White Water Rafting in Bali: Best Activity for Adventure Lovers
White Water Rafting is my favorite activity in Bali for adrenaline junkies. Usually coupled with an Ubud ATV tour or a Waterfall Tour, you’re sure to enjoy white water rafting down the Telaga Waja and Ayung Rivers – In my opinion, it’s one of the best things to do in on the island!
Where to Go White Water Rafting in Bali
Even though white water rafting is considered an “Ubud” activity, the two main rafting rivers in Bali are located 45 minutes to 1.5 hours away. The first option is Ayung River, which is the most common as it’s closer to Ubud. If you want something more adventurous, you can choose the Telaga Waja River, which is a bit further, but worth it for adrenaline junkies – This is what we did.
1. Ayung River (45 Minutes from Ubud) – Easy, Relaxing, & Best Option for Families With Kids
The Ayung River is the most relaxing of the two white water rafting options in Bali. With class II and III rapids, it’s a good river for beginners and the most popular in Bali for rafting tours. Perfect for families with children, or those looking for an activity closer to Ubud, the Ayung River was the first rafting spot on the island.
2. Telaga Waja River (1.5 Hour Drive from Ubud) – More Adventurous Option
The Telaga Waja River has class III and IV rapids and is considered the most intense river in Bali. We chose the Telaga Waja River rafting option because it was advertised as the more adventurous of the two, and while there was only one true drop, in my opinion, the Telaga Waja lived up to its reputation as an adventurous white water rafting experience!
🌴 What to Expect: The 3-hour river path we took was lined with tons of waterfall stops, beautiful rice-terrace and jungle views, and a bunch of overhead
👨👩👧👦 For Families With Kids: There were children on our Telaga Waja River Rafting Tour, but they were ages 10 years and older. Since you have to duck under a few poles in the route, the rapids get rough at certain points, and there is a steep drop in the River, I wouldn’t recommend the Telaga Waja River for families with small children.
How to Get to the Rafting Start Points from Ubud
If you plan on rafting the Ayung River, it’s around a 45-minute drive each way from Ubud to the start point. If you’re rafting the Telaga Waja River, it’s a 1.5-hour drive each way from Ubud. The typical start point for rafting tours in Bali is Ubud, but you can also depart from Canggu, Kuta, or even Uluwatu for a day trip.
🛵 By Scooter: I drove to the rafting start point on my own scooter, since I live in Ubud, but as it was an uncomfortable ride (especially on the way back when I was soaking wet from the rapids!), I recommend traveling via car.
🚗 By Car: It’s a bit difficult to rent a car and drive yourself, so most travelers choose to hire a private driver in Bali instead. Private drivers in Bali are hired on a 6-10 hour basis, and they will wait for you while you finish activities. You can book a 6-8 hour private driver through the Grab App, but it’s usually cheaper to book a tour with transport included.
👨👩👧👦 By Tour: I would recommend booking a tour that includes transport for white water rafting since is likely cheaper than arranging transportation independently.
💰 How Much Does White Water Rafting in Bali Cost?
💰 I booked a package tour for rafting the Telaga Waja River as well as adventurous ATV riding in Ubud through a tour provider for around $70 per person. We chose to share an ATV, rather than each get our own, and this didn’t include transport to/from the tour sites, we drove ourselves, but it did include a buffet lunch and dinner.
🚗 For tours including transport from Ubud, it’s around $100 per person.
👉 Additional Fees: Some additional fees we had to pay were for Bintangs (70K IDR) on our rafting stops, as well as water shoes (25K IDR), and the fee for them to move our bikes so we could pick them up at the end of the river (25K). This was a whole-day tour, and I think it was terrific value for the money.
💵 Budget Tour: If you just want the price for a rafting tour, the cheapest option is the Ayung River, and they run group tours that include transport from Ubud for as low as $24 per person.
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Rafting Tour Options
Full-Day Bali Adventure Tour with Quad Bikes and Rafting < What We Did!
The adventure combo of ATV riding in Ubud, and then visiting the Telaga Waja River for rafting after was an incredibly fun day. On our adventure ATV tour we were taken through tunnels and under waterfalls in Ubud. While some parts of the “jungle” ATV track were obviously manmade, like the tunnel with Balinese-style carvings at the entrance, it still felt adventurous. The rafting tour was another hidden gem, with plenty of waterfall stops along the way while snaking our raft through gorgeous rice-field line ravines. After each leg of our tour, we were treated to a surprisingly nice Indonesian buffet meal.
🏎 ATV + Telaga Waja Rafting Adventure Tour
✔️ Most Adventurous Rafting Tour in Bali
✔️ All-Day Tour
✔️ Optional Hotel Transfer
✔️ Includes Lunch
🐵 Ayung River Rafting + Ubud Highlights Tour
✔️ All-Day Tour
👨👩👧👦 Good Tour for Families With Kids
✔️ Includes Transport
✔️ Includes Lunch
🏞 Ayung River Rafting + Hotel Transfer
✔️ Half-Day Tour
💰 Budget Option
✔️ Includes hotel transfer
✔️ Includes Lunch
My Top Tips
✅ Know That Not All Tours Include Transportation
Most Rafting Tours in Bali include the option to have transportation added on, so make sure whichever tour you’re booking includes a car. We didn’t book a tour with transport, but we wish we did! It wound up being a 3-hour ride, round-trip, from the river to Ubud on our scooters.
✅ Know That the Tours Usually Include a Meal
I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of our Indonesian buffet meals included with our rafting package tour. We took a combo tour, so we had lunch and dinner included, and both were really nice!
✅ Prepare to Get Wet & Muddy!
Between the ATV and rafting portions of our tour, I think my clothes turned into 90% mud. We were able to wash off a bit in the waterfalls along our rafting route, just be prepared to get a bit wet on your tour (and don’t wear anything nice!).
Tip! I was freezing while driving scooters home from our rafting tour because we had gotten soaking wet on the trip. Bring a spare change of clothes if you’re driving scooters back!
✅ Bring Small Bills in Indonesian Rupiah (IDR)
We needed small bills of Indonesian Cash (called Rupiah) on our rafting tour to buy Bintangs and small snacks at the waterfall stops, as well as to rent water shoes and tip our guide. If you’re driving yourself to the rafting start-point, you also need to pay a small fee (25-50K IDR), for the tour company to move your bike from the rafting start-point to the end.
✅ Consider Bringing Your Own Water Shoes (Closed Toed!)
You have the option to rent water shoes through the rafting tour agency for around 25K IDR ($2), but they’re very low quality – I was lucky they had a matching pair that fit me. I recommend bringing your own water shoes if you’re traveling in Indonesia, they also come in handy for waterfalls – I like Crocs and Tevas!
My Experience Rafting
We did a combo ATV & Rafting Tour from Ubud, so we had a jam-packed day full of crazy activities. We had done ATV riding in the morning, which was a crazy time that I loved full of driving through deep mud puddles and under natural waterfalls.
After our first tour, we had a few hours to eat a buffet lunch and then high-tail it to the river to start our rafting tour. Google Maps in Bali is usually way off, it said it would take us an hour to get from Ubud to the Telaga Waja River entrance, but it was more like 1.5! We almost missed our tour, but luckily got there just in time.
If you book a tour that includes transportation, then you’ll have a less stressful time than we did getting from point A to point B.
Once we were on the tour, we were given a brief safety instruction (pretty much just duck when the guide says to!). We were sharing the raft with two other travelers. The rafting was pretty intense, and we were bouncing off of the rock walls, bumper-car style. The setting for the tour was gorgeous – We were driving through a ravine with waterfalls on one side and cascading rice terraces on the other. Farmers waved at us as we bounded down the river.
Somewhere in the history of the Telaga Waja River, someone had decided to enact a pipe system that cuts through the river… Over and over again.
Our guide would scream “DUCK!” every time we approached one of the pipes, and we would all have to lie flat in the raft.
After around an hour of rafting, we had a rest-stop break. We bought some Bintang beers and small snacks and got to spend 45 minutes hanging out by a waterfall.
While it’s not one of the most fantastic waterfalls in Bali, I enjoyed visiting the name-less tiny waterfalls along the Telaga Waja River SO MUCH!
There was practically no one there, which was a welcome change from the usual over-touristed waterfalls in Bali. We got to climb the waterfall, take pictures, and swim in its pool, before getting back to the rafting.
There was only one real “drop” during the whole rafting excursion. At some point in the river, there was a dam built, and while you’re rafting you’ll have to descend down the 10 ft drop.
The drop is sloped, so it wasn’t nearly as intense as it looked from up high. The other member of our rafting crew enjoyed the drop so much she asked if we could go again – and we did!
Our guide had us pull the raft out of the water and carry it all the way back up and around so we could ride the drop again 😂. The guide on our Telaga Waja rafting tour was fantastic, one of the best tour guides I’ve had in Bali for sure.
We made one more waterfall stop on our rafting tour, and while this one was even smaller, I still enjoyed it because it was private just for us.
Overall, our rafting tour was around 3 hours, including the stops. Afterward, there was a lovely Indonesian buffet dinner waiting for us once we got out of the river – Rafting in the Telaga Waja River was a tour I immensely enjoyed and recommend to anyone coming to Bali!
