Arrive in Yala National Park, met and transferred to your accommodation. Yala put Sri Lanka on the safari map — leopard sightings here rival the best private reserves anywhere.
Dawn and dusk drives targeting the cats on the rocks and tracks. Arrive at Colombo and transfer to Yala National Park. Game drives in Block 1 for leopard, with elephant and crocodile by the lagoons.
Search the palu groves for sloth bear and the scrub for leopard. Game drives in Block 1 for leopard, with elephant and crocodile by the lagoons.
Transfer to Nuwara Eliya. Walk the tea estates and bird Victoria Park, with a tea-factory visit. Explore the hill country and rest in the cool highland air.
Explore the hill country and rest in the cool highland air. After the heat of the parks, the tea hills are a restorative change of climate and scene.
Transfer to Colombo. Settle in and explore the city's markets, temples and seafront. Take a half-day of wetland birding on the city's edge.
A final morning in Colombo — a last outing or a slow start as time allows — before the transfer onward and the journey home.
Dry season. Peak leopard viewing; June–July adds fruiting-season sloth bears.
Greener after the rains; good game, with the park busier over the holidays.
Cocoon-like tented suites on the wild Yala coast — the island's most dramatic safari lodge.
Restored planters' bungalows among the tea estates — Relais & Châteaux luxury in the hills.
A restored colonial villa in the heart of Colombo — intimate, elegant and central.
Thatched cabins with private plunge pools on the beach at Yala's edge — refined and secluded.
A grand colonial hotel at the heart of 'Little England', all timber and tea-country charm.
A large, dependable city hotel with full facilities, well placed for arrivals and departures.
Add nights, swap a park, extend to the coast — this route is a starting point, not a fixed menu. Tell us how you travel and we'll route the rest.