Every temple worth the early alarm. Priced, timed, reviewed.
Which Angkor sunrise ticket gets you to the pond first. What a Bangkok wat circuit costs by tuk-tuk. Whether Borobudur beats Prambanan when you only have one morning. Reviews of the temple and shrine tours you can actually book.
★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · from $23Angkor Wat Highlights and Sunrise Guided Tour from Siem Reap
★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · from $24Grand Palace, Wat Pho, and Wat Arun Guided Tour
★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · from $37Bali Sunset: Uluwatu Temple, Kecak Dance and Jimbaran Bay
★★★★★★★★★★ 4.4 · from $70Abu Simbel Temple Day Trip with Hotel Pickup Four temple mornings the rest of a trip gets built around.
The gates people fly for, what each one costs to join, and what the travellers who went at dawn said afterwards.
01Before the lightAngkor Wat Sunrise or Sunset Tour with Guide from Siem ReapGuided through the Angkor gate while it is still dark, so you are behind the north pool when the towers appear in it.
02Out of BangkokAyutthaya Temples Guided Tour with LunchThe old capital at Ayutthaya by road, four ruined wat complexes and lunch, back before the evening traffic sets in.
03The Ubud loopMonkey Forest, Jungle Swing, Rice Terrace, and Water TempleMonkey forest, rice terraces and a water temple in one driver-led day around the valley.
04The cloisterJerónimos Monastery Entrance TicketJeronimos at Belem on a timed ticket, a stone ceiling carved to look like ship rigging.
Bangkok, Chiang Mai or the ruins at Ayutthaya. Pick the wat day.
Thailand puts more bookable temple days on the map than anywhere else on this site. Four kinds of day, what each costs to join, and the town it runs out of.
★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · Ayutthaya Temples Guided Tour with Lunch
The Bangkok trioGrand Palace, Wat Pho and Wat Arun in one guided morning.
Up to Doi SuthepThe naga staircase above Chiang Mai, usually with a hill village stop.
The ruins dayFour wat complexes on the old capital island, by road or by river.
White and blueThe mirrored temple at Chiang Rai and its cobalt counterpart.
All 99 Thai temple days →
Six countries carry most of the temple map.
Gilded wat circuits, the Angkor plain, Balinese water temples, the Nile sanctuaries, shrine mornings in Japan and the gopuram towns of south India. Six places to start, and the best day out in each.
The temple tours more travellers book than any others.
Every temple tour we have reviewed →Sunrise slots, palace circuits and Nile sanctuaries, in the order travellers actually book them, with what earns each one its place.
1
Jerónimos Monastery Entrance Ticket
Use a PDF voucher to enter Lisbon’s Jerónimos Monastery, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Belém. Expect magnificent Manueline stonework, a two-story cloister, and access to the monument’s historic grounds. This is a self-guided visit with no guide, and queues can last from 15 minutes to 1.5 hours, especially in summer.
From · $21
Read our review →
2
Angkor Wat Sunrise or Sunset Tour with Guide from Siem Reap
from $18
3
Ayutthaya Temples Guided Tour with Lunch
from $28
4
Angkor Wat: Small-Group Sunrise or Sunset Tour
from $15
5
Cape Sounion & Poseidon Temple Sunset Half-Day Trip
from $23
6
Monkey Forest, Jungle Swing, Rice Terrace, and Water Temple
from $31
7
Montserrat Monastery Half Day Experience from Barcelona
from $55
8
Waterfalls, Water Temple & Rice Terraces Private Tour
from $29
A temple is a different building at five in the morning.
Angkor comes out of the dark over a pond. Borobudur floats above the mist on the Kedu plain. Uluwatu takes the last of the sun off the Indian Ocean. These are the slots that sell out, and the ones worth the alarm.
Angkor is a city, not a photograph.
Four hundred square kilometres of it, and the pass is sold by the day. A small group gets you into Ta Prohm before the coaches, a tuk-tuk driver does the same circuit for less, and the three-day pass is the one people wish they had bought.
Every Angkor day →
The Nile sanctuaries run on convoy times and boat times.
Karnak and the Valley of the Kings from Luxor, Philae reached by launch from Aswan, Abu Simbel three hours south through the desert. They open early for a reason: by eleven the sandstone is too hot to lean on.
- 1Abu Simbel Temple Day Trip with Hotel Pickupfrom $70
- 2Luxor Day Tour: Valley of Kings & Queens & Hatchepsut Templesfrom $89
- 3Valley of the Kings and Hatshepsut Temple Day Tourfrom $50
What a temple day actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by what it costs. Most of the great temple mornings come in under the price of the taxi to the airport.
Entry tickets, tuk-tuk circuits, shrine walks and the short guided mornings.
Full days out: Angkor with a guide, Abu Simbel, Borobudur at dawn, the long run up to Chiang Rai.
Private guides, multi-day passes and the small-group days that start before the sun does.
Three temple moments that happen nowhere else.
Carved stone is everywhere. Five towers rising out of a reflecting pool, a hundred men chanting on a cliff as the sun goes down, and a mountain courtyard painted floor to ceiling are not.
Angkor Wat at dawn
The towers face west, so the sunrise crowd gathers behind the north reflecting pool and waits for the silhouette to arrive in the water. The pass office opens at five and the road in is unlit, which is why guided groups leave town around half past four. Go on the second morning rather than the first: the same slot, a third of the people.
- 1Angkor Wat Sunrise or Sunset Tour with Guide from Siem Reap★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 12,109 reviews
- 2Angkor Wat: Small-Group Sunrise or Sunset Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 9,444 reviews
- 3Angkor Wat 2-Day Tour with Sunrise and Sunset★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 4,429 reviews
The Kecak fire dance
On the cliff at Uluwatu a circle of men chants the Ramayana through without a single instrument while the sun drops behind the stage. It runs once a day, the amphitheatre is open to the sky, and the seats fill an hour before it starts. The macaques work the aisles, so sunglasses and phones go in the bag.
- 1Kecak Fire Dance Show & Uluwatu Temple Entry Ticket★★★★★★★★★★ 4.2 · 3,023 reviews
- 2Bali Sunset: Uluwatu Temple, Kecak Dance and Jimbaran Bay★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 2,397 reviews
- 3Private Uluwatu Temple and Kecak Fire Dance Evening Tour in Jimbaran Bay★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,199 reviews
Rila Monastery
Two hours south of Sofia, a courtyard of striped arches sits under the Rila range with every inch of the porch painted in saints and judgment scenes. The monastery has stood since the tenth century, burned in 1833 and was rebuilt by hand. Most day trips stop at the Boyana church on the way back, which is the older painting of the two.
- 1Rila Monastery & Boyana Church Day Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 5,107 reviews
- 2Must-See Rila Monastery & Boyana Church Day Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 3,322 reviews
- 37 Rila Lakes and Rila Monastery Extended Trip★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 1,189 reviews
Shoulders, knees, shoes off, and a closed day nobody mentioned.
Almost every temple on this site has a rule at the door. Bali hands out a sarong and asks women who are menstruating to wait outside. The Grand Palace turns away shorts. Japanese temples want shoes in the rack and voices down. Several monasteries shut one day a week. Tours that bring the sarong, the transfer and a guide take the guesswork out of the morning.
Four temple bookings that will not wait.
Most of a temple trip can be arranged the night before from a guesthouse balcony. These four run on pass offices, one performance a day, and departure times set by the desert.
- 01Angkor Wat Sunrise or Sunset Tour with Guide from Siem ReapSunrise groups leave in the dark, around half past four, and the Angkor pass has to be bought before you set off.
- 02Abu Simbel Temple Day Trip with Hotel PickupAbu Simbel sits three hours south of Aswan through open desert. Departures are fixed and there is no later one.
- 03Kecak Fire Dance Show & Uluwatu Temple Entry TicketThe Kecak dance runs once a day at sunset and the cliff amphitheatre fills long before the chanting starts.
- 04Montserrat Monastery Half Day Experience from BarcelonaThe mountain is reached by rack railway and cable car on fixed timetables, and the basilica closes around services.
Bangkok to Borobudur, the temple run most people do first.
Chiang Mai
Siem Reap
Ubud
Yogyakarta
By kind of temple day
The newest temple tour reviews.
The rest of this week’s temples →
Xi’an: Daci’en Temple(Great Wild Goose Pagoda) E-ticket
Read our review →
Terracotta Army, Big Wild Goose Pagoda&City Wall Full Day Tour
Read our review →
Hidden Corners of Varanasi Secret Alleys Temples and Traditions
Read our review →
Varanasi in a Day Ancient Temples Sarnath and Ghats
Read our review →
Xi’an: Terracotta Army, Lunch, City Wall, Pagoda, Bazaar
Read our review →
Fushimi Inari Taisha Shrine Walking Tour with Guide
Read our review →
Transfer from Jodhpur to Udaipur via Jain Temple in Ranakpur
Read our review →
Akshardham Temple Tour Exhibition, Light & Water Show with Transfers
Read our review →
Private Transfer From Jodhpur To Udaipur Via Ranakpur Jain Temple
Read our review →
Karnak Temple Sound & Light Show QR Ticket with Transfer
Read our review →
Ex-monk city & temples walking tour: (3.5 hours / 1.7 km.)
Read our review →
