Wildlife & Safaris

Udawalawe is only two hours from the south-coast beaches, which makes this the easiest safari day on the island – out before dawn, elephants by sunrise, back for a swim in the afternoon.

Sri Lanka's most famous national park, as a day trip from the south-coast beaches – at the gate for the 6:00 am opening, when the leopards are still moving.

Sri Lanka is not a step-free country, and we will not pretend otherwise. Pavements are uneven, many temples have stepped approaches and accessible bathrooms are the exception rather than the rule. What we can do is route around the worst of it: a ramp-equipped van with a tail lift, hotels we check for door widths and roll-in showers before we quote them, and sites chosen because they genuinely work from a chair.

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.

Three of the island's headline sights in one day from Kandy: Sigiriya, the Dambulla caves and a wild elephant safari.

A private jeep safari to see wild Asian elephants in the Cultural Triangle – and, crucially, to whichever of the three parks actually has the elephants in the month you travel.

You have to get from Ella to the south coast anyway. This turns that transfer into the best day of your trip: a full morning leopard safari in Yala on the way through, and your luggage waiting in the car.