Experience luxury at affordable rates and within the guidelines of current travel restrictions, This carefully-crafted itinerary takes you to some iconic and spectacular places as well as some lesser-known spots of Sri Lanka and is comprised of carefully selected boutique accommodation that you are sure to love!
Commence your tour from the heritage city, Sigiriya where you will explore a few of the main ancient sites such as Anuradhapura ancient city. Experience a jeep safari at Minneriya National Park as well. Arrive in Kandy after exploring the Sigiriya Rock Fortress and enjoy your stay at the royal city. Afterward, drive to the lesser-known Wellawaya area with few optional activities proposed for you to choose from. Spend a marvelous 3 nights stay at Tangalle. Visit the Udawalawa Elephant Transit Home and explore few other locations suggested optionally as per your preferences.
We look forward to seeing you in beautiful Sri Lanka.
This is a very good trip but fell down on two points: 1) Just half a day in Colombo is woefully inadequate. 2) The current Explore practice on many recent trips of large lunches (In the case of Sri Lanka buffet group lunches in tourist restaurants) followed by large evening meals, also invariably as a group, is crazy. Most group members complained about this. A light lunch sampling local "street type" food, soup or light sandwiches followed by a decent evening meal would be infinitely more sensible. We all agreed that given we were not walking very far on most days no one needs two huge meals a day!
Fabulous walking and touring holiday. Hotels were all decent to very good. Our tour leader, Cham, was excellent - very knowledgeable and always willing to do extra optional things. We were a small group and we wanted to do everything! The tour itinerary was excellent and we felt like we saw nearly everything that a tour only group would see in addition to all the walking in remote locations and seeing beautiful views and remote villages. Highly recommended!!!
Great trip, itinerary and tour leader
Would’ve liked a bit more time in Kandy- having an afternoon on the first day perhaps ? Maybe can streamline the tea plantation and shorten theearlier stop to the gem place.
A real insight into Sri Lanka’s culture and heritage together with its diverse landscape. The guides wonderful positivity and knowledge really enhanced the trip experience.
We recently concluded a two-week trip travelling throughout Sri Lanka using World Expeditions. With our input on sites to see, hikes to take, places of interest to visit, accommodations etc., the World Expeditions team provided an excellent and customized itinerary for our comprehensive private journey to Sri Lanka. The entire team was highly responsible and provided professional input up to the moment we departed for the trip. Upon arrival we were greeted by our guide and driver who provided dedication, attention to detail, and unwavering commitment to excellence all throughout the trip, consistently going above and beyond his responsibilities as a travel guide ensuring we would experience the "real” Sri Lanka. He consistently anticipated our needs to ensure that our questions or concerns were addressed and resolved. Being very intuitive, in addition to the hikes, temples and ancient cities visited in our itinerary, he also further customized our trip to include additional activities he knew we would both enjoy as wildlife and photo enthusiasts. Overall, this was an incredible experience and very satisfied that we used World Expeditions to organize this trip.
Both parts of this trip wee amazing but the tour leader, Nala, for the Sri Lankan part was amazing. We were seeing and doing so much of Sri Lanka but his efficiency and effectiveness at keeping us all informed and inspired throughout was seamless. He was knowledgeable, fun, and thoughtful with all of our group. He was careful to make sure everyone was happy and felt part of the group, and was aware of everyone's particular interests.
Nala made sure that we all knew what to expect in the day's itinerary but also added in extra activities if there was time, or the opportunity arose for example, a large banana market where the cooperative owners were happy to hear our questions and have phottaken.
We would thoroughly recommend Nala as a tour guide- everything he did was designed to keep us all happy and he was exceptional in this.
Welcome to South Asia, where ancient religions, deep heritage and wild wonders are laced through cultural riches and spice-laden cuisine. On this 19-day Premium adventure you’ll discover the Pink City of Jaipur, witness the Mughal splendours of Delhi and Agra, wildlife-spot in Minneriya National Park soak up the ambience of holy Varanasi, explore the ancient ruins of Habarana, sip tea in Kandy and Nuwara Eliya, and taste culinary delights in Colombo. Local leaders will bring the magic of India and Sri Lanka to light, from lavish palaces to vibrant bazaars and the incomparable Taj Mahal. Packed with hotspots and hidden gems, discover the cultural heart of India and Sri Lanka.
Looking back at our photos now we've returned to the UK we can't believe the amount we saw and the amazing experiences we had on this tour. Sri Lanka is an amazing beautiful country with some much going on - we only scratched the surface. Our tour leader Cham worked so hard to make sure that we had everything we needed, resolving our problems and sorting out food for our fussy son! His knowledge about Sri Lankan history and wildlife was immense. He even found the best place to buy genuine Sri Lanka cricket shirts for the sporty members of our group. The only thing we'd change was the pace of the second half of the Sri Lanka leg of the trip. The first half gave us time to chill and bond as a group, as well as hang out in the pool at Giritale and play cricket. The second half we moved every night and covered a massive distance, though interesting, this was quite tiring (especially for the kids), so we'd suggest that a two night stop in the middle of this element would resolve this issue easily. This was clear in the notes, however, as was the high chance of not getting the train. The pace did slow considerably for the Maldives element, with a lot of time on our boats travelling between reefs. The snorkelling was quite frankly mind-blowing, and even the more nervous swimmers loved it. The crew were fantastic, and the food was delicious. The guide knew his stuff, and made sure we had great snorkelling experiences. Our only criticism of this part of the trip was that splitting the group when we'd got to know each other and were getting on really well was disappointing. There were larger boats, and we'd have preferred to be on a single boat given how long we spent travelling separately. The crew did what they could to mitigate this by tying the boats together when we moored for snorkels, meals and overnight and that was great. All in all a thoroughly enjoyable trip, and with a few very small tweaks it'd be perfect!
