Destination Category: Hill Country & Adventure Landscapes

Sri Lanka’s central highlands offer a completely different version of the island – cooler, greener, more atmospheric, and defined by the tea estates that have covered these hillsides since the 1860s and still produce some of the world’s finest Ceylon orange pekoe. The highland railway is among the most beautiful in Asia. The plateau viewpoints are genuinely dramatic. And the trekking available across the Pekoe Trail, the Knuckles Mountain Range, and the highland escarpments rewards any level of ambition from a morning’s walk to a multi-day expedition.

Kalpitiya

The northwest peninsula that has become the Indian Ocean’s premier kitesurfing destination and one of its finest locations for spinner dolphin encounters – enormous super-pods of hundreds and sometimes thousands of animals regularly encountered offshore in a setting of raw coastal beauty completely unlike the more developed resort areas of the south and west. Kalpitiya’s […]

Ella

The hill country village that earns its reputation every single time – a small highland community positioned in a dramatic natural gap where the mountains open toward the southern plains, with the colonial-era Nine Arch Bridge nearby, Little Adam’s Peak’s easy hike to a panoramic ridge, and a relaxed cafe and food scene that makes […]