked our guide about this regulation, and he had three answers for why tourists need a guide to hike Mt. Batur:
- Preservation of the mountain: Mt. Batur is considered a sacred site by the Balinese people, and having a guide ensures no bad behavior (there’ve recently been some issues with tourists stripping down and filming themselves on Bali’s volcanos).
- Tourist safety: There was an incident where a tourist fell into Mt. Baturs caldera, and unfortunately passed away, because no one knew they were there, so no search party was enacted.
- The Volcano Association wants tourists to pay fees for guides: Association is another word for “mafia” while you’re traveling. Basically, the tourist mafia is when a bunch of locals get together and decide an activity cannot be done without a guide (even if there’s no reason the activity needs a guide).
Know You Can Take a Jeep or a Motorbike Taxi if You Don’t Want to Hike to the Top
If you’re not down for a pre-dawn uphill trek, you can always take a motorbike taxi or a Jeep tour up Mount Batur. ➡️ Check Out Batur Jeep Tours!👉 Note! While the Jeep tours drive all the way to the viewpoint, if you take a motorbike taxi up to the caldera, you still need to hike 10-15 minutes uphill from the parking area to the summit.
Know it’s COLD at the Top of the Mt. Batur
You’re already at a higher elevation in Kintamani, and by the time you reach Batur’s Caldera for the sunrise viewport you’re at 1,717 meters (5,633 feet) elevation. This, coupled with the fact that the hike is done before sunrise, makes for a cold trip! At the summit, where everyone is just sitting and waiting for sunrise is the coldest part, there are vendors renting out blankets for 50K IDR. I rented one and was still freezing cold.
Take a Combo Tour That Includes Other Activities
There are a ton of cool things to do in and around the Kintamani area besides the Volcano tour. Since the Mt. Batur volcano tour is usually done at sunrise, there are many tours available that include add-on activities for later in the day.
| 🏆 Best Overall Tour | All-Inclusive Mt. Batur Sunrise With Add-Ons |
| 🚗 Best Jeep Tour | Mt. Batur for Sunrise By Jeep |
| 💰 Best Budget Tour | Group Tour (Budget Choice) |
| 🌋 Adventure ATV Tour | ATV & Lava Fields tour of Mt. Batur |
If You’re Hiking, Bring a Spare Shirt – Your Sweat from the Hike Freezes at the Top of the Volcano
Our tour guide told us to bring an extra shirt – I thought it was a language barrier mistranslation and he just meant to bring a jacket. Nope! It’s recommended you bring a spare change of shirts for Mt. Batur if you’re climbing. This is because you will sweat a lot during the 1-2 hour up-hill trek to the sunrise viewpoint – Once you’re at the top, aka the coldest part of the mountain, all that sweat will freeze while you wait for sunrise. We were up at the top of the caldera for around an hour, so likely not enough time to suffer from hypothermia, but bringing a spare shirt made the sunrise a lot more comfortable to sit through.
Know That There are Tons of Different Hiking Routes to Reach the Viewpoint
Mount Batur is huge – There are many different starting points for the trek around the base of the volcano. For example, if you start from Kintamani, you will likely take a different route to reach the viewpoint than those who embarked from Ubud, Kuta, or Canggu. Some routes are a little bit more well-paved, but overall, it’s about the same hiking difficulty for all of the paths – In the end, everyone gets the same amazing sunset.
Breakfast is Usually Included in The Tour – But Don’t Expect Much!
All of the tours for Mount Batur say something along the lines of “Private breakfast while watching the sunrise” – Sounds amazing, right? Well…Yes and no. We did get a hot breakfast as we waited for the sun to rise on our Batur, but it was made up of boiled eggs and boiled banana mashed into some white toast 😅 – Not quite the romantic picture you’d imagine. We did the hiking tour, so all of the water, eggs, bread, etc that you’re enjoying has to be trekked up there by someone. So really, when you think about it, it’s pretty amazing they were able to get breakfast to us at all!
Bring Small Bills on Your Hike for Blanket Rentals, Snacks, Coffee & Tea
I paid 50K to rent a blanket while we were waiting for sunrise, (I was freezing!), and there were also small snacks and hot beverages for sale at the lookout point.
Don’t Climb Mount Batur on a Weekend – It Gets MASSIVELY Crowded!
All of the volcano hikes in Bali and the outer islands are massive tourist attractions that pull hundreds and thousands of visitors every day. So, no matter which day of the week you go to hike Mount Batur, you can expect there to be a crowd. However, these crowds are the worst during the weekends – If you could plan your trip to Kintamani so you’re hiking the volcano on a weekday, you’ll have a little bit of a better time.
Know You’re Starting the Hike in Pitch Black for Sunrise
When we set off at 3:45 AM for our Mount Batur hike it was pitch black out, and there were no street lights on the footpaths leading to the caldera. The headlamps our tour guide provided us with were essential for the hike. We took a private tour, so a bit more on the higher-end side, and the headlamps we were provided worked great. I’ve done some cheaper sunrise hikes in Indonesia where the headlamps they give you are basically just for show – If you can bring your own headlamp, just in case, that would be best. If you think a phone flashlight is enough to do the hike, think again! I tried to use my phone’s flashlight to add to the light from my headlamp and it was something like 1/10th the strength.
Maybe Budget Two Days in Kintamani Due to Unpredictable Weather
The weather in Bali is unpredictable, and on my first time climbing Mount Batur it was too foggy to see the sunrise.The next day, however, the skies were perfectly clear. There’s nothing more frustrating than waking up at 2 AM to hike a volcano for a sunrise you can’t see! When we came back down from the volcano, our guide told us that we had been unlucky enough to climb the volcano on the only foggy day all month – So while bad weather at Batur is rare, it does happen. If you want to get better odds of seeing the sunrise at Mount Batur, I recommend staying in Kintamani for a few days.
Bring a Sarong and an Offering to Enter the Sacred Temple
Did you know that there’s a Balinese temple 20 meters into a cave on the side of Mount Batur Volcano? There is! And you can visit Mt. Batur’s Volcano, with a few conditions: 1) You need to bring a sarong (both men and women) – Even if your legs are already covered by your clothing. 2) You also need to bring a Balinese offering to leave at the temple in order to enter.
Don’t Forget Mount Batur is a Balinese Sacred Site
In addition to the temple, all of Mount Batur Volcano, and in fact all of the Volcanos in Bali, are considered sacred sites in the Hindu religion. Our guide explained that the volcano is sacred because it’s believed to be closer to heaven – So tons of rituals are conducted on and around the caldera. After we sumitted Mt. Batur, our guide also took us to a site on the side of the mountain where the locals search through gravel for medicinal crystals. Our guide says that his grandfather has a crystal from this site, and when someone gets sick they will soak the crystal in water and rub it on afflicted areas.
Consider Leaving Even Earlier to Get a Good Spot
Sunrise in Bali is around 6:20 AM – We got to our hiking spot early, around 5:00, and were some of the first people there. There were limited seats at the viewpoint, and by 5:45 seats with a clear view were starting to fill up. We started the hike at 3:45 AM, if you’re with a group that has varied hiking abilities, I recommend leaving early. Most groups start the hike around 4 AM from Kintamani.
We started our Kintamani volcano tour at 3:30 AM with a cup of 3-in-1 sachet coffee and our guide passing us 2 water bottles, each. We had a later start than most because we decided to spend a few days in Kintamani to see the sights, but if you’re starting from Ubud, Canggu, Kuta, etc., expect to depart for your tour at 1 or 2 AM.
By 3:45 AM, we set off on our trek!
It was absolutely freezing on the mountain in the middle of the night, but once we started the uphill ascent the movement kept us nice and warm. Our guide gave us the option of a short, medium, or long trek – We chose the medium because we wanted to do a walk on the volcano’s rim.
Since we were departing from Kintamani, we took a lesser-traveled path than the one most travelers take. If you’re starting your tour from Ubud, you will be beginning your trek from the West side of the volcano – On the West side, there are larger and more nicely paved roads, since it gets far more tourists.
We were starting our trek on the South-East side of the volcano, and for the most part, the path was unmarked. Many people talk about how you “don’t need a guide” for Mt. Batur, but for the route we took, I was happy we had him!
The path we took was steeper than the usual Mt. Batur path – Our guide gave us the option to walk on the more well-paved road instead, but that road was shared with the motorbike taxis zooming up the mountain, so we chose to stick to the walking path. The bonus of taking the more remote trek up the mountain, and also for leaving a bit early, is that we were the only other people I saw on our whole hike up!
The hike was mostly done in the dark, and the woods, so it’s not that scenic – The high point of our trek was when we saw a wild Balinese cat hunting on the volcano. Our guide called it a “Luwuk”, which is the animal that the famous Balinese Cat Poop Coffee is made from – This cat looked completely different from the Luwuks I’ve seen in coffee plantations around Bali – Later, we googled the cat and found it was actually a Sunda Leopard Cat! It was an unexpected treat to see a wild animal on our volcano trek I never even knew existed in Bali.
We reached the Caldera’s viewpoint at around 5 AM, so the trek took us an hour and fifteen minutes.We had chosen to take the steeper and faster of the two paths, and our guide made a big fuss that this was the “fastest he had ever hiked with foreigners!” … But, I’m not sure how much I believe that haha. I know some very fit and tall guys who did the Batur trek in around 45 minutes!
At 5 AM, the viewpoint was pretty much empty and we had our choice of seats. As more people reached the summit, the viewpoint got more and more crowded. By 6 AM, most of the seats were full. I was freezing the entire hour we were waiting for the sunrise!
Our guide had advised us to bring a second shirt, and I was so grateful he did because the undershirt I was wearing under my puffer coat was soaked with sweat after the trek. Even after changing into a dry shirt + wearing a puffer coat, I was still so incredibly cold that I rented a blanket from one of the women at the summit for 50K IDR.
Unfortunately, our sunrise was lackluster. The iconic Mt. Batur sunrise is above the clouds, but unfortunately for us, we were inside the clouds instead! The fog was as thick as pea soup, and we couldn’t see a thing – It was still cool after the sunrise to explore Batur’s caldera and see nothing but white fog all around us. Luckily, we were staying in Kintamani for a few days, so we got to see a gorgeous sunrise over Mt. Batur the next day.
