Sri Lanka Classic 2027

Fourteen nights across Sri Lanka, driven in the guest’s own or a supplied car, a rally finishing at the Galle Face Hotel, with the price quoted on application.

Sri Lanka packs a remarkable amount into a small island. Paddy fields, tea country above 1,800 metres, ancient capitals, a Dutch fortified town and both coasts all fall inside a fortnight’s driving without any long dull transits.

The route runs through paddy fields and mango groves, then forest and coastal roads, and up into the highlands and the tea gardens the British planted from the 1860s, where the mist sits in the valleys most mornings. Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa follow, two of the ancient capitals, with ruins and dagobas spread over miles of parkland, then Jaffna in the far north, which was closed to visitors for decades and is Tamil and Hindu in a way the south is not. Galle closes the cultural half, its old town walled by the Dutch in the seventeenth century and still lived in. Trincomalee and Tangalle supply the beaches, with whales sometimes seen off the south coast, and the finale is at the Galle Face Hotel in Colombo, which has been taking guests since 1864.

A curated selection of hotels, lodges and tented camps throughout and the finale stay at the Galle Face are included; international flights, fuel and most meals are not specified and need confirming. The price is given on application. The island has two monsoons on opposite coasts, so the season depends on the route, and the operator’s dates will reflect that. Fifteen days is enough to see both coasts and the hill country properly rather than choosing between them.