The best two-week route through Sri Lanka

This is the fourteen-day route we build most often, in the direction we build it, with real driving hours. It assumes December to March dates. If your dates are June to September the whole thing flips, and there is a section at the end for that.

How long you actually need

• Under eight days. One loop only. The cultural triangle and Kandy, or the hills and the south coast.
• Ten days. Cultural triangle, Kandy, tea country and one beach. It works, slightly tight.
• Twelve days. What we recommend most: the above with a real rest at the coast, or a safari added properly. That is classic Sri Lanka in 12 days.
• Fourteen days. The route below, with room in it.
• Twenty-one days. Both coasts, the quieter parks, and the freedom to stay an extra day because you liked it.

The number that matters is not total days but hotel changes. Above one move every two and a half days you have bought a driving holiday.

The route, day by day

Days 1 to 2, Negombo or straight north. Land, and do not drive far. Most flights arrive in the small hours, so we book the room for the night before you land. Negombo is twenty minutes from the airport and unremarkable, which on night one is exactly the right quality. If you land in daylight, drive straight to the cultural triangle instead, about three and a half hours, and gain a day.

Days 2 to 5, the cultural triangle. Three nights, based between Sigiriya and Dambulla.

• Sigiriya at opening: 1,200 steps, much of it exposed metal staircase, a bottleneck near the top and a midday crowd in full heat. Early solves it. Pidurangala opposite is the alternative for anyone unhappy on stairs, and it has the better view because Sigiriya is in it.
• Polonnaruwa by bicycle in the early morning. Compact, well preserved, and the Buddhas at Gal Vihara are the finest carving on the island.
• Dambulla’s five painted cave temples, an hour, and often the thing people remember.
• Anuradhapura if you have the appetite: a living pilgrimage site spread over several square miles, best covered early by bicycle.

Three nights here is right. Two is a rush, four is one temple too many.

Day 5, Kandy, about 2.5 to 3 hours. One night. The Temple of the Tooth at one of the three daily pujas rather than mid-afternoon, and an hour in the botanical garden at Peradeniya, which is better than it sounds. Kandy is a working city with traffic, and one night is our honest recommendation unless the Esala Perahera is on, in which case it is the reason for your dates.

Days 6 to 9, the tea hills. The train from Kandy or, better, from Nanu Oya into Ella is the leg everybody wants. Reserved seats release 30 days before departure and often sell out the same day in season, so we buy on the morning of release. The section that matters, Nanu Oya or Haputale down to Ella, is under three hours and is the beautiful part. Hanging out of the doorway for a photograph is how people are injured and killed on this line every year. Sit down. The mechanics are in the Kandy to Ella train.

Three nights in the hills, and we would split them: one or two at a tea estate bungalow near Haputale or Deniyaya, where it is quiet and cold at night, and one at Ella, which is beautiful and has become busy. Walk Little Adam’s Peak at dawn, and if the party is fit, Horton Plains at first light for World’s End, which needs a dawn start because the mist closes in mid-morning and there is nothing to see afterwards.

Days 9 to 11, one park. From the hills it is roughly two to three hours down to Udawalawe or Yala.

Choose the animal rather than the name. Udawalawe is close to certain for elephants on a morning drive, year round, and is a better first safari than Yala for most people. Yala has the leopard density and the jeep crowd in block 1. Wilpattu is bigger, quieter and further north, which suits a route that starts rather than ends with it. Two nights, two or three drives, and nobody can promise you a leopard. Yala or Wilpattu has the full comparison.

Days 11 to 14, one beach, and only one. Two and a half to three hours west along the coast to Tangalle, Dickwella, Weligama or Unawatuna, or on to Galle.

This is the part of the route people most often get wrong, by booking two beaches for two nights each. Four nights in one place, unpacked, is the rest. Galle Fort is a walled Dutch town you can walk in an hour and should sleep inside rather than beside, so if the trip needs a change of scene, one night inside the fort and three on a beach is the version we build.

Day 14, Colombo or the airport. The Southern Expressway makes Galle to the airport about two and a half hours, the single most useful road on the island. Colombo deserves a spare day for the Pettah market and the food, and it is the first thing we cut when days are short.

Driving hours, since that is the real currency

Nothing above is more than four hours, which is the entire point of building the route in this order.

Why this direction

North first, then the hills, then down to the coast. Three reasons.

The cultural triangle is hot and it is best done while you are freshest and going out at six in the morning. The hills are the middle of the trip because the temperature change is a relief rather than a shock, and because the train works better southbound in terms of the day it consumes. And the beach is at the end because a beach in the middle of a trip is an interruption and a beach at the end is a holiday.

The route also puts your two early starts, Sigiriya and Polonnaruwa, in the first week when jet lag is working in your favour rather than against it.

The alternatives, named

If your dates are June to September, flip it. The south coast is wet with dangerous currents and the east is dry. Same cultural triangle, same hills on the eastern side, then Trincomalee, Passikudah or Arugam Bay for the beach, and the elephant gathering at Minneriya or Kaudulla is likely rather than certain in the driest months. That is the east coast and Jaffna route, and it is a better holiday than a forced south coast trip in July. See which month to visit.

If you want the north, add Jaffna after Anuradhapura, about four hours, and give it three nights. Tamil, Hindu, culturally distinct, its own food and its own recent history, and among the most interesting places we send people. This needs sixteen days or a coast dropped.

If you want to walk, replace the second hill night and the park with the Knuckles range, and see the hill country on foot.

If you have ten days rather than fourteen, cut Kandy to a stop rather than a night, take two nights at the park instead of two plus a transfer day, and keep the four beach nights. Do not cut the beach to three to keep Kandy.

What we would leave out of a fourteen-day route

The elephant orphanage on the Kandy road, the roadside turtle hatcheries, the stilt fishermen at Koggala who are now a paid photograph rather than a working fishery, a second hill town, a third beach, and Adam’s Peak unless you actively want a night climb of 5,500 steps. The reasoning for each is in what we would skip in Sri Lanka.

Plan this trip

Send us your dates and we will tell you which direction this route should run, then rebuild it around what you actually want. Free, and with no obligation.

Start planning

Keep reading

• Sri Lanka: the complete guide to planning your trip
• Which month to visit Sri Lanka, and why it depends on the coast
• The Kandy to Ella train, and how to actually get a seat
• What we would skip in Sri Lanka
• The east coast and Jaffna, 14 days
• Sri Lanka, planned around the monsoon that actually matters

Frequently asked questions