Kalpitiya
The Kalpitiya Peninsula stretches between the Puttalam Lagoon and the open Indian Ocean, a strip of sand dunes, palms, and turquoise water that has become the leading kitesurfing destination in South Asia during the May to October season. Spinner dolphins travel through these waters in pods that occasionally number in the hundreds, making it one […]
Kithulgala
The Kelani River at Kithulgala drops through a series of rapids graded from II to IV – making it the undisputed white-water rafting destination of Sri Lanka. The surrounding rainforest is one of the finest endemic birding locations on the island and will be recognisable to film scholars as the principal setting for David Lean’s […]
Nuwara Eliya
Sri Lanka’s highest city was designed by British planters as a Little England at altitude – Georgian bungalows, a racecourse, hedge-rowed gardens and a climate cold enough that open fires are standard at colonial-era hotels. The surrounding tea landscape is among the most photographically dense in Asia: emerald terraces rising into the clouds, pluckers in […]
Knuckles Mountain Range
Named for its resemblance to a clenched fist when viewed from the Kandy plain, the Knuckles Conservation Forest is a UNESCO-inscribed landscape of waterfalls, cloud-forest patches, traditional mountain villages, and streams that have never been commercially developed. It is among the least infrastructure-heavy trekking destinations in South Asia, making every guided trail feel like a […]
Horton Plains
Horton Plains sits at over 2,100 metres altitude and holds the only significant montane grassland ecosystem in Sri Lanka, a plateau of cloud forest and patana grassland that ends abruptly at World’s End, a sheer 870-metre escarpment with views extending to the southern coast on clear mornings. The endemic wildlife here – purple-faced langurs, sambar […]
Ella
Ella’s geography is its drama, positioned at the edge of Sri Lanka’s central highlands, it drops away to the south in a series of ridges and valleys, creating a visual panorama of startling scale. The Nine Arches Bridge, built of brick and concrete without steel reinforcement during WWI, sits so deeply embedded in the jungle […]