Sri Lanka hill country tour

Planet

We work with selected local providers who are very committed to give guests the most authentic and original travel experience in Sri Lanka while leaving a lighter footprint on your trip. Our excursions maintain small-group sizes to limit the negative environmental impact in accordance to the carrying capacity of the visited site.

When traveling to Sri Lanka, you support a country that puts a lot of effort into sustainable tourism and good environmental management practices related to energy, water, waste water and solid management practices. For example, around 70 to 88% of Sri Lanka’s hotels use solar power and energy efficient lighting methods.

- Accommodation & Environment
We select the most exclusive and responsible resorts for you. For this tour we have chosen the Kahanda Konda for example, set amidst the palm fringed jungle and tea plantations, where local culture, wellness and luxury combine. Kahanda Kanda recycles all waste and its vegetable garden is organic, offering an abundance of tropical flowers, as well as mango trees and teeming with birdlife and wildlife - all to be explored at your leisure.

We have also chosen for you Camellia Hills, Goaotfell and Nine Skies, part of the Teardrop Group, a family-run, personal, small and single-use plastic-aware hotel company. Filtered water is used to cut down on plastic water bottles, there is solar water heating and the group has an extensive fruit and vegetable garden that supplies fresh produce where possible to the hotels’ restaurants.

In general, we are trying to keep the extra unneeded waste to a minimum in all our tours through our “bring it in, bring it out” policy for litter and rubbish such as food packaging and recycling wherever possible. In our UK and local offices we re-use or recycle the information booklets we provide to every client on arrival wherever possible. We also concentrate on providing information online via our website and electronically rather then producing a glossy brochure, hence reducing the use of paper and inks.

- Transport
Wherever possible we will try to include non-motorized ways of transport to limit your impact. This tour through the hills of the country is especially sustainable in terms of transport and impact, offering guided walking tours at Galle Fort, lake boat tours, walking at the waterfall trails, guided bicycle rides through the rice fields, train rides in the Hill Country or walks in Ella to Little Adam's Peak, Ella Rock or along the Nine Arch Bridge. When we use vehicles, we make sure that sizes are as small as appropriate and proper licensing on vehicles and certifying to national emission standards are maintained.

- Culture & Buildings
Visiting Nuwara Eliya and its shops, you can contribute to the maintenance of its colonial architecture, with its fairy tale cottages, red bricked buildings and rose gardens.

Also visiting Dhowa Rock Temple, a protected heritage site, will help preserve its large unfinished Buddha image, carved into the rock face, which is considered an example of Mahayana sculpture, dating back over 2000 years.

- Nature
Sri Lanka is full of bountiful wildlife and natural areas. You will be amidst nature and hills during most of your trip. Castlereagh Reservoir for example is a unique area in Sri Lanka, surrounded by verdant mountains and vibrant tea plantations, featuring lush green terrain lined with remarkably bright shades of orange shores separating the azure water and the land. The natural artistry of Castlereagh Reservoir is complimented by the Castlereagh Dam that, in fact, creates the Reservoir by amassing water from Kehelgamu Oya. Water in the Reservoir is used for generating hydroelectricity, a main source of electricity in Sri Lanka. Castlereagh is a place where one can see the human ingenuity seamlessly mingling with the nature.

Also the Koggala Lake offers rich bio diversities and eco system. The Lagoon is scattered with eight small islands that consist of lush mangrove swamps. Anchored in mud, the mangrove roots are coated with a variety of creatures, including barnacles, oysters and crabs. The dense, intertwining roots serve as nurseries for many fish species.

You also have the possibility to experience the charming coastlines and maybe be able to swim with giant turtles at Dalawella Beach in Galle.

People

We strive to help our clients connect with Sri Lanka and its local population in interesting and insightful ways. Our partners have a reputation for possessing an intimate, in-depth knowledge of Sri Lanka, with purposeful dedication towards enabling guests meaningful experiences. This has benefited not only clients and operators, providing more fulfilling trips, but is also positively impacting our host communities, providing immediate income and making their lives more sustainable and productive.

- Supporting the community
Our local partners have helped many hosts to develop their experiences from a product development and pricing perspective, elevating their experience and its value. They have developed experiences from scratch with many hosts and communities to provide jobs and income to local populations e.g. The Sri Lankan Garden (also incredibly sustainable operation) and most recently with the new East Coast Project., working with an Australian NGO to develop experiences on the East Coast of the Sri Lanka, employing local staff and hosts in an area where there is a significant need. We choose our partners carefully and are constantly on the lookout for grassroots conservation projects and fair trade initiatives.

There are many of the hotels we work with that employ the majority of their staff from the local area, many have community initiatives in place and offer lucrative employment options in comparison to other trades.

- Campaigns & Charity
For many years our partners have worked with a small collection of schools where they have arranged for clients to help construct toilets, paint classrooms and have worked with charities such as The Foundation of Goodness and Child Action Lanka.

- Local culture, tradition & connection
We invite you to connect with the local community as much as possible, for example in the "city on the plain" Nuwara Eliya where you can visit local farmers or experience the Sinhalese and Tamil New Year celebrations in April.

And take a walk through the tea estate at Kahanda Kanda, learn about the whole tea process and meet the local tea pickers. Kahanda Kanda works with the surrounding villages and fosters Buddhist traditions, which play an extremely important role in the country both spiritually and culturally.