Sri Lanka in September

Ancient capital with massive stupas, sacred Bo tree, and sprawling ruins.

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

The proud capital of Tamil Sri Lanka - grand kovils, a star fort, palmyrah groves, and legendary crab curry.

Sri Lanka's surf capital - a laid-back east-coast bay with world-class waves.

One of the world's finest natural harbours with pristine beaches and diving sites.

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

Sri Lanka's last great lowland rainforest - a UNESCO World Heritage Site bursting with endemic species.

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

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

A riot of sacred colour on the Kandy–Dambulla road - one of Sri Lanka's most spectacular Hindu gopurams.

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

Colombo's most famous Buddhist temple, with the serene Seema Malaka pavilion floating on Beira Lake.

King Dutugemunu's great white dagoba - the most beloved stupa in Sri Lanka and a wonder of the ancient world.

Sri Lanka's largest national park - a wilderness of natural lakes, leopards, and sloth bears without the crowds.

Anuradhapura's great northern monastery - once home to 5,000 monks and a stupa that rivalled the pyramids.

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

A Ramsar wetland of lagoons and dunes where greater flamingos winter alongside crocodiles and elephants.

Polonnaruwa's supreme masterpiece - four colossal Buddhas carved from a single wall of granite.

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

Anuradhapura's rock temple of famous carvings - home of the celebrated 'Isurumuniya Lovers'.

The oldest historically documented tree on Earth - grown from the very Bo tree beneath which the Buddha awoke.

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

Trincomalee's laid-back village beach - golden sand, calm seas, and beach-shack dinners under the stars.

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.

A medieval capital ringed by giant animal-shaped rocks - climb Elephant Rock for sunset over the city and its lake.

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

The 'Sea of Parakrama' - a 12th-century reservoir so vast it made a king's boast literal, lapping at Polonnaruwa's ruins.

Arugam Bay's wild backyard - dawn canoe safaris among mangroves, elephants, and crocodiles.

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

A majestic 12-metre standing Buddha carved from a single granite cliff in the 5th century.

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

A laid-back lagoon city of Dutch forts, singing fish, and untouched east-coast beaches.

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

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

Sri Lanka's only boat safari park, where elephants swim between islands on a vast jungle-ringed reservoir.

The finest bathing architecture of the ancient world - twin stone ponds that served Abhayagiri's monks.

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

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

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.

One of Sri Lanka's two marine national parks - snorkel with blacktip reef sharks and sea turtles.

The most beautiful building of medieval Sri Lanka - a circular relic shrine of moonstones, guardstones, and perfect geometry.

Polonnaruwa's greatest stupa - a golden-pinnacled brick mountain in the ancient city's northern quarter.

Pettah's candy-striped marvel - a 1909 mosque so distinctive that sailors used it to recognise Colombo's harbour.

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

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

A 13th-century rock citadel with Sri Lanka's most beautiful ancient staircase - Sigiriya without the crowds.

The cave monastery near Matale where the Buddhist scriptures were first written down 2,000 years ago.

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.

The ancient port where the sacred Bo sapling landed in 288 BC - a serene seaside temple on the Jaffna coast.

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

A windswept coral island off Jaffna where wild ponies roam among baobabs and Dutch ruins.

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.

Claimed as the first Buddhist stupa in the world - built by seafaring merchants on a hill above the north-east coast.

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.

The great star fort of the north - Portuguese-born, Dutch-perfected, war-scarred, and reborn as Jaffna's sunset promenade.

The white phoenix of Jaffna - once among Asia's great libraries, burned in 1981 and rebuilt as a symbol of resilience.

King Dhatusena's 5th-century inland sea, whose canal to Anuradhapura falls just one foot every mile.

The 'Temple on the Hill' at Aluthgama, crowned by a 48-metre seated Buddha gazing over the west coast.

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

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

A vast ancient tank with birdlife, crocodiles, and water buffalo herds.

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

White-water rafting through lush forests on the rain-fed Kelani River.

The cliff-top abode of Shiva above Trincomalee harbour - one of the island's five ancient Ishwarams.

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

A cliff-top forest hermitage above the Kumana wilds, crowned by a rare cylindrical dagoba and vast jungle views.

A tiny park with a big spectacle - elephant herds feeding on tank grass beside the Arugam Bay road.

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

A remote park of reservoirs, rock outcrops, and elephants - the wild heartland of the Vedda people.

A perfect circle of ancient stone pillars crowning a rock - the loveliest vatadage in Sri Lanka, and the least visited.

The sacred mountain where Buddhism arrived in Sri Lanka in 247 BC - 1,840 steps to a summit of stupas and views.

One of the five ancient abodes of Shiva, tied to the Ramayana's ending - and host to a spectacular festival.

The grandest Hindu temple in Sri Lanka - golden gopurams, thunderous pujas, and a 25-day festival like no other.

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

The moated 12th-century capital of Parakramabahu the Great before Polonnaruwa - ruins, legends, and a princess's tower.

Sri Lanka's most important sea-turtle nesting beach, where five species come ashore at night.

The cave temple where silver ore funded the great stupas - with golden Buddhas and a shrine floor of Dutch tiles.

A mysterious mountain of ruined forest monasteries, rising abruptly from the dry-zone plains near Habarana.

The most serene face in Sri Lankan art - a 4th-century meditation Buddha that consoled Nehru in prison.

A relic stupa on the wild Mahaweli floodplain, where pilgrims and wild elephants share the sacred ground.

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

Colombo's birding secret - an ancient tank and paddy wetland where jacanas and kingfishers commute past the suburbs.

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.

The 'rice-sand' beach of the north-east - a remote cove near Pulmoddai where the sand grains look like polished rice.

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

The southern gateway to Sinharaja - a tea town with rainforest trails, river pools, and none of the crowds.

The hermit mountain of Polonnaruwa - two millennia of forest monks on a great rock east of the Mahaweli.

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

An ancient pool the size of six Olympic pools - the industrial-scale waterworks of the Abhayagiri monks.

A pink quartz mountain rising from Asia's largest ironwood forest - one of Sri Lanka's strangest, loveliest places.

The 'black water pond' - serene monastery ruins around a dark forest pool near Dambulla, with wildlife for company.

A 116-metre plunge in the gem country near Pelmadulla - among the tallest waterfalls in Sri Lanka.

A graceful small stupa ringed by vatadage pillars - the quiet sister among Anuradhapura's giants.

Polonnaruwa's brick cathedral - 17-metre walls funnelling to a colossal headless Buddha.

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

A 2,000-year-old temple in the dunes of Pottuvil - where east-coast tradition says a queen came ashore.

A small sacred island shared by a great Hindu kovil and one of Buddhism's holiest Sri Lankan shrines.

A mysterious stone shrine at the island's very centre, blending Buddhist and Hindu art like nowhere else.

A royal bath carved as a blooming lotus - Polonnaruwa's prettiest small wonder.

The last beach before the wilderness - dunes, lagoons, and empty surf where the east-coast road ends.

Geoffrey Bawa's island parliament floating on the Diyawanna - the modern capital's defining view.

The site of the world's worst rail disaster - memorials to the 2004 tsunami's victims beside the Galle road.

The northernmost tip of Sri Lanka - a lighthouse, a fishing town, and the end-of-the-island marker.

A jungle mountain of a thousand ruins near Ampara - believed to hold the ashes of Mahinda, who brought Buddhism to the island.

The royal pleasure gardens of ancient Anuradhapura - rock pools, bathing pavilions, and the enigmatic 'Stargate' carving.

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.

The seven-storey palace of Polonnaruwa's greatest king - massive brick walls and a carved council chamber.

Home of Polonnaruwa's finest frescoes - and the enigmatic 'thrice-bent' Buddha that names it.

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

The 'Buddhist kovil' of Trincomalee - a rare ancient temple venerated by Sinhala and Tamil devotees alike.

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

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

A 68-metre plunge in the wet hills above Ratnapura - gem country's forest waterfall.

A Ramsar wetland of ancient cascade tanks between Chilaw and Puttalam - heronries, mangroves, and morning bird clouds.

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

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

The Dutch conquest's first prize in Ceylon - a lagoon-moated fort where cannons still watch the singing waters.

Colombo's beloved suburban temple - a sacred Bo tree of ancient lineage and one of the city's grandest peraheras.

The east's forgotten Solosmasthana - a vast brick stupa marking the Buddha's meditation on his final visit.

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

The causeway gateway to Jaffna - salt lagoons, war memorials, and the isthmus every army in history had to hold.

A Dutch island fortress between Kayts and Karainagar - once a prison, now the north's most unusual dinner reservation.

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

A 7th-century tank with sunset views, toque macaques, and the quiet back door to Polonnaruwa.

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

A UNESCO biosphere reserve near Habarana offering reliable year-round elephant safaris.

Once the third-tallest structure on Earth - a mountain of 93 million bricks raised in the 3rd century AD.

Pasikuda's wilder twin - a vast, near-empty arc of east-coast sand backed by palm groves.

Jaffna's old port town - a colonial lighthouse, calm harbour beach, and the north coast reopening to the world.

The south's great rainforest - waterfall pools, giant creepers, and endemic wildlife without Sinharaja's crowds.

Legendary freshwater springs beside the northern sea, prized for healing baths and tied to ancient temple lore.

A sacred riverside temple near Colombo, believed to have been visited by the Buddha and adorned with celebrated murals.

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

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

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.

A forest of 1,600 stone pillars - all that remains of a nine-storey monastery roofed in bronze.

The quiet elephant corridor between Yala and Udawalawe - big herds, big reservoir, almost no jeeps.

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

The manor of the 'Kolonne King' - a labyrinthine 17th-century walawwa of courtyards, carvings, and tall tales.

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

The chief shrine of the god Saman, guardian of Adam's Peak - Ratnapura's great temple and its September pageant.

A century-old iron giant over the Mahaweli - the two-storey bridge where trains still rumble the top deck.

King Dutugemunu's first great stupa - built, the story says, to repay a forgotten chilli.

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

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

Jaffna's fabled 'bottomless' well - fresh water above, salt below, and a Ramayana arrow-strike origin story.

The pavilion of stone lotus stems - Polonnaruwa's most original architecture, built for a king to hear chanting.

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.

One of Asia's largest natural rock shelters - home to 37,000-year-old prehistoric Sri Lankans.

A tiny carved masterpiece - the wayside rest hall whose timber beams rival Embekka's fame.

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.

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

A spice baron's Edwardian fantasy mansion above the Kalu Ganga - teak, stained glass, and a poignant story.

Colombo's stupa on stilts - a harbour-mouth dagoba raised on arches so arriving ships see it first.

The easternmost tip of Sri Lanka - an empty cape of surf and light where the island's day begins.

The 'unfinished' twin of the Avukana Buddha - a colossal rock-cut statue in deep countryside solitude.

A 2,300-year-old stupa enshrining the Buddha's forehead relic, deep in the paddy country south of Trincomalee.

Sri Lanka's holiest Catholic shrine - 400 years of pilgrimage to a jungle church that sheltered generations.

Colombo's miracle church - a harbourside national shrine where every faith comes on Tuesdays.

A remote rock temple where the sacred Bo sapling rested on its journey - carved Buddhas on a wilderness outcrop.

The first stupa ever built in Sri Lanka - raised in the 3rd century BC over the Buddha's collarbone relic.

A beautifully kept Commonwealth cemetery near Uppuveli - resting place of the fallen of the 1942 Indian Ocean raid.

Boulder-cave hermitages of Anuradhapura's earliest monks, with inscriptions two thousand years old.

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

Colombo's grand Dutch survivor - a 1749 church whose floor is paved with the tombstones of colonial governors.

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