Ultra Luxury
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.
The one who takes the whole house
You travel a few times a year at this level and you know what it costs, so what you are buying is not thread count. It is exclusive use: the bungalow with its own cook rather than a suite, the camp taken for your party, the helicopter that turns a four-hour road transfer into forty minutes of the coastline. You want one person answering the phone all week, and you want to be told plainly which properties are worth it and which are trading on a name.
What people come for
- Exclusive use of a house, villa or camp rather than a room in one
- Helicopter and private transfers where the road would cost a day
- A guide and a fixer for the whole trip rather than a new face each morning
- Access arranged in advance: sites before opening, private curators, kitchens
And who it is not for
- Travellers who would rather put the money into three more weeks than into private aircraft
- Anyone booking inside three months for January to March, when the dozen houses that hold up at this level are already taken
Trips that suit Ultra Luxury
The house on the ramparts
Nine days from Galle Fort to Yala and the coast
- Length
- 9 days
- Pace
- Gentle
- Bases
- 5 bases
From $7,650 · $850/day
Indicative, not yet costed
The planter's bungalow
Nine days through the old capitals and the tea, with the doors opened
- Length
- 9 days
- Pace
- Gentle
- Bases
- 6 bases
From $7,200 · $800/day
Indicative, not yet costed