Sri Lanka: The island circle
When to go
December to April. Sri Lanka has two monsoons: the southwest monsoon, roughly May to September, brings the rain to Colombo, the south coast and the hill country, and the northeast monsoon, roughly October to January, wets the north and the east. This circle runs along the west and the south and through the hills, so it is at its driest from December to April. In the hill country it rains in the afternoon in any month, and Nuwara Eliya is cold at night all year.
The stops
Interactive map of the route on our site ›
- Colomboone night
The largest city and the commercial capital, though the official capital is Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte on its eastern edge, where parliament has sat since 1982. Galle Face Green, the long lawn on the sea where the city comes out in the evening, was laid out by the British governor Sir Henry Ward in 1859.
- Negomboone night
A fishing town on a lagoon north of Colombo, close to the airport, where the fishermen still go out in outrigger canoes and dry their catch on the beach. The Dutch, who took it from the Portuguese in 1644, left a fort gate dated 1678 and a canal through the town, and so many of its people are Catholic that it is called Little Rome.
- Dambulla Cave Templestop on the way
Five caves under an overhanging rock, turned into a temple, by tradition, by King Valagamba in the first century before the common era, after he hid here in exile. Inside are more than 150 statues of the Buddha and walls and ceilings covered in paintings; it has been a World Heritage site since 1991. Shoulders and knees covered, shoes off at the top of the steps.
- Sigiriya3 nights
In the fifth century King Kashyapa, who had seized the throne from his father, built his palace on top of this rock, about 180 metres above the jungle, and you still climb to it between the two great stone paws of the Lion Gate. Halfway up, on the Mirror Wall, visitors scratched poems from about the eighth century on, the oldest graffiti of the island.
- Polonnaruwastop on the way
The royal capital of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and under King Parakramabahu I a city of palaces, monasteries and a reservoir so large it is still called the Sea of Parakrama. At the Gal Vihara four figures of the Buddha, one of them lying down and some fourteen metres long, are carved out of a single face of granite.
- Aluvihare Rock Templestop on the way
A cave temple among boulders just north of Matale. By the chronicles of the island, it was here, in the first century before the common era, that monks first wrote down the teachings of the Buddha, the Pali canon, on palm leaves, after they had been passed down by mouth for centuries.
- Kandy2 nights
The last capital of the Sinhalese kings, which held out against the Portuguese and the Dutch and fell to the British only in 1815. On the lake stands the Temple of the Tooth, which keeps a tooth of the Buddha, and every July or August the Esala Perahera carries a replica of its casket through the streets on an elephant for ten nights.
- Nuwara Eliyastop on the way
A hill station at about 1,900 metres, settled by the British from the 1840s, with a racecourse, a golf course and red-brick bungalows, so it is still called Little England. All around are the tea estates: Ceylon tea began in 1867, when the Scottish planter James Taylor put in the first commercial field at Loolecondera, near Kandy. Most estates on the road let you see the leaf being withered and rolled.
- Ella2 nights
A village in a gap of the hills, where the land drops away to the southern plains, with two easy climbs, Little Adam’s Peak and Ella Rock, above it. The railway from Kandy to Badulla stops here, and the train through the tea estates, slow and with open doors, is the classic way to arrive; your driver can meet you at Ella station with the bags.
- Nine Arch Bridgestop on the way
A railway viaduct of nine stone arches curving across a jungle valley at Demodara, finished in 1921. It is built of stone, brick and cement without steel, and the story told locally is that the steel meant for it went to the First World War. Ask in Ella for the train times and be on the bridge path a little before one comes.
- Udawalaweone night
A national park of grassland around the Udawalawe reservoir, and the surest place on the island to see wild elephants by day. On its edge is the Elephant Transit Home, opened in 1995, which raises orphaned calves and returns them to the wild; at the feeding times you watch from a platform, without touching.
- Mulkirigalastop on the way
A rock some two hundred metres high, with cave temples on its terraces, painted and filled with reclining Buddhas, reached by more than five hundred steps; it is sometimes called the little Sigiriya. In the 1820s palm-leaf manuscripts from its library helped the British scholar George Turnour translate the Mahavamsa, the great chronicle of the island.
- Mirissastop on the way
A curved beach of palms on the south coast, and the harbour of the whale-watching boats: from about December to April blue whales, the largest animals that have ever lived, feed off this coast, close to the shipping lanes. The boats leave at dawn, so the trip is booked for an early morning from Galle.
- Galle3 nights
The Portuguese built the first fort here; the Dutch took the town in 1640 and from 1663 rebuilt the walls in stone, around a grid of streets that still stands, and the fort has been a World Heritage site since 1988. When the tsunami of 26 December 2004 struck, the old walls held back much of the sea from the fort, while the new town and the bus station outside them were devastated.
What it costs
Eighty dollars a night is the room. The car and the driver are yours: on this island almost every visitor hires a car with a local driver for the whole circle, paid by the day, and the price usually includes the fuel and his board; agree in writing before you start what is included. The expressways from Colombo to the south and toward Kandy are tolled, paid in cash at the exit. The large extra is the entrance fees: Sigiriya, Polonnaruwa, the Temple of the Tooth and the national parks charge foreigners many times what locals pay, and a jeep safari in Udawalawe is paid on top.
What to know
Three things. One, and above all: take a driver. Self-drive is allowed, but a foreign licence with an International Driving Permit is not enough on its own; you also need a Sri Lankan recognition permit, issued in Colombo by the Department of Motor Traffic or through the Automobile Association of Ceylon. The roads are chaotic: buses race each other and overtake on bends, three-wheelers, dogs and cyclists share every lane, and in the national parks and the hills wild elephants can stand on the road after dark. A driver costs little, knows the roads, and sleeps in the drivers’ quarters that most hotels keep for this, so it is the way almost everyone does this route. Two: Sri Lanka drives on the left. Three: the hill roads from Kandy to Nuwara Eliya and down to Ella are narrow and full of hairpins; an hour on the map is often two, and no one should drive them at night.
Roads, tolls and rules
Sri Lanka drives on the left. Only the expressways around Colombo and to the south are fast; everything else is a two-lane road through towns and markets, and forty kilometres an hour is a good average in the hills. The circle runs north from Colombo by Negombo to the ancient cities, south into the tea country and down by Udawalawe to the south coast. No day on it is longer than about 160 kilometres, but in the hills even 130 kilometres can take most of the day. From Galle the Southern Expressway brings you back to Colombo and the airport in about two hours.
Travel Sri Lanka: The island circle
The route on our site, with a room up to $80 every night.