Sri Lanka with Kids

Sri Lanka's cultural capital, home to the sacred Temple of the Tooth Relic.

Sri Lanka's energetic capital - colonial quarters, temple treasures, seafront promenades, and the island's best food.

Five golden caves filled with 153 ancient Buddha statues and stunning religious murals.

Home of 'The Gathering' - the largest meeting of wild Asian elephants on Earth.

A long ribbon of white sand north of Trincomalee, with calm turquoise water and Pigeon Island offshore.

Nuwara Eliya's centrepiece lake - swan boats, pony rides, and misty mountain reflections in 'Little England'.

A famous banana-shaped bay minutes from Galle, with calm swimming, reef snorkelling, and a jungle-clad headland.

Colombo's beloved ocean-front lawn - kites, street food, and the whole city gathered for sunset.

Beach town famous for coral reefs, diving, and a lively backpacker scene.

The home of Sri Lanka's spectacular devil-dance masks and traditional mask-carving workshops.

Badulla's famous 'bridal veil' waterfall, reached by a fun kilometre-long jungle path.

The safari crossroads of the Cultural Triangle - a village lake, catamaran rides, and every park within reach.

A lively fishing city near the airport, famous for its lagoon, Dutch canals, and fiery seafood.

The most reliable place in Sri Lanka to see wild elephants - hundreds live around the great Udawalawe reservoir.

A waterfall shaped perfectly like a sacred Bo leaf - Sri Lanka's most symmetrical cascade, minutes from Ratnapura.

The Jaffna peninsula's favourite swimming beach - shallow, calm water fringed by whistling casuarina trees.

The last king's ornamental sea - Kandy's mirror, ringed by a walking path and crowned by the Tooth Temple.

Sri Lanka's 'Little New Zealand' - rolling dairy pastures at 1,800 metres with farm visits and fresh milk.

Colombo's lakeside evening park - fountains, food stalls, and plant markets on the Diyawanna Oya.

A Ramsar-protected river-lagoon of 64 islands, mangrove tunnels, and cinnamon islands near Balapitiya.

A pristine, sheltered bay near Trincomalee whose glittering sand gave it its name - run by the Air Force and spotlessly kept.

Colombo's secret wilderness - a vast marsh of crocodiles, otters, and birdlife minutes from the airport.

Sri Lanka's grandest museum - the throne and crown of the Kandyan kings in a white Italianate palace of 1877.

A calm, shallow lagoon beach favored by families - rarely crowded.

Colombo's green heart - flame trees, a golden Buddha, and the white Town Hall rising over the lawns.

One of Asia's oldest zoos - a leafy Colombo institution of walk-through aviaries, big cats, and butterfly gardens.

A cool-climate mountain garden of roses and cloud forest beneath Hakgala rock, steeped in Ramayana legend.

A natural sea fountain at Kudawella that erupts up to 20 metres - said to be the world's second largest blowhole.

Colombo's stately memorial to 1948 independence - a stone assembly hall on lion-guarded steps, ringed by jogging lawns.

Seven warm wells with a Ravana legend - Trincomalee's ancient bathing ritual, bucket by bucket.

Minneriya's quieter twin, where hundreds of elephants gather around an ancient tank late in the dry season.

The heart of Sri Lanka's turtle conservation coast - nurseries, night nesting walks, and hatchling releases.

Sri Lanka's railway story in one yard - vintage steam locomotives and rolling stock at the top of the Kandy incline.

A historic royal forest rising behind Kandy's Temple of the Tooth, laced with shady walking trails.

Boardwalks through the old capital's marshes - the wildest corner of Ramsar-listed wetland Colombo.

Sri Lanka's largest natural freshwater lake - boat safaris, birdlife, and lakeside ease an hour from Colombo.

A century-old tea factory turned museum above Kandy - machinery, Lipton lore, and a tasting with a view.

A white-sand cove with a natural swimming lagoon and the south coast's famous palm rope swing.

Sri Lanka's first drive-through safari park - lions, elephants, and open enclosures near Hambantota.

Asia's finest botanical garden - 147 acres of royal palms, orchids, and giant trees in a bend of the Mahaweli.

A turquoise spring-fed lake ringed by pines and tea, hidden above Elkaduwa in the Knuckles foothills.

The gold standard of elephant care - orphaned calves raised wild and released, watched from a distance at feeding time.

'Little England's' formal park - flower terraces, cool air, and some of Asia's best urban birdwatching.

Home of Sri Lanka's biggest seated Buddha - 50 metres of serene concrete with a walk-through 'hell tunnel' below.

Negombo's dragon-mouth temple - walk through the jaws into halls of vivid murals and a six-metre Buddha.

Sri Lanka's widest waterfall - a curtain of a dozen cascades in the hills between Welimada and Nuwara Eliya.

Rolling green hills of tea estates where you can pick, process, and taste Ceylon tea.

The garden that changed the world economy - where Asia's first rubber trees were planted in 1876, near Gampaha.

Sri Lanka's longest bridge - 396 metres over Koddiyar Bay's mouth, with lagoon views and hot wells beyond.

The A5's famous tea stop - factory tours, estate views, and the legendary chocolate cake at 1,700 metres.

South Asia's tallest tower - a 351-metre lotus bud over Beira Lake with the island's highest observation deck.

The deep south's thermal pools - a renovated bathing garden in the scrub near Sooriyawewa, beloved by safari-goers.

The hottest springs on the island - steaming wells in the elephant country between Kandy and Ampara.

Nuwara Eliya's mini World's End - open grasslands with a nine-peak panorama and resident deer.

The Tudor-brick darling of 'Little England' - an 1894 post office still stamping letters under its clock tower.

The oldest building in Colombo Fort - a 17th-century hospital reborn as the city's favourite courtyard of restaurants.

A famous sanctuary for orphaned elephants, best known for the herd's twice-daily river bathing.

A brand-new district rising from the sea beside Galle Face - promenades, events, and Colombo's future skyline.

Matara's tunnel temple - a 39-metre Buddha above an underground maze of twenty thousand comic-strip murals.