The Perfect Summer Holiday in Sri Lanka

14 days from £7,760 for 2025 per person

• Negombo
• Bogawantalawa Valley
• Haputale
• Gal Oya National Park
• Kuchchaveli
• Anuradhapura
• Colombo

This itinerary features in our Top 10 Summer Holidays.

Sri Lanka's cultural charms and natural beauty make her the perfect destination for an exotic summer holiday. For a relatively small island, Sri Lanka has an extraordinary range of attractions: temples and forts, world-class wildlife safaris, emerald tea plantations, beautiful palm-fringed beaches and some of the best boutique hotels in the world. For those who are planning a summer holiday, we have put together what we think would make the ideal vacation following the best seasonal weather. The south coast of Sri Lanka (where Galle is located) has monsoons during summer, but the less visited east coast of the island is at its sun-drenched best at this time of year.

Get your holiday off to a relaxing start at the Wallawwa, a chic little property just 15 minutes from the airport. From here travel to Sri Lanka’s renowned Tea Country – in the solitude of Ceylon tea land, you can enjoy private walking tours through tea plantations to watch women pluck tea leaf by leaf and learn how it is harvested, dried and aged. Bed down at Tea Trails’ utterly spoiling Norwood, a colonial bungalow built for British tea estate managers in the days of the Raj. The service and attention to detail here is truly exquisite; enjoy cream teas by the log fire, dips in the swimming pool and indulgent spa treatments.

Travel on to the “forgotten” hill station of Hatton and take the stunning train journey to Haputale to spend one night in the cool Central Highlands before heading to Gal Oya National Park. This secluded wildlife paradise has some of the most beautiful lake and evergreen forest landscapes in Sri Lanka, but due to its location in the middle-eastern part of the island, it has remained almost entirely undeveloped. Stay in one of the eight spacious lodges at the Gal Oya Lodge. We highly recommend going on boat safaris where you can spot elephants swimming from island to island!

Next, is it time for you to hit the beach: Jungle Beach is a fun stylish resort with cabins built into the forest canopies. Take day trips to the old Dutch fort town of Trincomalee, which has a wide expanse of white sandy beach scattered with colourful fishing boats and the ideal spot for dolphin and whale watching excursions. Finally, head back inland to Ulagalla Resort, which is Sri Lanka’s best eco-luxury resort and a deeply romantic and pampering place to end your holiday. From here you can enjoy Sri Lanka’s most fascinating cultural treasures, including Sigiriya Rock, Anuradhapura, Mihintale, Ritigala and Dambulla.

This luxury holiday is purely a suggested itinerary; it can be booked as it is or used as a starting point for creating your perfect tailor-made tour of Sri Lanka. If you would like to see similar trips, take a look at our collection of Honeymoons, as well as our Beach, Spa and Wildlife itineraries.

The first condition of understanding a foreign country is to smell it.
Rudyard Kipling