Tea Plantation Tour

Ten days of touring, then four nights of doing nothing. This is the shape of trip that German and Austrian travellers ask for by name – a Rundreise with a Badeurlaub attached – and it is, for most people, the most satisfying way to use a fortnight in Sri Lanka. You see the whole island while you have the energy, and then you stop.

Four days is enough for the two things everyone wants to see: the rock fortress of Sigiriya and the sacred city of Kandy. It suits travellers flying in from India, Dubai, Singapore or Malaysia for a long weekend, and people adding a few days to a business trip in Colombo.

A scheduled small-group departure, capped at twelve guests in one minibus with one guide – not a forty-seat coach, and not a private tour either. It is the answer for solo travellers who do not want to pay the single-traveller premium of a private tour, and for couples who would rather share the trip and the cost with a few other people.

This is a starting point, not a fixed product. Eight days is the shortest comfortable length for a proper island circuit, and the route below is the one we would suggest if you gave us no other information: Cultural Triangle, Kandy, tea country, the train to Ella, a safari in Yala. Almost every guest who books it changes something.

A private tour built around a slower rhythm. No transfer day involves more than about four and a half hours in the car and most are under three, every hotel is chosen for lift access and ground-floor rooms where possible, and every site has a step-free or short-walk alternative so nothing has to be skipped for the sake of stairs.

Up into the tea country and back in a day: a working factory from leaf to cup, the waterfalls on the Ramboda road, and the odd Englishness of Nuwara Eliya at 1,900 metres.

Our signature journey is the complete Sri Lanka experience in two unhurried weeks. You will climb the Sigiriya rock fortress, cycle among the ruins of Polonnaruwa, watch wild elephants gather in Minneriya and attend the evening ceremony at Kandy's Temple of the Tooth.

One of the most photographed train journeys in Asia, done properly: a reserved seat booked 30 days out, your guide and vehicle meeting you at the other end, and your luggage travelling by road.

A private shore excursion from Colombo port, planned backwards from your sailing time – because the one thing that matters on a cruise day is being back on board.

Taste your way across Sri Lanka. Visit fish and spice markets, cook with village families and home chefs, learn to make hoppers and kottu roti with street-food masters, and join a tea-tasting session – all combined with the key cultural sights.