The Hill Country

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

A lush hill-country village with iconic train rides, waterfalls, and tea plantations.

'Little England' - a cool hill-station surrounded by endless tea estates.

A dramatic highland plateau with World's End cliff and misty cloud forest.

A ridge-top tea town with edge-of-the-world views, misty monasteries, and the gateway to Lipton's country.

Sacred mountain with a pilgrimage trail and sunrise views across the Central Highlands.

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

Sri Lanka's great multi-faith pilgrimage town, sacred to Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, and Veddas alike.

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

Ella's iconic colonial railway viaduct - nine stone arches curving through jungle and tea, best seen as a train crosses.

A remote highland station and the hair-raising hairpin road to Bambarakanda - the hill country's wildest day out.

Sri Lanka's tallest waterfall - a 263-metre thread of white falling through pine forest near Kalupahana.

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

Ella's beloved sunrise hike - forty-five easy minutes through tea to a ridge with enormous views.

The stupa marking the Buddha's first visit to Sri Lanka - the island's oldest place of Buddhist worship.

Sri Lanka's highest mountain at 2,524m - a cloud-forest summit you can actually drive to.

Visit the indigenous Veddha people and learn about traditional forest knowledge.

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

A dizzying spiral tower on a mountain summit near Gampola, with 360° views and a heart-pounding final staircase.

The hill country's mildest address - a planters' town of orchards, colonial hotels, and perfect walking weather.

A 14th-century shrine whose carved wooden pillars are counted among the finest woodwork in the world.

A scenic ridge walk overlooking Kandy Lake and the surrounding hill country.

A majestic 14th-century temple rising from bare rock, blending Buddhist shrine and Hindu devales under one soaring roof.

The highest railway station in Sri Lanka - a misty 1,898-metre platform at the gateway to Horton Plains.

A 109-metre triple-tier waterfall tumbling beside the Kandy–Nuwara Eliya road at the Ramboda Pass.

The 'Sea of Bintenna' - an ancient tank with a unique rock-cut sluice, dug by a giant in legend.

Sri Lanka's oldest surviving wooden bridge - a 16th-century roofed crossing built without a single nail.

Seven colossal figures carved into a jungle cliff - including Sri Lanka's tallest standing Buddha.

A drowned valley of tea and mist near Hatton - Sri Lanka's most beautiful reservoir and its finest bungalow country.

A graceful 97-metre triple cascade named for a coffee planter - St. Clair's elegant neighbour on the tea highway.

A roadside cave temple near Ella hiding a 12-metre unfinished Buddha carved into the cliff.

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

A hillside of colonial stories behind the Tooth Temple - 195 graves and a caretaker who knows them all.

A colossal hilltop stupa raised for the temples drowned by the Kotmale reservoir - with tea-country views to match.

A mighty 126-metre cascade in the Maskeliya hills, framed by legend and hydro history.

The panoramic viewpoint above Haputale where Sir Thomas Lipton surveyed his tea empire.

The nine-peaked guardian of Uva - a 2,036-metre range with sunrise views reaching to the east coast.

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

The 'Little Niagara of Sri Lanka' - twin cascades pouring through tea country near Talawakele.

The holiest shrine in Sri Lanka - home of the Buddha's tooth relic and heart of the Kandyan kingdom.

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

A 98-metre plunge into a jungle amphitheatre near Ginigathhena - wilder and quieter than its tea-country cousins.

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

The engineering marvel where the railway spirals under itself - inspired, legend says, by a turban knot.

Sri Lanka's second-highest waterfall, with natural infinity pools you can swim in at the very lip.

Ella's serious hike - railway tracks, tea paths, and a cliff-top summit staring down the whole Gap.

A 64-metre waterfall pouring off the Hunnasgiriya heights above Elkaduwa - Kandy's closest big cascade.

The railway station on the ridge between two climates - walk the tracks where the island's weather splits in two.

A cliff-edge viewpoint above a sea of eastern lowland - Uva's answer to World's End, without the entry gate.

A serene 11-metre limestone Buddha in the forests of Moneragala - the tallest free-standing ancient statue on the island.

A dramatic 30-metre waterfall framed by jungle, near Ella.

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

A brightly painted Hindu temple at Seetha Eliya, held to be the very place Sita was held captive in the Ramayana.

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

Sri Lanka's tallest dam - a 122-metre concrete arch flung across the Mahaweli gorge, with a spectacular viewpoint.

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

The 'Potato Range' - a railway-flanked peak guarding the Kandyan gap, with one of the island's best half-day hikes.

A 26-metre white Buddha overlooking Kandy - an iconic modern shrine.

The 'Golden Valley of Ceylon Tea' - a planters' world of estates, bungalows, and mist that time forgot.

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.

An 18th-century cave temple across the river from Kandy, holding the finest Kandyan-era murals in existence.

The garrison town in the hills - Boer War history, cadet parades, and the Fox Hill viewpoint's grand sweep.

A Shakespeare-named cascade pouring through the Pundaluoya tea estates - tea country's prettiest secret.

The waterfall the trains window-shop - a bridal-veil cascade beside the line near Ambewela.

A 14th-century stone temple on a rock summit - the South Indian-styled jewel of the Kandyan three-temples loop.

The waterfall you reach by railway - a jungle cascade a short walk from a station with no road.

A 2,212-metre peak named for a railway - climbed from the station at its foot through tea and cloud forest.

The milk-white stupa of the sacred city - where tradition says the Buddha met the king of Kataragama.

Sri Lanka's second-highest peak - and the highest you can actually climb, across the wilds of Horton Plains.

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

Where Ceylon tea began - James Taylor's first field of 1867, his rock seat, and the ruins of his cabin.

Nuwara Eliya's walk-to waterfall - a 30-metre ribbon above the Pedro tea estate, wrapped in a tragic legend.

A road's-end village deep in the Knuckles, living traditionally beneath the sacred peak of Lakegala.

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

Badulla's ancient heart - one of the sixteen holiest shrines, founded on a visit by the Buddha himself.

The golden grass dome above Badulla - a sunrise summit that glows like its orange namesake.

A golden hilltop temple west of Kandy with 360° mountain views - Sri Lanka's most photogenic modern shrine.

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

The Mahaweli's mightiest reservoir - a vast dam and eagle country on the wild road from Kandy to Mahiyangana.

A 111-metre giant hidden above Hasalaka's paddy terraces - one of the tallest and least-visited falls on the island.

The cliff cave above Ella where legend hides Princess Sita - and archaeology finds 25,000-year-old Sri Lankans.

Sri Lanka's third-highest peak - an easy cloud-forest summit where legend says Ravana's sky-chariot landed.

The camping summit above Bambarakanda - a bare ridge with Sri Lanka's tallest waterfall at its feet.

A colossal unfinished stupa mound near Buttala - one of the largest ever attempted, wrapped in a tale of warring brothers.