Hills to Ocean: experience Sri Lanka, from tea hills to ocean waves

A little of everything, in the right order

Most people arriving for the first time want the whole island: the rock fortress and the tea train, one good safari, and a stretch of coast at the end where nothing is scheduled. The difficulty is not choosing what to see; it is sequencing it so the days do not turn into a series of long drives. That sequencing is the work.

Four different ways to be outside

Nature means four quite different holidays here, and confusing them is how people end up on the wrong trip. Some want the view without the climb. Some want the climb. Some want to not leave the sand. Some are here for the animals and would trade every beach for one good morning in a park.

• Slow Flow Nature·
• Active Nature·
• Beach Beach Beach!·
• Wildlife

The island through its people, kitchens and history

Sri Lanka has two thousand years of built history and a food culture that changes every eighty kilometres. Both are easy to see badly: a bus to a ruin, a hotel buffet labelled local. The difference is who takes you and whether you are expected to arrive hungry.

Small groups, fixed dates, people to travel with

Travelling alone in Sri Lanka is easy. Travelling alone and still having people to eat dinner with takes organising. These are dated departures with a small group and a leader, built around the two coasts that actually have a scene, in the months they actually have one.

Treatment, dentistry or a check-up, with the country around it

These trips cover planned procedures, two-stage dentistry, health screenings and longer Ayurveda stays. Each is built backwards from the clinical calendar, with a nearby base and genuinely empty recovery days. We arrange travel around the treatment; we do not provide treatment or medical advice.

Private houses, private aircraft, and a fixer on the ground

At this level the island stops being a set of hotels and becomes a set of arrangements: a tea planter's bungalow taken whole with its staff, a helicopter instead of the four-hour road to the parks, a curator who opens the site before it opens. The constraint is supply rather than money. There are perhaps a dozen properties on the island that hold up to this standard, they are small, and in February they are gone by the previous June.