Sri Lanka holiday, relaxation and beach

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 only the most exclusive and responsible resorts for you. For this tour we have chosen the Kahanda Kanda 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.

You will also stay at Wallawwa, The Fort Bazaar and Kumu Beach which are part of the Teardrop Group, a family-run, personal, small and single-use plastic-aware hotel company. Fort Bazaar and Wallawwa for example use LED lightbulbs, filtered water (to cut down on plastic water bottles) and monitor their energy/water usage. Fort Bazaar is also a sponsor for the new Greener Galle recycling centre in Talpe. The Wallawwa’s own extensive fruit and vegetable garden supplies fresh produce where possible to the hotels’ restaurants.

You could also choose the Why House, which recycles all plastics, composts their vegetable waste and uses solar power to heat the hot water. The pool uses ultra violet to cut down on chlorine and grey water is used for the gardens. Over the coming months they will replace nearly 600 light bulbs with LED.

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.

Our partners are currently conducting audits with clients on how to make the journey more sustainable and include less plastic. There are plans to remove all single use plastic bottles from the vehicles.

- Transport
Wherever possible we will try to include non-motorized ways of transport to limit your impact, in this tour we offer for example guided walking tours at Galle Fort, boat rides at Koggala Lake, bicycle rides or kayak tours in the Muthurajawela Wetlands. 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 the home and gardens of Lunuganga by important architect Geoffrey Bawa will contribute to the Geoffrey Bawa Trust whose mission is the advancement and promotion of education and knowledge and the furtherance of interest in ecological and environmental studies, architecture, fine arts and more. The Trust has set up a national award scheme to recognise and reward significant examples of contemporary Sri Lankan architecture. The aim of the scheme is both to foster the production of good architecture and to encourage its wider appreciation in the community. The scheme is generally acknowledged to have had a very marked effect on architecture in developing countries.

You can receive personal history lessons with a specialized guide on your visit to Galle Fort. This historical, archaeological and architectural heritage monument, maintains even after more than 423 years a polished appearance, due to extensive reconstruction work done by Archaeological Department of Sri Lanka.

- Nature
Sri Lanka is full of bountiful wildlife and natural areas. The Koggala Lake for example offers a rich bio diversity 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 have the chance to meditate with the birds in the Mutharajawela Wetlands that cover over 6000 hectares. The mixing of seawater with wetland over thousands of years has led to an integrated coastal ecosystem that is biologically diverse and teeming with life. A variety of mangroves and other types of flora including medicinal plants are found alongside mammals, amphibians, reptiles, and 102 species of birds, 48 species of butterflies and 40 different species of fish, some of which are endemic.

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.

When staying at the Wallawwa, you can contribute to the gift shop, whose sales go to Wallawwa CARE, that raises funds for the local community; this includes donating to schools, sponsoring the education of local children, donating medicines and helping families with losses.

- Local culture. tradition & connection
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.

You can moreover visit the Ambalangoda Mask Museum, an institution that has remained in the Wijesuriya family for five generation and serves as a cultural center with a small library, mask workshop and mask museum. Your contribution will help the family to uphold the tradition of mask making and cultural plays in Sri Lanka, and sustain local employment.