Deep Sri Lanka: 21 days
Three weeks is where Sri Lanka stops being a loop of five famous places and becomes a country. It buys you the quiet national park instead of the crowded one, three nights in the hills instead of one, a rainforest, and the ability to stay somewhere an extra day because you liked it.
- Duration
- 21 days
- Pace
- Moderate
- Hotel changes
- 9
- Best months
- Dec, Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr
- From
- $3,675 per person
This is the longest Sri Lanka route we publish and the one we would take ourselves. It runs anticlockwise: up the west side to Wilpattu, across the ancient capitals, into the Knuckles, down the hill line, then out to the parks, the rainforest and the south coast. Nine hotel changes in twenty-one days, which is one move every two and a third days, and only two drives over four hours.
Built for December to April. In the northeast monsoon months we would restructure it around the east and the north.
Who it suits: travellers with time, second visits, and anyone who has come back from a two week trip feeling they saw the country through a car window.
Your specialist: your named Sri Lanka specialist, with our Delhi office and our representatives coordinating the ground across all three weeks.
Day by day
Day 1: Arrive, night at Negombo. Twenty minutes from the airport. Nothing scheduled.
Day 2: Negombo to Wilpattu. Around three hours up the west coast and inland. Afternoon game drive. Wilpattu is the largest and oldest of the national parks, forest rather than scrub, dotted with the natural lakes that give it its name, and it holds leopard, sloth bear and elephant with a fraction of Yala’s vehicles.
Day 3: Wilpattu. A full day, out at first light and again in the afternoon, with a picnic breakfast in the park. Sloth bear are most likely in June and July when the palu fruit ripens, and leopard is a real possibility rather than a promise at any time of year.
Day 4: To Anuradhapura. Two hours east. Afternoon at the Sri Maha Bodhi at dusk among the pilgrims: a fig grown from a cutting of the Buddha’s tree, planted in the third century BC and tended continuously since.
Day 5: Anuradhapura. Bicycles from seven with a guide across a site that covers several square miles: Ruwanwelisaya, the vast brick dome of the Jetavanaramaya, the moonstones and guardstones at Abhayagiri, and the bathing ponds. Afternoon off. Late light at Mihintale, 1,840 steps up to where Buddhism arrived on the island in 247 BC.
Day 6: To Sigiriya. Ninety minutes, with Ritigala on the way, a ruined forest monastery on a mountain, reached on a stone path through jungle and usually empty. Three nights near Sigiriya.
Day 7: Sigiriya at opening. At the gate as it opens. Around 1,200 steps, much of it on exposed metal staircases, with a section near the top where the queue moves at one pace. Hot and heavily congested by mid-morning, which is why we go first. Down by ten, then the afternoon free. Pidurangala at sunset if you have the legs.
Day 8: Polonnaruwa. Bicycles at seven around the twelfth century capital, ending at the Gal Vihara Buddhas, which are the finest carving on the island. Afternoon at leisure, or a tank safari.
Day 9: Dambulla and the road to Kandy. The five painted cave temples in the morning, then three hours south, with a real cinnamon or pepper smallholding on the way rather than a commission spice garden. Evening puja at the Temple of the Tooth. Two nights in Kandy.
Day 10: The Knuckles, on foot. A full day in the Dumbara range: a permit, a registered guide, and five or six hours through cloud forest and terraced valleys with a view back over the whole ridge. Leeches after rain are normal. Back to Kandy for the night.
Day 11: Kandy. Peradeniya gardens at opening, the covered market, the lake, and the afternoon free.
Day 12: The hill country train. Reserved seats from Kandy or Peradeniya to Nanu Oya, roughly four hours climbing through the estates. Your driver takes the luggage by road. Three nights in a tea estate bungalow at around 6,000 feet, with a fire lit at dusk.
Day 13: Horton Plains at dawn. Away at half past five to reach World’s End before the mist. Five and a half miles (9 km) of open moorland, about three hours, with the escarpment falling around 2,900 feet (880 m) at the cliff. Near freezing at the gate in January. Back for a late breakfast, then an estate walk and the factory in the afternoon.
Day 14: The estate, or Lipton’s Seat. Either a day of nothing on the lawn, or the drive round to Haputale and the walk up through the tea to Lipton’s Seat at dawn, which is the better view of the two and almost nobody does it.
Day 15: Nanu Oya to Ella by train. Under three hours, the best section of the line, over the Demodara loop. Two nights at Ella. Afternoon on Little Adam’s Peak.
Day 16: Ella. Ella Rock at first light with a guide, three to four hours return, or the Nine Arch bridge and a slow day. Ella is beautiful and it is busy now, and we will have chosen where you sleep accordingly.
Day 17: To the parks. Two and a half hours down out of the hills. An afternoon drive at Udawalawe, which is the reliable elephant park, or on into Yala for two nights if a leopard is the priority. We will have had that conversation at the proposal stage.
Day 18: A full safari day. First light and late afternoon in the park, with the middle of the day out of the sun. If you are at Yala, we use the quieter blocks where we can and we tell you plainly what block 1 is like in high season.
Day 19: To Sinharaja. Three hours west into the rainforest, which is a different country again: leeches, endemic birds you will not see anywhere else on earth, and a canopy that closes over the path. An afternoon walk with a birding guide.
Day 20: Sinharaja to the south coast. A morning walk at first light, when the mixed feeding flocks move through, then two and a half hours down to the coast near Tangalle or Ahangama. The sea, finally.
Day 21: Galle, and departure. The fort ramparts early if the flight allows, then two and a half hours to the airport on the expressway. If your flight is in the evening we add a night at the coast and finish properly.
What is included
Accommodation with breakfast including a tented camp at Wilpattu, three nights in a tea estate bungalow and a rainforest lodge, a private air-conditioned car with a licensed English-speaking chauffeur guide for the full three weeks, reserved train seats on both hill country legs with luggage moved by road, private jeeps and trackers at Wilpattu, Udawalawe or Yala, all park fees and Knuckles and Horton Plains permits, registered walking guides at the Knuckles, Ella Rock and Sinharaja, bicycles and site guides at Anuradhapura, Polonnaruwa, Sigiriya, Dambulla, Kandy and Galle, all entries, and a WhatsApp group with your consultant and our local representatives.
Honest notes
Yala or Wilpattu, and why we do both. Yala has the highest leopard density and block 1, where nearly everyone goes, can put a dozen jeeps around one animal. Wilpattu is bigger, quieter, older and less certain. Three weeks lets you have the quiet park early and decide later whether you want the crowded one for the odds. Note that Yala’s block 1 usually closes for several weeks in the driest part of the year, generally September into October, and we check your dates against the current closure.
The elephant gathering is not in this season. The Minneriya and Kaudulla gatherings happen in the dry months, usually July to September or October. This itinerary runs December to April and we have not included them, because a handful of elephants at a reservoir in February is not the thing you have seen photographs of. Udawalawe gives you reliable wild elephants instead.
Sinharaja is wet and it has leeches. That is not a caveat, it is the description. It rains in the rainforest in every month, the walking is slow, and the reason to go is birds and endemics rather than views. If that is not you, we swap those two days for an extra two nights on the coast and nobody will think less of you.
The train seats. Reservations open exactly 30 days before departure and the reserved classes often sell out that same day in high season. We buy on the morning of release, and if they have gone we use a private carriage or drive the Kandy to Nanu Oya section and keep the Nanu Oya to Ella leg, which is the part worth having.
Three weeks is still not everything. This route does not include Jaffna, the east coast or Arugam Bay, because in the December to April window those coasts are on the wrong side of the monsoon. If the north is what you want, the fourteen day northern route in the summer months is the honest answer, and we would rather send you twice than compromise once.
Two long drives. Days 17 and 19 are each over three hours and the transfer out of the hills is unavoidable. Everything else on this route sits under three.
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