Sri Lanka tour, highlights & beaches

Planet

We love our planet. A commitment to responsible and sustainable tourism is part of our DNA and your holiday will be designed with this in mind. Our local partners are very well informed about the standards we have set and we ensure that they closely adhere to them. Our responsible tourism promise aims to ‘ creates better places for people to live in, and better places to visit’. Our specialist team designs each and every holidays with a responsible holiday and ethical tourism approach. We provide many opportunities for our clients to experience what the ‘real’ Sri Lanka is.

Environment and sustainability is high on our list of concerns. We take pride in the achievement of a healthy balance between environment, local people and you, the tourist. To ensure environmental awareness of our clients we provide them with detailed environmental information about places they visit, and how they can help. Visits to nature reserves and national parks are popular among holiday makers to Sri Lanka. We give instructions to both our clients and guides on how to minimise impact on environment disturbance to the wildlife.

During this tour we promote visits to National Parks, that includes Yala, Wilpattu, Horton Plains and Gal Oya. We encourage our customers to read about wildlife in the parks before visiting and spread awareness of environmental problems, including declining of the animal species. When people are aware of these problems they tend to care more about the environment. When visiting protected area we inform our clients to respect the environment and to ensure minimum impact. Gal Oya is one of the last visited parks in Sri Lanka and therefore a visit it is a excellent practise. The entrance fees will contribute towards wildlife conservation.

You will also be visiting Elephant Transit Home at Udawalawa National Park. This place is very important for elephants protection. Elephant Transit Home (ETH), where the orphan wild elephants are treated, raised and released back to the wild, also is located at Udawalawe. Visitors to this place can observe how the elephants are taken care of, twice a day. Total number of orphaned elephants exceeds 40, of which most of them are calves and juveniles. Here you will also learn about elephant-human problem and you can help by donating directly to the cause.

We ensure that the hotels that we choose for our holidays are doing something good for the environment, from recycling and growing their own fruits and vegetables, to using solar power. These practises reduce out trips impact on the environment.

People

Our clients are informed of how they can contribute to protect environment financially or if they would like to get involved in some local projects. We provide more enjoyable experiences for tourists through more meaningful connect ions with local people, and a greater understanding of local cultural, social and environmental issues.

One important area for sustainable tourism that we wish to highlight is ‘tea and spices’. Tea and spices are often purchased by tourists in Sri Lanka and taken home as a gift for friends or family. In our tours around Sri Lanka we encourage our clients to visit fairly-traded and organic tea and spices plantations. Visits to tea plantations is included in this program.

We also inform and advice our clients where they can buy products that have been fairly-traded. We encourage our clients to eat at least one meal per day in local restaurants. This is beneficial for both local businesses and for tourists. You will have an opportunity to visit local villages where you can purchase artisan crafts and art directly from the producer. You will also have many chances to try delicious, traditional food from small restaurants. Local communities will greatly benefit from the income they receive from this tour.

On this tour you have the option to a stay with a local family. This is a great opportunity to learn about the country. You can learn how to make traditional rice and curry from the locals! Visiting temples will help you to understand local traditions, culture and religion. Having knowledge about these will help you to understand and respect their life. We inform our clients about local culture, customs, how to behave, and what to wear whilst visiting places so as not to not offend local people and their culture.

You will also visit the Veddha indigenous community and as many of them are moving out of the traditional villages, tourism contributes financially to preserve their way of life. When visiting Kandy you will also see a cultural show. The income from the ticket sale help to preserve local traditions and culture alive.