Move Sri Lanka to the Top of Your Bucket List

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Late Checkout is TQE’s travel vertical. Whether you’re seeking an Eat Pray Love moment of your own, or a wholesome family sojourn, we hope you embark on an adventure requisite of a late checkout below.

Twenty years ago, a friend’s family went to Sri Lanka and came back with some of the most incredible photos and stories I’d ever seen or heard from a trip. Tea plantations and a safari on the coast; bright, colorful tuk tuk rides and even brighter and more colorful coconut curries. For the last twenty years, I’ve had the feeling that I would absolutely love Sri Lanka. And now that I’ve had the chance to finally see this diverse, fascinating, beautiful, delicious island for myself, I won’t bury the lede: I did absolutely love it. 

And I think you will, too. 

Before you close this tab and open another one to start researching your trip, there’s a few things you should know. Perhaps the most important is that there’s a real art to making your way around the country. Because, as small as the island is comparatively, it’s best to plan your route carefully to avoid dealing with multiple seven hour drives. Also because, as small as the island is, each part of it really has something different to show you and you simply can’t do it all in one go unless you’ve got a month to spend exploring. 

If I were planning this trip for you (and, really, I’d love to), here’s how I suggest you do it: 

We Start in Colombo

The only international airport in Sri Lanka is in its capital city of Colombo. Bustling and crowded, it’s something of a tough city to navigate on your own for your first time and after a long international trek. So, on your way in, you’ll stay at Uga Riva. This hotel feels like your rich great aunt’s home (don’t you have one of those?). Each room has its four poster bed wrapped in mosquito netting, the long table where they serve a gorgeous breakfast spread overlooks the pool. You arrive and check-in at a coffee table in the entry courtyard. Put plainly: it may be close by, but don’t call it an airport hotel. 

You’re here for one night to get your bearings and then we’re off. 

Get Some Culture 

From Uga Riva, you’re off on a 4 hour drive to Uga Ullagalla, which is the same group’s hotel located in Anuradhapura. This is considered the center of the Cultural Triangle, as well as the birthplace of Buddhism in Sri Lanka. Needless to say, a stop here is non-negotiable. The hotel itself (well the original building) is 150 years old and positions you in the midst of everything from rice paddy fields and the sacred Bodhi tree to UNESCO world heritage sites and national parks, from horseback riding and archery to tuk tuk tours of the local villages. 

Despite how purely educational and scenic and cultural that sounds, I also really like returning to my villa’s private plunge pool. I’m not just here to learn, ya know? 

After two or three nights here, you’re pairing this with two nights at the Water Garden Sigiriya for three reasons: first, I mean look at it. Second, Sigiriya Rock Fortress is widely considered the crown jewel of the Cultural Triangle, with its terraced gardens and the rock-carved paws of the Lion Gate. And third, this helps to break up the journey from the Cultural Triangle to the Ceylon tea hills. 

To the Tea Hills 

From Sigiriya to the Ceylon tea plantations, which is another non-negotiable, you can either take a 4.5 hour drive or you can take a Cinnamon Air seaplane. To help you decide: if you’ve ever gotten carsick, even once, you can take the seaplane on this route. One of my travel companions tends to get carsick and she was simply not okay. I, however, don’t and beyond worrying about her, I really enjoyed the scenic drive. 

However you choose to arrive at your next hotel, Uga Halloowella, you will be rendered speechless. In a good way. 

A quick aside: By now you may be wondering why every other hotel starts with the word Uga. Uga is a Sri Lankan-owned hotel group with some of the country’s most spectacular properties and whose whole ethos is to show you the true, authentic, colorful, welcoming Sri Lanka. 

Now, about that speechlessness and the tea. It’s otherworldly. It’s romantic and beautiful and colorful, the rolling green hills of tea plantations that have been there since the first little shrub was brought to the country in 1824. This gorgeous hotel was once a tea plantation owner’s home and with only six rooms it feels very much like you’ve got the run of the place now. Luckily, despite this being your home now, you don’t have to do the cooking. That responsibility falls to the genius they have in the kitchen, Chef Danu, who made some of the most gorgeous food of my entire stay in the country. 

And then in the evenings, the team served us Proseccos by the fire after dinner. In the mornings a gorgeous and healthy and colorful breakfast spread by the bay window. One afternoon, I spent a good amount of time in the hotel’s small outdoor massage room, being cared for by the lovely therapist as we listened to the breeze rustle the woven curtains separating us from the storm brewing outside. 

But it was at midday that we immersed ourselves into our surroundings. We walked through the hills to see up close the incredibly demanding work it takes to take those plants from seed to harvest to our tea cups. And needless to say you’ll appreciate each sip in a new way after seeing this. Only women pick the tea leaves, which they do by hand in the blistering sun and with leeches in the fields, biting at their bare feet. They pick barefoot because it provides the best traction on the sloped hillsides. They collect the leaves — youngest and smallest to make white tea, medium leaves for green tea, largest and oldest for black tea — and weigh them at different times during the day. Those heavy bags are then transferred to the factory for processing by the men. It is grueling, it is eye opening. 

On Safari

And now you’ll travel from the cool, lush, green tea hills to the tropical coastline by seaplane. (Or 7.5 hour drive, your pick.) 

You’re heading for Yala National Park, which is where you’ll have the chance to see Asian elephants, wild monkeys in the trees, herds of buffalo, and cheetahs napping in the shade. Here, you have a few hotel options: Uga Chena Huts (with its oceanfront sundowners and excellent safari guides), Warden’s House (for extremely English Patient vibes and far fewer fellow guests), or Wild Coast Tented Lodge (Uga Chena Huts’ “neighbor” in the same section of the park, but with the Relais & Chateaux stamp of approval on the food offerings). 

We were lucky enough to bump around on a morning and evening game drive, seeing everything that Yala National Park has to offer, animal-wise. We ate gorgeous fish curries outside, beneath the stars, with our toes in the sand. Please, someone, remind me why we actually boarded our return flight? 

Moonstones, Cinnamon, and Dutch Forts – A Classic Combination 

From your lovely safari, you’re now hopping in the car for your last two (ok, technically three) stops which hug the coastline. 

Before you make it to your next hotel, you’re all but required to do some shopping. You’ll notice you haven’t done any of that yet. This is highly specific shopping, though — first, you’ll stop at a cinnamon farm where you’ll see the trees, the bark, the sticks, the powder, the oil, everything. And if you, like I did, post about this on Instagram after you went to the farm, you will have to apologize to many people asking you to bring some home for them. Get ahead of it by buying extra for your lucky friends and family. In the same area, moonstone, sapphires, and so many other precious and semi-precious stones are mined and hand-cut into gorgeous pieces that you can buy set or loose. I bought a cat eye moonstone which I had reset on site to the exact style I wanted in, oh I’d say… 6 minutes. 

From there, you’ll stop for lunch on the seaside with a breeze washing over you while you sip on a mango juice or a g&t waiting for your seventh fish curry of the trip. (I will tell you from personal experience, you will not tire of said fish curry. You will, in fact, order it on your last day for both breakfast and lunch.) 

After your seaside lunch, you’ll stop for freshly hacked-into coconut from a street vendor before checking in to either Amanwella or the brand new Uga Prava. At both, you will be stunned by the picture perfect beauty of the beaches and you will be stunned by the excellent food and you will be stunned by a sudden desire to learn how to surf. To be very clear, they had to drag me off this beach when it was time to press on. 

The next stop, though, is well worth it: Galle Fort. 

For your second to last stop in Sri Lanka, I suggest a one or two night stay at Amangalla, which is unquestionably special. You can feel the history here — your stay begins with both a tea and candle lighting ceremony in the colonial-style lobby. Your stay continues with a fish curry that will make you say to yourself, “they can’t all be this delicious!” And the next morning, you’ll find yourself in the perfect spa and wondering if the hotel can extend your stay. 

What’s extra special about Amangalla is that it’s located inside Galle Fort, otherwise known as the Dutch Fort which was perhaps obviously built by the Portuguese. (It was fortified by the Dutch in the 1600s). In the late 1700s, it was taken over by the Brits and it now stands as a really, stunningly beautiful piece of living, colonial history. Complete with cool coffee shops, boutiques, and this stunner of an Aman hotel. 

Back to Colombo 

Before you fly out, there’s one more thing you must do — a cooking class. With a grandma. Trust me when I say that without her guidance, you will go home and you will not make an even remotely comparable fish curry. There’s also a really fun Jeep tour you can take in the city, which I recommend because it’s a dynamic, if chaotic, place to discover. 

Now, here’s the truth about Sri Lanka. This route? This exploratory, complex, diverse, beautiful route? It merely scratches the surface. This place draws you in and as you’re in the car on the way to the airport, waving a wistful goodbye, it casually mentions that you missed out on whale watching, and the cool monastery where you can do yoga, and the wild horse safaris in the north and the Buddhist nuns who will meditate with you. And so, naturally, you recover from jet lag and then you look at your calendar and wonder how soon is too soon to go back to Sri Lanka. 

What to Pack 

One thing about Sri Lanka is that the season is very important. It’s temperate all year, but it’s very muggy in summer. In some parts of the country, it’s oppressively muggy. Plan accordingly! 

I was there during a very muggy time (May), so my short Natalie Martin dresses were light, wispy lifesavers. 

I paired them, almost daily, with my white Birkenstocks. 

Buck Mason t-shirts, too, were in heavy rotation paired with classic AGOLDE denim shorts. 

‍Le Specs sunglasses, from Amazon, are a frequent purchase of mine — if I lose them or scratch them or break them, I truly don’t worry about it. They are $60. These came in handy with all this moving around. 

Then, I adore Megababe deodorants and have found them to be, without any scientific research on my part, the only ones that seem more natural than the bad chemical-y ones but that actually work. (I will not be doing any follow up research on this.) 

And my Away carry-on roller bag is my trusty companion, so much so that it’s all kinds of dinged and scratched and I can’t bring myself to replace her.