Yogyakarta is an extraordinary Indonesian city nearby two stunning UNESCO world heritage sites. The Borobudur and the Prambanan.

I highly recommend spending time in Yogyakarta and using the city as the base to visit both sites.

The Borobudur and the Prambanan temples are vastly different in architecture and style, the first is Buddhist and the other Hindu. Prambanan impresses more for the details, and Borobudur impresses because of its size.

Borobudur had my slight preference, purely because I loved the carvings and the views from the top.

I also really liked the Prambanan’s temples set against a green landscape but in the end, Borobudur left a bigger impression.

Both deserve a visit and if you are short in time you can visit both easily on the same day, without a tour, using only public transports.

Just keep in mind that Borobudur and Prambanan are not close to each other. Borobudur is located to the northwest of Yogyakarta (45km) and Prambanan is closer to the east part of Yogyakarta (16km).

How to see both Borobudur and Prambanan in One Day

My suggestion is to visit the Borobudur temple in the morning and the Prambanan temple in the afternoon catching the sunset.

Get the Trans-Jogja busses 2B or 2A (Rp 3,500 ~$0.25) to go from central Yogyakarta to Jombor bus terminal located in northern Yogyakarta.

Get the bus to Borobudur Bus Terminal, the journey takes about 60-90 minutes (Rp.25,000 ~$1.40)

From Borobudur, Bus Terminal walk 5-10 minutes to the Borobudur Temple.

When you finish visiting the temple, take a bus from Borobudur back to Yogyakarta and get the TransJogja bus that goes directly to Prambanan – Route 1A (Rp.4,000 ~$0.22)

Hope you’ve found the tips useful 🙂

photography – all rights reserved – Ana Rocha