Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka
Tea hills, ruined capitals and two coasts with opposite seasons
Photo by Hendrik Cornelissen on Unsplash
Photos by Jerry Kavan, Shashank Hudkar, Matt Dany and Yves Alarie on Unsplash
Best time to visit all of Sri Lanka
December to March for the south and west, July to August for the east
Climate month by month
The next sixteen days in GalleOpen-Meteo
Average high and low · °C
Rainfall · mm per month
Best months to visit This month · wettest 370mm in May
Where it is
7.29°N, 80.64°E Open in Google Maps
Things to do
Weeks of it- Climb Sigiriya at first light, before the heat and the crowds
- Take the hill-country train with the door open
- Walk the ramparts of Galle Fort at sunset
- Look for leopards on an early game drive in Yala
- Surf or learn to at Arugam Bay or Weligama
Sri Lanka travel tipsthe general rules
Currency budget Sri Lanka
Very cheapChange money at banks or licensed exchange counters rather than at the airport arrivals hall, where the rate is poorest. Cards are fine in hotels and city restaurants; everything else is cash.
ATMs & cards
Commercial Bank, Sampath and HNB machines are reliable and in every town. Expect a local fee of a few hundred rupees per withdrawal on top of your own bank's. Decline conversion.
Avoid these
- airport arrivals exchange counters
- hotel front desks
Use these instead
- Commercial Bank
- Sampath Bank
- HNB
- Bank of Ceylon
Most machines charge a local fee of a few hundred rupees on top of your own bank’s, so draw larger amounts less often. Almost everything outside hotels is cash.
Wherever you are: if the machine offers to charge you in your home currency, decline. That is dynamic currency conversion and the rate is set by the ATM's operator, not your bank.
Safety all of Sri Lanka
SafeSafe for travellers, including solo women, with ordinary care. The real risks are the roads and the sea: buses drive fast on narrow lanes, and the south-west coast has strong rip currents with almost no lifeguards. Check which monsoon is running before you pick a coast.
Where to walk, and where to pay attention (9 areas)
Comfortable, including after dark
Worth more attention
- Tuk-tuk meters — insist on one or use PickMe
- Rip currents on the south coast in the wrong season, which drown several visitors a year
- Gem and spice-garden commission scams
- Adam’s Peak — and the Ella train, where people fall taking photographs
Our own assessment, not a sourced index.
Entry & visa Sri Lanka visa rules
e-Visa requiredup to 30 daysUSD 50
The ETA is applied for online before travel and is normally granted within a day. Extendable to 90 days inside the country.
Other passports
e-Visa requiredup to 30 daysUSD 50
Entry rules change often and depend on your passport, not where you live — the official page above is the authority, and the airline checks before you board.
Before you fly: travel authorisation
Sri Lanka ETARequired
Before you fly; approval is usually quick but is not instant.
Have these in front of you before you start:
- passport
- the full address of your first night
- your onward or return flight date
Use the official link above. Sites that charge a "service fee" to submit one of these for you are not the government, and they want the same passport details the real form does.
Health & emergencies all of Sri Lanka
Good but costlyRequired to enter
- Yellow fever certificate, but only if you are arriving from a country where yellow fever is present
Jabs worth having, and what happens if you need a doctor
Worth having
- Hepatitis A
- Typhoid
- Tetanus up to date
- Rabies if you are cycling, hiking or staying long
- Japanese encephalitis for a long rural stay
Getting treated
Better than the region’s reputation. Colombo has good private hospitals — Nawaloka, Asiri, Lanka — where a consultation costs a fraction of European prices and the standard is high. Outside the cities it thins fast, and the road to a hospital is often the slow part. Take insurance that covers evacuation to Colombo, not just repatriation.
Dengue is endemic and peaks after each monsoon, so mosquito cover matters day and night. Rabies is present in dogs and monkeys — do not feed the monkeys at Sigiriya or Dambulla. The sea is the other one: rip currents on the south-west coast take swimmers every season.
Orientation, not medical advice — entry rules change and what you need depends on your own history. Check with a travel clinic four to six weeks before you go.
Food tip
Very goodRice and curry is not one dish but a spread of six or eight, and the best of it is in small places with no menu. Look for hoppers at breakfast, kottu roti after dark, and short eats at any bus stop. Ceylon tea is grown here and drunk sweet and milky.
Nightlife
Surf-town beach bars in the south, a growing rooftop scene in Colombo, and a full-moon Poya day each month when no alcohol is sold anywhere.
- Mirissa — the beach bars, and the whale boats
- Unawatuna — the busier, older beach strip
- Colombo 3 — the city rooftops and the hotel bars
- Arugam Bay — the east coast, in the other season
Closing: Midnight to 02:00 on the beaches.
A beer in a bar: 400–900 LKR
Poya day, at every full moon, is a public holiday on which alcohol is not sold anywhere — hotels included. Check the date.
Getting around
Workable- UberWorks here
- PickMeWorks here
- BoltNot here
- GrabNot here
PickMe the Sri Lankan one, and the better app here
- From the airport
- Colombo airport to Fort Rs 3,500–5,000
- Against a taxi
- Far cheaper than a tuk-tuk hailed on the street, where the price triples for a foreigner.
A metered tuk-tuk through PickMe is the cheapest way around Colombo by a distance.
Time zone and your working day
Asia/Colombo — 9½ hours ahead of you
0 hours of overlap with a 09:00–17:00 day where you are — — your time, — theirs.
No overlap with a 09:00–17:00 day where you are. Working from here means one of you keeps odd hours — their day starts at 23:30 on your clock.
office hours both at once night
Their 09:00–17:00 is 23:30–07:30 on yours.
The difference from the UK, Europe, the US and ten more
Worked out against America/New York, which is where this request looks like it came from.
Internet speedall of Sri Lanka
What these numbers mean
Home broadband — Fair. Video calls and streaming for one or two people — fine for a holiday, thin for a household working. Broadband here runs at 28% of the global median of 130 Mbps.
Mobile data — Fair. Maps, calls and streaming; tethering a laptop works for an hour, not a day. Mobile runs at 54% of the global median of 109 Mbps.
These are medians for the whole of Sri Lanka — Ookla does not break it down any further. The capital and the resort strips will beat the number and the remoter corners will fall below it.
A median is the middle of every connection tested there, old copper and new fibre together — so in a country part-way through laying fibre it sits well below what a fibre line actually delivers, and a rental on one can run several times this number. Half of the connections are slower; a fibre flat is rarely one of them. It says what a place can do, not what your rental does, so every listing on Holistay carries its own measured speed and the date it was tested.
Getting online: Airalo or Holafly — a data eSIM for Sri Lanka, installed before you fly and working the moment you land.
Source: Ookla Speedtest Global Index · measured June 2026
Must-see
Where to base yourself
A country you move through rather than base in, and the classic route is a loop: the cultural triangle, the hill country, a national park, the south coast. The trains and drivers make it easy; trying to do it from one hotel does not work.
Negombo
A beach town twenty minutes from the airport, north of Colombo.
Almost every flight lands at an awkward hour, and this is a bed near the terminal that is on a beach rather than in the capital's traffic.
20 to 30 minutes by road from Bandaranaike (CMB).
Sigiriya and Dambulla
The cultural triangle, around the rock fortress and the cave temples.
Sigiriya is the single most striking thing in the country, and it has to be climbed early — which means sleeping within half an hour of the gate.
4h by road north-east from Colombo or the airport.
Kandy
The last royal capital, around a lake in the hills.
The Temple of the Tooth, and the start of the hill-country railway — the reason to be here as much as the city itself.
3h to 4h by road, or about 3h by train from Colombo.
Ella
A small town high in the tea country, on the railway.
The train ride in from Kandy or Nuwara Eliya is the most beautiful in Asia, and the walks here — Little Adam's Peak, the Nine Arch Bridge — start from the village.
6h to 7h by train from Kandy, which is the point rather than the cost.
Clearest January to March; the hills are in cloud much of the rest of the year.
Yala or Udawalawe
The two southern national parks, a couple of hours apart.
Yala has the highest leopard density in the world; Udawalawe is elephants, all year, with a fraction of the jeeps. Pick one — they are not both worth a day.
2h to 3h by road from Ella, on the way to the south coast.
Yala is best February to June, when the water dries down and the animals come to it.
Galle and the south coast
A Dutch walled town on a headland, with the surf beaches east of it.
The fort is a working town inside ramparts, and the beaches from Unawatuna round to Tangalle are where a Sri Lanka trip usually ends. Whales leave from Mirissa.
2h by expressway from Colombo, or 1h30 from the airport by the coastal road.
The south coast season is December to April. Blue whales off Mirissa are December to March.
Nearby day trips
Say a few words
Sinhala
- HelloAyubowanAH-yu-bo-wan
- PleaseKarunakaraka-ru-NAA-ka-ra
- Thank youSthuthiSTOO-tee
- Yes / NoOw / Nahaoh / NA-ha
5 more phrases
- Excuse meSamavennasa-MAA-wen-na
- How much is it?Keeyada?KEE-ya-da
- The bill, pleaseBila gennaBI-la GEN-na
- DeliciousRasaiRA-sigh
- GoodbyeGihin ennamGI-hin EN-nam
Tamil is the other official language and is what you will hear in the north and east, and among the tea-estate communities in the hills. English is widely understood in the places visitors go.
Religion
Buddhist, with Hindu, Muslim and Christian minorities
Theravada Buddhism is woven into daily life and into the law: poya days, at each full moon, are public holidays when alcohol is not sold and meat can be hard to find. Temples expect covered shoulders and knees and bare feet.
Do's and don'ts
Do
- Take your shoes and your hat off at every temple, and cover shoulders and knees
- Use your right hand to give, take and eat; the left is for other things
- Ask before photographing monks, and stand beside them rather than in front
- Expect the head wobble — it means yes, or agreement, or "I hear you", and rarely no
Don't
- Never turn your back on a Buddha statue for a photograph — it is an offence people have been deported for
- Do not get a visible Buddha tattoo; travellers have been refused entry over them
- Do not touch anyone on the head, including children
- Do not point the soles of your feet at a person or a shrine when you sit down
Where to stay in Sri Lanka
No Holistay rentals in Sri Lanka yet — the platform is just opening up. Every listing here will have a video tour and the option to negotiate the nightly price directly with the host.
In the meantime, here is Sri Lanka on the sites that do have the inventory — each search is already filled in:
- Booking.com hotels, guesthouses and apartments — the widest coverage almost everywhere
- Airbnb whole homes and apartments, and the better option for a week or more
How to get there
Fly into Bandaranaike, Colombo CMB
1hfrom the airport· 84 km as the crow flies
An hour south to Colombo, or three straight to Kandy if you are skipping the city.
Also worth pricing: Mattala Rajapaksa HRI — near the southern beaches, and famously empty.
Google Flights · Rome2Rio for the trains, buses and ferries as well as the flights
