January is the wettest month on Bali, around 345 mm spread over roughly twenty days with rain on them. It is also, from about the sixth onward, the quietest and the cheapest the island gets all year.
The fact that changes the decision, and that almost nothing published about January states plainly: the rain arrives as a burst, not as a day. Mornings are frequently bright, cloud builds through the middle of the day, and the heavy hour lands in the afternoon or overnight. Trips that go wrong in January are the ones scheduled for two in the afternoon.
On this page
January in figures
Orders of magnitude measured on the south coast, which is where every published average for Bali comes from. Ubud runs wetter and cooler at night, and above a thousand metres none of it applies.
| Day | 30 °C | 86 °F, barely below August |
|---|---|---|
| Night | 24 °C | 75 °F, warm and heavy |
| Sea | 29 °C | 84 °F, the year's warmest |
| Rain | About 345 mm | roughly twenty days with rain on them |
| Sun | 6 h | average per day, the year's low |
| Humidity | About 85 % | the heaviest air of the year |
Is January a good time to visit Bali
Yes, if the trip happens on land
January rewards a flexible trip and punishes a rigid one. The island is at its greenest, the waterfalls run at full volume, the temples are quiet enough to hear, and you pay a fraction of July rates for the same room.
What January will not give you is a reliable boat. Crossings to the Nusa islands are cancelled regularly, sometimes on the morning itself, and the water is too turbid for worthwhile snorkelling. If the island day is the reason for the trip, this is the wrong month.
Is January right for your trip
January is the most polarising month on the calendar. It is genuinely the best month of the year for waterfalls and for budget, and the worst for anything that needs a boat.
Diving in January: The worst of the year
Poor month for this. River runoff pushes sediment out over the reefs and visibility drops to ten or twelve metres at sites that give you thirty in September. Worse, the swell that reduces visibility is the same swell that cancels the boat, so a booked dive day has a real chance of not happening. The mantas are resident and still there. Reaching them is the problem.
Surfing in January: Good, on the other coast
Fine month for this. This is the half of the year the west coast reefs stop working: the wind turns onshore on the Bukit and blows Uluwatu out most days. The east coast comes alive instead, Sanur, Nusa Dua, Keramas, and it is far less crowded than the Bukit in August. January suits surfers who are willing to drive to the wind rather than to the famous name.
Families in January: Hard work, unless indoors
Poor month for this. Heat, 85 percent humidity and an afternoon downpour is a difficult combination with small children, and the beach days you pictured are not reliable. It works if you base yourself somewhere with somewhere to be, which in practice means Ubud rather than a beach town. Mosquitoes are also at their worst this month.
Couples in January: Quiet, green and cheap
Fine month for this. After the fifth, the island empties out and you get famous places close to yourselves. A valley room in Ubud with rain coming down on the jungle is a specific pleasure that no dry season month offers. You are trading certainty for solitude, and January is the best exchange rate on that trade all year.
Ubud, which handles a wet afternoon better than the coast
Budget in January: After the fifth, the year's low
The best month for this. Two completely different months sit inside January. Through the holidays you pay the steepest rates of the year. From about the sixth, rooms can cost under half what the same place charges in July, and they stay there through February. Flights out of Australia drop hard in the same week.
Waterfalls in January: The best month of the year
The best month for this. Every fall on the island is running at full volume and they are spectacular. Tegenungan is a wall of white water rather than the trickle it becomes in September. The catch is that the water is brown and swimming is off the table, and the paths down are slick clay. Come for the sight, not the swim.
The waterfall guide, and which ones flood out
First time in January: Not the month to learn on
Poor month for this. A first trip usually has a fixed list and a fixed number of days, which is exactly the shape January punishes. Come in April or October instead and get the same island without the gamble. If January is fixed for you, plan every sight for the morning and treat afternoons as a bonus.
January is not one month
The weather is the same across all thirty one days. The price of being here is not. January contains the most expensive week of the year and the cheapest one, back to back.
1 to 5 January: The end of the holiday peak
Rooms at Christmas rates, restaurants full, and wet season weather on top of it. This is the single worst value window on the Bali calendar, and it is the reason January has the reputation it does. Nothing about the weather improves after the fifth. Everything about the price does.
6 to 31 January: The island empties
Within a few days of the holidays ending, the tour vans stop arriving and the rates collapse. Sites that queue for an hour in August are walkable. The landscape is at its greenest of the year, and you will have Besakih to yourself on a weekday morning in a way that is simply not possible in the dry season.
What January does badly
The channel between Bali and the Nusa islands is exposed, and from December through March it gets rough enough that fast boats are cancelled at short notice. The same crossing is routine from June to October. If your trip depends on reaching an island, that one line matters more than any rainfall figure on this page.
Two practical consequences. Put any island day early in the trip so there is room to move it, and keep a land based alternative ready for the morning it falls through.
The second thing January does badly is underwater visibility, for the same reason. Snorkelling is not worth booking this month. The reefs are fine, the water in front of them is not.
Booking around January
January is the month free cancellation actually earns its keep. You are not booking a driver, you are booking the right to change your mind at seven in the morning when you see what the sky is doing.
The month the sky decides
Free cancellationBali day tours, with cancellation that holds
- ✓Free cancellation on most listings, right up to the day before
- ✓Pre dawn departures, the only version of a sunrise trip that beats the cloud
- ✓Operators who cancel a crossing on sea state rather than let you find out at the pier
- ✓One driver covers temples, terraces and waterfalls in the half day the rain leaves you
Affiliate link. Booking through GetYourGuide costs you nothing extra and supports the guide. Prices are indicative and vary by option and season.
Bali in January: common questions
Temperature, rain, the sea, crowds and what to wear.
