How much does two weeks in Sri Lanka cost?

Everything below is land only, per person, based on two people sharing. It excludes international flights, which we quote separately. It includes accommodation, food, a private car with a licensed chauffeur guide, train legs, park fees, site entries and the guiding we would normally build in.

The four anchors we price against

The same numbers appear in our complete Sri Lanka guide, because the guide and the magazine should agree.

Three lines move that number more than anything else. The rooms, where the gap between a good small hotel and an estate bungalow with a butler is larger here than in any other country in the region. The park fees, because foreign entry plus the jeep and tracker is a real daily cost, so three safari days is a materially different trip from one. And Christmas and New Year, when the south coast villas and hill bungalows carry supplements that are not small and sell out six to nine months ahead.

Accommodation, night by night

Per room per night for two sharing, as planning guidance rather than a quote. We confirm live rates for your dates.

Sri Lanka’s middle band is unusually strong. A family-run place above a bay at $90 a night, where the cook makes a rice and curry better than anything in the resort down the road, is not a compromise. A good deal of our comfortable tier is built from exactly those, with one or two nights of something else so that the trip has a shape.

Food, which is the cheap part

• Rice and curry at a local place: $3 to $6
• Hoppers or string hoppers for breakfast, outside a hotel: $2 to $4
• Kottu from an evening stand: $3 to $5
• Lunch for two at a good mid-range restaurant: $12 to $20
• Dinner at a hotel restaurant, per person: $18 to $35
• Fresh crab curry in Colombo or Jaffna, per person: $20 to $40
• King coconut from a roadside cart: under $1

Twenty to thirty dollars a day covers eating well outside hotels. The two lines worth paying up for are a crab curry once and a home kitchen once, and the second of those we arrange rather than sell: a family lunch inland is one of the better hours in a Sri Lanka trip and it costs almost nothing. More on ordering well in what to eat in Sri Lanka.

Transport, and the fees people forget

Car and chauffeur guide is the standard answer and usually the right one. Budget roughly $55 to $95 a day for the vehicle, the driver, fuel and tolls, split between two. It includes the driver’s accommodation and meals, which we pay rather than leaving you to settle at the roadside. It also buys something less obvious: a driver paid a proper day rate is not relying on commission, so there is no spice garden, no gem shop and no batik factory unless you ask for one.

Trains are close to free by comparison. A reserved seat on the hill country line costs a few dollars. The difficulty is not the price but the release: reserved seats go on sale 30 days before departure and the good classes often sell out the same day in high season, so we buy on the morning of release. The whole mechanism is in the Kandy to Ella train.

Site entries surprise people, and they add up. Foreign visitor tickets to Sigiriya and the cultural triangle sites are the single most underestimated line in a Sri Lanka budget, and they have risen more than once in recent years. Plan on a meaningful three-figure sum per person across a cultural triangle week and let us confirm the current published prices for your dates.

Park fees. Entry plus the jeep and tracker at Yala, Wilpattu or Udawalawe typically works out at roughly $50 to $90 per person for a shared jeep on a half day drive, more for a private vehicle. Which park you choose changes both the cost and the experience, and Yala or Wilpattu is the honest comparison.

Three complete fourteen-day budgets

Each is fourteen days, per person, two sharing, land only, on a cultural triangle, hills and one coast route.

The careful trip, about $1,470

Guesthouses and small hotels, a private car for the road legs, two train legs, site guides on four days, two safari drives.

The entries line is almost as large as the accommodation line, which tells you everything about how Sri Lanka is priced.

The comfortable trip, about $2,450

Good three and four star hotels with one estate bungalow night, a car and chauffeur guide throughout, reserved train seats, site guides most days, three safari drives.

This is the shape we build most often, and it maps closely onto classic Sri Lanka in 12 days with two days added at the coast.

The boutique trip, about $4,200

Villas and estate bungalows, a design hotel in Galle Fort, private guiding, private jeeps and a private carriage on the train if the reserved classes have gone.

Boutique Sri Lanka in 12 days is the day-by-day version.

What actually moves the number

1. The rooms. As everywhere, and more sharply here than in most places.
2. Christmas, New Year and the Esala Perahera. Supplements plus scarcity. Book six to nine months out for those dates.
3. How many safari days. Each one is a real cost. Two good drives beat four rushed ones.
4. Which months. October and November are cheap because the weather is unreliable on both sides of the island. Which month to visit explains what you would be accepting.
5. How many hotel changes. Above one move every two and a half days you are paying for a driving holiday. Cutting a stop usually saves money and improves the trip.

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Tell us your dates and your rough budget and your named Sri Lanka specialist will build a first outline with real hotels, real driving hours and real numbers. Free, and with no obligation.

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Keep reading

• Sri Lanka: the complete guide to planning your trip
• The best two-week route through Sri Lanka
• Which month to visit Sri Lanka, and why it depends on the coast
• Yala or Wilpattu, and your real odds on a leopard
• Classic Sri Lanka, 12 days
• Sri Lanka, planned around the monsoon that actually matters

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