Sri Lanka Holidays

Sri Lanka gives you a beach holiday, with mountains and jungles and two thousand years of civilisation on an island you can drive across in a day. Elephants in the morning, a curry on the sand at Bentota in the evening, and the whole thing costs a fraction of the same week anywhere else in the Indian Ocean.

Highlights of your Sri Lanka Holidays 2026/2027

• Whale watching off Mirissa - The largest animal that has ever lived, off the south coast between December and April. Blue whales feed in the deep water close to shore here, which is why the boats are out in an hour rather than a day.

• The Kandy to Ella train - Seven hours through tea plantations at nearly 2,000 metres, doors open, for the price of a sandwich at home. Reserved seats open 30 days ahead and go quickly.

• Sigiriya - A fifth-century royal palace on top of a 200-metre column of rock, with frescoes halfway up and the remains of the oldest landscaped gardens in the world at the bottom.

• Two coasts, two seasons - The west and south are dry December to April, the east May to September. Whichever month you can travel, one side of the island is in season.

• Leopards at Yala, elephants at Udawalawe - Two of the best big-cat and elephant parks in Asia, both within a morning of the southern beaches.

Good to Know for your Holiday to Sri Lanka

• ☀️ Weather - Warm all year, 27°C to 29°C on the coast almost every month, and hotter inland. The thing to know is that Sri Lanka has two monsoons on opposite sides of the island, so there is always a coast in season: December to April for the west and south, May to September for the east. There is no bad time to go, only a wrong coast.

• 💶 Money - The Sri Lankan rupee, and it goes a very long way. A meal in a local restaurant runs £3 to £8 / €3.50 to €9 and street food £1 to £3 / €1 to €3.50. Carry cash for tuk-tuks, markets and small guesthouses; cards are fine in hotels and larger restaurants.

• 🐢 Fun fact - Five of the world's seven species of marine turtle nest on Sri Lankan beaches, and most of them come ashore on the same south-west stretch the beach hotels are built along. The hatcheries around Kosgoda and Bentota will show you the eggs.

Sri Lanka is perfect for you if...

• You want a long-haul holiday where the flight is the expensive part and the fortnight afterwards is not

• You can't decide between a beach holiday and a proper sightseeing trip, and you shouldn't have to

• You want to see a leopard, an elephant and a blue whale in the same week without any of it being in a zoo

• You would pick a seven-hour train through tea plantations over a seven-hour lie-down, at least once

• You loved Thailand fifteen years ago and have been quietly looking for somewhere that still feels like that

Local Lingo – Talk Like a Sri Lankan

Sri Lanka has two official languages. Sinhala is spoken by most of the country and across the south and west. Tamil is the first language of about a quarter of the population and of most of the east and north. English is widely spoken in hotels, restaurants and taxis, but a word in either of the other two is received extremely warmly.

• Ayubowan - ah-you-bo-wan - Hello, in Sinhala. It literally means "may you live long", and it comes with palms together.

• Vanakkam - va-na-kam - The same greeting in Tamil. Worth having if you are going east.

• Istuti - iss-too-thi - Thank you, in Sinhala. Nandri, nun-dri, in Tamil.

• Kohomada? - ko-ho-ma-da - How are you? Sinhala.

• Hari - ha-ri - Good, fine, okay. Does an enormous amount of work.

• Kiyada? - kee-ya-da - How much is it? The one to have ready at a market.

• Bath saha curry - bath sa-ha curry - Rice and curry. Not a dish so much as the national institution, and ordering it by name gets you the good version.

• Suba dawasak! - soo-ba da-wa-sak - Have a nice day, in Sinhala.

Best Places to Visit on your Sri Lanka holidays

From beaches to hill country, Sri Lanka is all about mixing it up

• Bentota - The main beach resort on the south-west coast, and where most of the hotel product sits. A long stretch of sand with a river behind it, watersports on both, and turtle hatcheries a few minutes down the road at Kosgoda. In season December to April.

• Negombo - Twenty minutes from the airport, which makes it the obvious first or last night, and a proper working fishing town rather than a purpose-built resort. The beach is broad and the fish market at dawn is the reason to set an alarm. In season December to April.

• Trincomalee - The east coast, and the half of the island most people never see. Wide empty beaches at Nilaveli and Uppuveli, some of the best diving in the country, and whale watching from a different sea. In season May to September, which is exactly when the west is wet.

• Kandy - The last capital of the Sri Lankan kings, up in the hills around a lake, and home to the Temple of the Tooth. Cooler than the coast and the starting point for the Ella train.

• Nuwara Eliya - Tea country at 1,900 metres, cold enough for a fire in the evening, with colonial-era hotels and plantations you can walk into. The stretch of railway between here and Ella is the famous bit.

• Habarana - The base for the cultural triangle. Sigiriya, Polonnaruwa and Dambulla are all within an hour, and so are the elephants at Kaudulla and Minneriya.

Best Hotels in Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka's hotels come in three sorts, and which you pick shapes the whole holiday: the beach resorts along the west and south coasts, the hill-country hotels up around Kandy and Nuwara Eliya, and the city hotels in Colombo.

🏖️ What are the best beach hotels in Sri Lanka?

• Riu Sri Lanka - A 24-hour all-inclusive resort on the sand at Ahungalla, with unlimited food and drink round the clock and a kids' club. The only property on this page that is genuinely all-inclusive, which on a long-haul trip where you are eating three meals a day out is worth doing the sums on.

• Club Hotel Dolphin - Four-star at Waikkal near Negombo, built for families around an enormous pool with a separate children's area. Twenty minutes from the airport, so you are on a sunbed before you would otherwise have cleared the transfer.

• Tangerine Beach - Four-star on the beach at Kalutara, between Colombo and Bentota, and the practical middle option if you want the coast without a long transfer.

💑 What are the best hotels in Sri Lanka for couples?

• Cinnamon Bentota Beach - Four-star Signature Selection on the strip of sand between the river and the sea at Bentota, and the most design-led hotel on this coast.

• Taj Bentota Resort & Spa - Five-star, gardens down to the beach, and the spa is the reason to book it.

• EKHO Surf Bentota - Four-star, smaller and more relaxed than its neighbours, on the same stretch of Bentota beach.

✨ What are the best hotels in Sri Lanka away from the coast?

• Amaya Hills Kandy - Four-star up in the hills above Kandy with the valley in front of it. The obvious base for the Temple of the Tooth and the start of the Ella train.

• Hotel Sigiriya - Four-star in the cultural triangle with the rock fortress visible from the pool, which is not a sentence many hotels can use.

• Galle Face - Colombo's colonial-era grande dame on the seafront, open since 1864 and still the most characterful place to stay in the capital, with its own stretch of seafront and the Galle Face Green promenade outside.

👉 All hotels in Sri Lanka

Cheap holidays to Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka is the rare long-haul destination where the flight is the expensive bit and everything after it is not. Once you have landed, the daily cost of a holiday here is closer to Southeast Asia than to the Indian Ocean resorts it gets compared with, and that gap is what makes a fortnight feasible rather than a week.

To put numbers on it: street food runs £1 to £3 / €1 to €3.50, a meal in a local restaurant £3 to £8 / €3.50 to €9, a Western-style meal £8 to £15 / €9 to €17, a tuk-tuk across town £1 to £5 / €1 to €6, and a mid-range hotel £40 to £120 / €46 to €138 a night.

Three things make the difference here more than booking early does. Pick your coast rather than your month, because the two monsoons mean there is always a side of the island in season. Take the train, which costs a few pounds for journeys a private driver would charge fifty for, and is better. And eat where the rice and curry is, which is not a compromise: it is the best food on the island and it is the cheapest.

All-inclusive holidays in Sri Lanka

Most of the hotels in Sri Lanka we stock that offer all-inclusive are on the same stretch of southwest coast between Negombo and Bentota, the strip closest to Colombo airport, where the sand is widest and the surf is calmest from November to April. So it's the part of Sri Lanka that offers the most traditional beach holiday type package, where it's gloriously easy to just go to the beach, then back to your hotel for an incredible meal, and repeat.

Which all-inclusive hotels in Sri Lanka are best for families?

• Club Hotel Dolphin - the easiest arrival on the island. It's 19km from Bandaranaike airport, so you're through the doors and in the pool while everyone else is still driving south. White sand a few steps from the grounds, a very large pool area and evening entertainment, which matters more than you'd think after a ten-hour flight with children.

• Heritance Ahungalla - a five-star set back in coconut groves with the Indian Ocean in front of it, outdoor pools and a full sports set-up. Quieter and more spread out than Dolphin, so it suits families who want space rather than a programme.

Which all-inclusive hotels in Sri Lanka are best for couples?

• Taj Bentota Resort & Spa - rooms with private sit-outs and ocean views, colonial architecture, and a terraced infinity pool with a sunken bar. Two kilometres from Aluthgama if you want to walk out to a town rather than a resort strip.

• Anantara Kalutara Resort - it sits on the spit where the Kalu Ganga river meets the sea, so you get water on two sides. The architecture is Geoffrey Bawa, Sri Lanka's most famous architect, and the spa is the reason most people book it. There's a kids' club too, so it works either way.

Which all-inclusive hotel works if you want the temples and the wildlife as well?

• Cinnamon Lodge Habarana - the only inland all-inclusive we sell here, and the one that changes what the holiday is. Twenty-seven acres of woodland by a lake, two-storey chalets with verandas, and Sigiriya, Dambulla and the Minneriya elephants all close enough to do as day trips and be back for dinner. Worth knowing there's no beach, so you're swapping the sea for the culture triangle.

• Cinnamon Bentota Beach – Signature Selection - the coastal version of the same idea. Another Bawa building, on the point where the Bentota River meets the ocean, with water sports on the river side and sand on the other. Galle fort is a straightforward day out from here.

Sri Lanka Holidays 2026/2027 Travel Guide

💑 What are the best things to do in Sri Lanka for couples?

• The hill country hotels - Nuwara Eliya and the tea estates around it are cool enough for a fire in the evening, and several of the old planters' bungalows now take guests. It is the one part of a Sri Lanka trip that feels like a different holiday.

• The Ella train, sitting on the right - Seven hours, doors open, tea terraces falling away below you. Book the reserved seats when they open 30 days out.

• Sunset off Mirissa - Whale boats in the morning, Coconut Tree Hill in the afternoon, and dinner on the sand afterwards.

• Galle Fort in the evening - A walled Dutch colonial town on a headland, best walked after the day-trippers have gone, with the ramparts to yourself and the sea on three sides.

👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 What are the best things to do on a Sri Lanka family holiday?

• Udawalawe - The most reliable elephant park in the country, and a half-day jeep safari rather than a dawn expedition, which matters with children. Around 500 elephants and open grassland, so you actually see them.

• Turtle hatcheries at Kosgoda - Twenty minutes from Bentota, and the closest most children will get to a sea turtle. Five of the world's seven species nest on this coast.

• The Bentota river - Mangrove boat trips, monitor lizards, and a jet ski or a banana boat at the other end of the scale. Everything runs from the same stretch of water.

• Dambulla cave temples - Five caves cut into a rock face with 150 Buddha statues inside and monkeys on the steps up. Short enough to hold attention and genuinely extraordinary.

🍽️ What are the best things to do in Sri Lanka for foodies?

• Rice and curry, properly - Not one dish but five or six small ones around a mound of rice, and the best version you eat will cost a couple of pounds. Ask for it by name and you will get the full spread rather than the tourist plate.

• Hoppers at breakfast - Bowl-shaped pancakes cooked in a curved pan, usually with an egg dropped in the middle, eaten with coconut sambol.

• Kottu - Godamba roti chopped on a hotplate with vegetables, egg and meat, and you hear it being made from three streets away.

• A tea estate tour - Nuwara Eliya and Ella both have working factories that walk you through the process and finish with a cup of the good stuff.

• Ceylon spices at a market - Cinnamon here is the real thing rather than cassia, and it costs a fraction of what it does at home.

More Destinations to Explore

• Maldives - The other Indian Ocean option, and the opposite proposition. One island, one hotel, nowhere to walk to, and that is exactly the point.

• Thailand - Bigger, busier and better known, with more nightlife and more beaches to choose between. The obvious next step if Sri Lanka works out.

• India - Sri Lanka's enormous neighbour, and the place to go if the temples and the food were what you came for rather than the beach.

• Vietnam - Long, thin and full of coastline, with a food scene that people plan whole trips around.

• Indonesia - Bali and beyond. Similar heat, similar prices, more surf and considerably more people.