Things To Do in Sri Lanka & Must Have Experiences

Sigiriya is a 200 metre granite plug in the cultural triangle with the ruins of a fifth century royal citadel on top. The climb runs about 1,200 steps, past the mirror wall and the fresco gallery, then up through the lion's paws to the summit and the water gardens laid out below. Allow two to three hours and start at opening time, both for the light and because the metal stairways slow to a crawl once the tour groups arrive. Dambulla is the usual base.

This is the ride people come to Sri Lanka for. Blue carriages climb out of Kandy through Nanu Oya and Haputale into tea country, and the last stretch down into Ella runs past waterfalls and plantation villages. The full run takes six to seven hours; many people do only the Nuwara Eliya to Ella leg, which is about three. Reserved seats go weeks ahead, so book early or travel second class unreserved and stand by the open door.

Sri Dalada Maligawa holds the Buddha's tooth relic and is the most important Buddhist site in the country. You do not see the relic itself. You file past the golden casket that houses it during one of the three daily pooja ceremonies, which is when the temple is at its most alive. Shoulders and knees stay covered, shoes come off at the gate. Allow an hour, then walk round Kandy Lake.

Known For : Dambulla Cave Temple Dambulla Golden Temple & Museum Sigiriya

Five caves cut into a rock face above the plains, holding around 150 Buddha statues and painted ceilings that have been maintained and repainted for two thousand years. The reclining Buddha in the first cave and the ceiling of the second are what people remember. It is a short but steep climb of about 15 minutes, shoes off at the top, an hour inside. Easy to pair with Sigiriya in a single day.

Best Time: January to May

11 Dambulla Attractions

Yala holds one of the highest leopard densities anywhere, along with sloth bears, elephants and crocodiles. Block 1 is the productive section and also the most crowded. Safaris run at first light and late afternoon, roughly three hours each, and the drier months from February to July concentrate animals around the waterholes. The park usually closes for several weeks around September, so check before booking.

Best Time: February - July

Known For : Galle Fort Sea Turtle Hatchery Centre, Mahamodara Galle Lighthouse

A Portuguese and Dutch walled town on the south coast, still lived in rather than preserved as a museum. The pleasure is walking the ramparts late in the day, then wandering the grid of streets inside for the lighthouse, the Dutch Reformed Church, the mosque and a run of small cafes and boutiques. Give it half a day. The south coast is at its best from December to March.

Best Time: December to April

36 Galle Attractions

Sri Lanka is one of the more reliable places in the world to see blue whales, and which coast you use depends entirely on the month. Boats run from Mirissa on the south coast roughly November to April, and from Trincomalee on the east coast roughly May to September. Trips leave around dawn and take three to five hours. Neither side is a year-round option, so match the coast to your dates.

Two short hikes out of Ella town with very different efforts. Little Adam's Peak is an easy 45 minutes each way on a clear path and makes a good sunrise. Ella Rock is a rougher two to three hour round trip along the railway line and up through tea and forest, and it is worth taking a guide because the turnoffs are unmarked. Both open out onto the Ella Gap. Clearest mornings are January to March.

Known For : World’s End (Horton Plains) Gommolli Kanda Ohiya

A high plateau at 2,300 metres where the land simply stops in an 880 metre drop. The loop walk is about 9 km and takes three hours, taking in Baker's Falls and both the big and little World's End viewpoints. Go at dawn. The cliff clouds over by around nine most mornings and you will see nothing at all. It is genuinely cold up there at that hour, so bring a layer. Swimming is not allowed in the park.

Best Time: January to March

6 Horton Plains Attractions

A colonial era railway viaduct near Ella, built in the 1920s from stone and brick with no steel in it, curving through jungle and tea. It runs about 91 metres long and 24 metres high. The point is to be standing there when a train crosses; several pass during the day and guesthouses in Ella keep the current timings. It is a 20 minute walk down from Ella town.

Known For : Seeta Amman Temple Horton Plains National Park Gregory Lake

Nuwara Eliya sits at 1,900 metres and the hills around it are all tea. A factory visit walks you from the plucking through the withering troughs, the rollers and the grading, and ends with a tasting. Pedro and Damro are the easiest to reach from town. Allow two hours, and go in the morning: the afternoons here cloud over most days of the year.

Best Time: December to April

35 Nuwara Eliya Attractions

Known For : Ruwanweli Maha Seya Sri Maha Bodhi Jetavanaramaya Monastery

The first capital, founded in the fourth century BC and the centre of the island for over a thousand years. The site is huge and flat, so take a bicycle or a tuk tuk for the day rather than walking it. Prioritise the Sri Maha Bodhi, grown from a cutting of the tree at Bodh Gaya, and the brick dagobas at Ruwanwelisaya and Jetavanaramaya. Give it a full day, and keep shoulders and knees covered.

Best Time: January - March, June - September

29 Anuradhapura Attractions

Known For : The Royal Palace of King Parakramabahu Gal Vihara  Dalada Maluva Polonnaruwa

The island's second capital, at its height in the twelfth century under Parakramabahu I, and far more compact than Anuradhapura. The Gal Vihara rock-cut Buddhas, the circular Vatadage and the ruined royal palace all sit within a few kilometres of each other, which makes it a good site to cycle. Half a day is enough. It is in North Central Province, an easy run from Sigiriya or Habarana.

Best Time: November to March

16 Polonnaruwa Attractions

Udawalawe is the most dependable elephant park in the country, with several hundred resident animals and open grassland that makes them easy to see. Morning and afternoon jeep safaris run about three hours each. Just outside the gate, the Elephant Transit Home raises orphaned calves and releases them back into the park, which is a very different proposition from the places offering rides and bathing sessions.

Best Time: December to March

A 2,243 metre cone climbed through the night by Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim and Christian pilgrims, who come for the footprint at the summit and for the shadow the mountain throws at sunrise. The pilgrimage season runs roughly December to May. Outside it the path is unlit, the tea stalls are shut and the summit temple is closed. It is around 5,500 steps and three to four hours up, so most people start at about two in the morning.

Best Time: December to May

In the dry months the reservoir at Minneriya draws elephants out of the surrounding forest in numbers you rarely see anywhere, sometimes a couple of hundred at once. It runs roughly July to September. In recent years the herds have often moved on to neighbouring Kaudulla or Hurulu instead, so book with an operator who checks where the animals actually are that week. Minneriya is in North Central Province, half an hour from Sigiriya.

Best Time: December - March

The rock next door to Sigiriya, and the one you climb if you want a photograph of Sigiriya rather than from it. It is a 30 to 45 minute walk that finishes as a genuine clamber over boulders, so wear something with grip. A reclining Buddha sits under an overhang partway up. Popular at sunrise and far quieter than its neighbour.

Kandy's ten night procession in honour of the tooth relic, held in July or August with the exact dates set by the lunar calendar. Caparisoned elephants, whip crackers, fire dancers and Kandyan drummers move through the streets, building each night to the final randoli perahera. Rooms on the route go months ahead and street viewing is packed, so plan early if your trip falls in that window.

Known For : Crocodile Rock, Arugam Bay Arugam Bay Beach Elephant Rock, Arugam Bay

Arugam Bay on the east coast is the country's best known surf town, with a long right hand point break at Main Point and gentler waves at Whiskey Point and Peanut Farm for people learning. The season runs roughly May to September, which is exactly when the south coast is wet. If you are travelling between November and April, Weligama and Hikkaduwa on the south coast are the beginner options instead.

Best Time: April to September

10 Arugam Bay Attractions

Known For : Viharamahadevi Park Gangaramaya Temple Galle Face Green

Colombo rewards a day at either end of a trip rather than a stay. Eat first: short eats and kottu from the stalls along Galle Face Green, crab in the old Dutch Hospital block, rice and curry anywhere around Pettah. Then the market lanes of Pettah, the red and white Jami Ul-Alfar mosque and Gangaramaya temple. Note that the sea off Galle Face Green has strong currents and is not a swimming beach.

Best Time: December to April

69 Colombo Attractions

Sri Lankan food is its own thing, hotter and more coconut-heavy than most Indian cooking. A rice and curry spread arrives as five or six small dishes: dhal, a green, a coconut sambol, a fish or chicken curry. Look out for hoppers, the bowl-shaped pancakes eaten at breakfast with an egg in the middle, kottu chopped on a hot plate at night, and lamprais baked in a banana leaf.

The last large stretch of primary lowland rainforest on the island, a World Heritage site in the wet southwest. It is birding country above all: most of the country's endemic birds are here, moving in mixed feeding flocks that a guide will help you find. Walks run two to four hours and a guide is required at the entrance. Expect leeches and rain in any month. Driest around January to March.

Best Time: January to March; August to September

Wilpattu is the largest national park in the country and the quiet alternative to Yala for leopards, in the northwest within reach of Anuradhapura. It is named for its villus, natural sand-rimmed lakes that animals come down to drink at. Sightings take more patience here than at Yala, but you will often have them to yourself. Safaris run about four hours and February to October is the drier window.

Best Time: February to October

Kaudulla sits next to Minneriya and shares the same elephant population, which shifts between the two reservoirs as the dry season goes on. When the Minneriya gathering thins out, this is usually where the herds have moved. Afternoon safaris of about three hours work best, roughly August to December. Going to a park like this is the honest way to see elephants in Sri Lanka, in their own habitat rather than a compound.

Best Time: July to December

Thomas Lipton's lookout above the Dambatenne estate, reached by a 7 km walk up through the tea from Haputale or a short tuk tuk ride if you would rather not. On a clear morning you look out over several provinces at once. Go before eight, because the cloud comes in and closes the view by mid morning. Take in the Dambatenne factory on the way back down. Haputale is a stop on the Kandy to Ella line.

Pigeon Island off Nilaveli on the east coast has the most accessible reef in the country, shallow enough to snorkel straight off the beach, with blacktip reef sharks and turtles around regularly. It works roughly May to September. On the other side of the island, Hikkaduwa's reef and the wrecks off Unawatuna are the counterpart from November to April. Boat numbers to the island are capped, so go early.

A wide fall of about 25 metres right beside the road roughly 6 km from Ella, so it takes minutes rather than a hike and makes an easy stop on the way to Wellawaya. It is at its fullest just after the northeast monsoon, roughly December to March, and can drop to a trickle late in the dry season. The pools at the base look inviting, but the rocks are slick and the current is stronger than it looks.

At 220 metres this is the second highest waterfall in Sri Lanka, about an hour and a half from Ella near Koslanda. Most people come for the upper pools, reached by a steep hour-long climb from the road through rubber and scrub rather than by looking up from the bottom. There have been deaths at the edge here, so stay well back from the lip and do not attempt the climb in wet weather.

You will see the stilts along the south coast between Koggala and Weligama, poles planted in the shallows that fishermen perch on so they cast no shadow on the water. Be clear about what it is now: most of the men on the poles in the middle of the day are posing for cameras and will ask for money, and the real fishing happens at dawn and dusk. Worth stopping for, worth agreeing a price first.

Best Time: December to March

Balloons lift off around dawn from the fields near Dambulla and Sigiriya and drift for about an hour over paddy, reservoirs and the rock itself. The season runs roughly November to April, when the winds are steady, and flights are called off at short notice when conditions turn. Pickups from hotels in the area are usually around half past four in the morning.

The Kandyan style is the island's classical dance, performed by men in silver breastplates and headdresses to a line of geta bera drummers, and it usually closes with a fire walking sequence. The nightly show at the Kandyan Art Association by the lake runs about an hour from early evening. The version at full scale, in the street, is the Esala Perahera in July or August.

Known For : Nallur Kandaswamy Devasthanam Jaffna Fort Jaffna Library

Jaffna feels like a different country to the south: palmyra palms, Tamil Hindu temples and a kitchen built on crab curry and heavy use of palm sugar. The Nallur Kandaswamy temple, the Dutch fort and a ferry out to Delft or Nainativu make the core of a visit. Trains and roads from Colombo take most of a day. The north is at its driest from May to September, the opposite of the south coast.

Best Time: January to September

19 Jaffna Attractions

Ayurvedic treatment in Sri Lanka runs from an hour of herbal oil massage at a beach hotel to a supervised panchakarma course of a week or more with a prescribed diet and no alcohol. The serious retreats cluster around Bentota and Beruwala on the southwest coast. If you want the medical version rather than the spa version, ask whether a qualified physician does an initial consultation before anything is booked.

A cloud forest range northeast of Kandy, named for the knuckle shape of its peaks and listed as a World Heritage site. Trails run from two hour village walks to overnight treks over Mini World's End and Dothalugala, and a guide is required on most routes. It is wetter than the rest of the hill country and leeches are a fact of life. January to March and July to September are the drier spells.

Bundala is a coastal lagoon system near Hambantota and an internationally important wintering ground for migratory water birds, with 197 recorded species. Greater flamingos arrive in flocks, and there are crocodiles and elephants alongside them. It is far quieter than Yala and works well as a half day if you are already down in Tissamaharama. Best from September to March, when the migrants are in.

Best Time: October to March

Several hatcheries along the southwest coast between Kosgoda and Habaraduwa buy eggs from collectors, incubate them and release the hatchlings. Standards vary a great deal. The ones worth supporting release hatchlings within a day or two and keep no adult turtles in tanks for photographs, so ask before you pay. Releases happen at dusk. Nesting on this coast runs roughly November to April.

Ambalangoda on the southwest coast is where the wooden masks used in kolam theatre and devil dancing are actually made, rather than the souvenir copies sold elsewhere. The Ariyapala museum explains what each character is for, and the carvers in the workshop next door will let you watch and have a go. An hour is enough, and it folds neatly into the drive between Colombo and Galle.

Sixty hectares in a loop of the Mahaweli river just outside Kandy, laid out by the British in 1821 on ground that had been a royal garden long before. The orchid house, the avenue of royal palms and the giant Javan fig with its spreading canopy are the set pieces. Allow two hours. It is the obvious rainy afternoon option in Kandy and an easy, flat walk for older travellers.