50 Things to Do in Sri Lanka

This is our ranked list of 50 things to do in Sri Lanka, from the ones almost every first trip includes to the ones worth a detour on a second. It is in four bands. The top 10 is the core of a first trip. Numbers 11 to 20 are what a two-week trip adds, a few at a time. Numbers 21 to 30 bring in Colombo, the north and the east. The rest are there to pick from by interest. Every entry links to a guide with the practical detail.

The top 10

These are the ten to build a first trip around. Each gets a fuller write-up, with how to fit them together, in the top 10 things to do in Sri Lanka.

• 1. Climb Sigiriya. The 5th-century rock fortress of King Kassapa I, with palace ruins on the summit. Sigiriya guide.
• 2. Ride the hill-country train. Tea estates, forest and mountains through open windows. The hill-country train ride.
• 3. Go on safari in Yala. The park for a chance of seeing a Sri Lankan leopard. Yala National Park.
• 4. Walk the walls of Galle Fort. Ramparts right round the old town, sea on one side and red roofs on the other. Galle Fort.
• 5. Visit the Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic. A living temple beside Kandy Lake; go for one of the daily rituals. Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic.
• 6. Walk to Nine Arch Bridge and the Ella viewpoints. A railway viaduct in the tea and two hill walks. Nine Arch Bridge and hiking around Ella.
• 7. Go whale watching from Mirissa. A morning at sea between November and April. Whale watching from Mirissa.
• 8. See the Dambulla cave temple. Five painted cave shrines above the town, easy to combine with Sigiriya. Dambulla Cave Temple.
• 9. Walk to World’s End on Horton Plains. A three-hour circular trail across a high plateau; start very early. Horton Plains National Park.
• 10. Watch the elephants gather at Minneriya. Herds on the grassy banks of an ancient reservoir in the dry season. Minneriya National Park.

11 to 20: what a two-week trip adds

• 11. Walk the ruins of Polonnaruwa. The medieval capital is compact enough for a single visit: palaces, stupas and the rock-cut Buddhas of Gal Vihara beside a great reservoir. A UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1982. Ancient City of Polonnaruwa.
• 12. See Anuradhapura at work. The older capital grew up around the Sri Maha Bodhi, a sacred fig tree, and its huge stupas are still places of daily worship. Come for the pilgrims as much as the ruins. Sacred City of Anuradhapura.
• 13. Climb Sri Pada by night. In the pilgrimage season, which runs from Unduvap Poya in December to Vesak Poya in May, pilgrims climb the lit steps of Adam’s Peak through the night to reach the summit by sunrise. It is long and steep, and busy at dawn. Sri Pada (Adam’s Peak).
• 14. Watch the sun rise from Pidurangala. A short, steep climb past a large reclining Buddha to a bare granite summit with the view across to Sigiriya rock. Pidurangala Rock.
• 15. See elephants at Udawalawe. A jeep safari in a park known above all for its elephants, and the Elephant Transit Home nearby, where orphaned calves come in for their milk and nobody rides, bathes or touches them. Udawalawe and the Elephant Transit Home.
• 16. Tour a working tea factory. Pedro Tea Estate is the easy one, just outside Nuwara Eliya. Dambatenne, above Haputale, is the factory Sir Thomas Lipton built in 1890 and it has not been tidied up for tourists. Pedro Tea Estate and Dambatenne Tea Factory.
• 17. Get up early for Lipton’s Seat. A hilltop lookout on the Dambatenne estate. On a clear morning the view runs over tea slopes to the plains far below. Lipton’s Seat.
• 18. Learn to surf in Weligama. A wide, sandy-bottomed bay with surf schools all along the beach, where a lot of people stand up on a board for the first time. Learning to surf in Weligama.
• 19. Surf Arugam Bay. A string of point breaks on the east coast, with a season Sri Lanka Tourism gives as April to October. More a surf trip than a beach holiday. Surfing around Arugam Bay.
• 20. Do nothing much in Mirissa. A curved bay with places to eat and sleep close at hand, and the harbour the whale boats leave from. Mirissa.

21 to 30: Colombo, Kandy’s surroundings, the north and east

• 21. Swim at Unawatuna and Jungle Beach. Unawatuna is the beach base closest to Galle Fort. Jungle Beach, a small cove on the far side of the Rumassala headland, is best early in the day in the dry season, when it is quiet and the water is calm. Unawatuna and Jungle Beach.
• 22. Give Colombo a day. A temple early, the market before noon, a museum in the hottest hours and the seafront at sunset. 1 Day in Colombo strings together Gangaramaya Temple, Pettah Market and Galle Face Green.
• 23. Walk the Royal Botanic Gardens at Peradeniya. 147 acres in a loop of the Mahaweli River, about 5.5 km west of Kandy, with more than 4,000 plant species. A shady half day. Royal Botanic Gardens, Peradeniya.
• 24. See the Kandy Esala Perahera. Ten nights of processions in July or August: drummers, dancers, fire-spinners and decorated elephants. It is a religious festival, not a show, and the crowds are very large. Is the Kandy Esala Perahera worth it?
• 25. Walk in Sinharaja rainforest. UNESCO calls it the last extensive patch of primary lowland rainforest in Sri Lanka. You go with a guide, looking for birds, butterflies and other wildlife found only in Sri Lanka. Sinharaja Forest Reserve.
• 26. Take a long safari in Wilpattu. Sri Lanka’s largest national park, known for its villus, shallow natural lakes where leopards and sloth bears come to drink. Wilpattu National Park.
• 27. Snorkel at Pigeon Island. A coral reef about 1 km off Nilaveli beach, with a chance of blacktip reef sharks and sea turtles in the shallows. Pigeon Island National Park and Nilaveli.
• 28. Climb to Koneswaram temple. A Hindu temple to Shiva on Swami Rock, the cliff-edged headland at Trincomalee, reached through the gate of Fort Frederick. Koneswaram Temple and Fort Frederick.
• 29. Spend a few days in Jaffna. Tamil Hindu temple life, a large colonial fort and food you won’t find in the south. Start at Nallur Kandaswamy Temple. Jaffna and Nallur Kandaswamy Temple.
• 30. Take a ferry to the islands off Jaffna. Boats from Kurikadduwan jetty go to Nainativu, with its Buddhist and Hindu temples a short walk apart, and to Delft, an hour away, for feral ponies, fields fenced with stacked coral and a giant baobab. Nagadeepa Purana Viharaya, Nagapooshani Amman Temple and Delft Island.

31 to 50: pick by interest

• 31. Swim above Diyaluma Falls. A chain of rock pools above one of the tallest drops in Sri Lanka. Only for people who are steady on bare, sloping rock; the roadside view of the full fall is worth the stop either way. Diyaluma Falls.
• 32. Hike in the Knuckles. Cloud forest, grassland and steep ridges north-east of Kandy. Expect mist, mud and leeches. Knuckles Conservation Forest.
• 33. Raft the Kelani River at Kitulgala. A few hours of rapids through forested country, on the way between Colombo and the hills. White-water rafting at Kitulgala.
• 34. Take a boat through the Madu Ganga mangroves. Narrow channels, waterbirds, monitor lizards and an island temple, an easy half day from the south-west beaches. Madu Ganga.
• 35. Watch turtles at Hikkaduwa. A shallow reef and lagoon off the main beach, where sea turtles graze a few metres from the sand. Hikkaduwa National Park.
• 36. Slow down in Tangalle. A quieter beach base, within reach of the night-time turtle watch at Rekawa and the painted cave shrines of Mulkirigala. Tangalle and Mulkirigala Rock Temple.
• 37. Look for dolphins off Kalpitiya. Boats go out for spinner dolphins from a peninsula that is also the country’s best-known kitesurfing base. Kalpitiya.
• 38. Eat your way round. Rice and curry at any meal, hoppers and string hoppers for breakfast or dinner, kottu in the evening. Sri Lankan food.
• 39. Stop at Ravana Falls. A tiered waterfall right beside the road south of Ella. It needs a short stop, not a morning. Ravana Falls.
• 40. Cool off in Nuwara Eliya. A hill town at 1,868 m, surrounded by tea, with colonial-era buildings and the nickname “Little England”. The base for Horton Plains. Nuwara Eliya.
• 41. Climb Mihintale. The hill east of Anuradhapura where, by Buddhist tradition, Buddhism first reached Sri Lanka. Stupas, caves and wide views. Mihintale.
• 42. Find the forest monastery at Ritigala. Stone paths, platforms and bridges under the trees, and none of the stupas and statues of the ancient capitals. Ritigala.
• 43. Go birdwatching at Bundala or Kumana. Bundala’s lagoons are a wintering ground for migrant waterbirds on the south coast. Kumana, beside Yala on the south-east coast, is known for its nesting waterbirds. Bundala National Park and Kumana National Park.
• 44. Wade out at Pasikuda. An east-coast bay known for shallow, calm water, at its best in the middle of the year. Pasikuda and Kalkudah.
• 45. Go whale watching from Trincomalee. The mid-year alternative to Mirissa, from about May to August, usually as a short morning trip. Whale watching from Trincomalee.
• 46. Join the evening puja at Kataragama. A pilgrimage town where Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims and the Vedda people all worship. It pairs naturally with a Yala safari. Kataragama.
• 47. Take a boat safari in Gal Oya. You cross Senanayake Samudraya, the country’s largest reservoir, past islands where birds nest and elephants come out to feed. Gal Oya National Park.
• 48. Climb the stairway at Yapahuwa. A 13th-century royal capital on a granite rock, with a steep stone stairway carved with dancers and lions, and none of Sigiriya’s queues. Yapahuwa Rock Fortress.
• 49. Go to the end of Mannar Island. A fort, a giant baobab, flamingos on the salt flats in the northern winter, and the sandbanks of Adam’s Bridge setting off towards India. Mannar Island.
• 50. See the stilt fishermen, knowing what you are looking at. Fishermen perched on poles in the shallows are a south-coast image, but these days it is mostly for the camera: at Koggala the Sunday Times found in February 2025 that the fishermen charged foreign visitors for each photo. Ahangama has the detail.

How to use this list

Nobody does all 50 in one trip, and you shouldn’t try. Pick a length first: how many days you need in Sri Lanka shows what fits into 5, 7, 10, 14 and 21 days. Then check the month. From December to March the south and west coasts and most of the hill country are at their driest; from May to September it is the east coast and the north. So Arugam Bay, Pasikuda, Pigeon Island and the Trincomalee whale boats belong to a mid-year trip, and Mirissa, Weligama and Unawatuna to a winter one. The best time to visit guide goes month by month.

A few entries depend on dates. Sri Pada has a pilgrimage season, the Perahera happens on ten nights in July or August, and the elephants gather at Minneriya in the dry season. Plan around those first and fit the rest in.

Header photo: Rovin Shanila / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0. Last checked 10 October 2026