Your ultimate guide to Sri Lanka

No longer does Sri Lanka need to be introduced by referencing its proximity to India, as a little teardrop of an island in the Indian Ocean. This destination is high on most people’s list – even those who’ve just returned – but there is more to this complex, beguiling country than those paradisaical beaches, writes Rachel Bartholomeusz.

Getting around

Sri Lankans tend to go on a classic ‘tour’ around the country in a hired car, minivan or bus, which can be arranged quite easily. But trains are the most scenic way to travel the island, especially in second class, with the windows open, a ceiling fan swirling above, and wade vendors selling their spicy savoury doughnuts.

Must eats

The way to dine well in Sri Lanka is to walk into any local eatery and simply ask for rice and curry. A feast of many different curries, sambols and salads appears without you having to make any decisions (beyond perhaps whether you want a fish or chicken curry). Try hoppers, bowl-shaped crêpes, and string hoppers, lacy noodles of rice flour. Track down flaky godamba rotis, the moreish pol (coconut) roti, the Dutch Burgher banana-leaf specialty of lamprais, and the biriyani made by Sri Lanka’s Muslim community.

Snacks are ‘short eats’ – patties (these look like an empanada), mutton rolls (these look like Chiko rolls), seeni sambol buns (a glazed bread roll filled with spicy caramelised onion) and fish roti (triangular and stuffed) are consistently good. Dessert comes in the form of watalappan, a Sri Lankan take on crème caramel, and love cake, perfumed with spices and rose water. And if a home-cooked meal or a crab curry is on offer, you’d be a fool to decline.

Jaffna and the north

Travellers should be prioritising time in the remote and beautiful north right now as tourism returns in the aftermath of war. It feels nothing like the rest of the country, and Tamil food and hospitality is worth the journey alone.

STAY: There is still not a great deal of choice for accommodation in the region, but that is changing as a result of an express six-hour train that connects the northern peninsular to the rest of the island. The newly opened Jetwing Jaffna is the only five-star hotel in Jaffna, or if you prefer something more homely, there are a number of guesthouses that offer very basic rooms but exceptional meals.

EAT: Join locals at the brightly coloured ice-cream shops in town for impossibly sweet sundaes. Some of the best food in Jaffna comes from Malayan Café, an always busy vegetarian restaurant – don’t leave without eating their excellent ulundu wade (a savoury doughnut), washed down with a tea.

DO: Walk the hallways of Jaffna’s rebuilt public library, and a proud local will often take it upon themselves to give you a tour and a history lesson – the original was burned down in what became a turning event in the Sri Lankan civil war. The town and the temple are swamped with thousands of visitors during the month-long Nallur Festival in July/August, and the carnival atmosphere makes it an exciting time to visit. Jaffna’s islands are also great for day trips, and the sacred waters of the Keerimalai Springs are a truly special place, where you can take a dip in segregated men’s and women’s baths.

SHOP: Support women affected by war in Jaffna and Mullaitivu by purchasing a bag from Sari Connection, made from recycled sari fabric.

Trincomalee and the East

Tourism to the east coast is booming once more, nearly a decade after the end of the civil war that tore this region apart. Its beauty rivals the more popular southern coast, especially if you’re visiting in Australian winter when the south is in monsoon.

STAY: Trinco’s best beaches are far from the centre, and it’s worth splurging on a good beach resort because you will end up spending a lot of time there – try Jungle Beach by Uga Escapes or Nilaveli Beach Hotel. In Trinco town, Trinco Rest House is a reliable option.

EAT: The best crab curry you may ever eat is served at the luxurious Nilaveli Beach Hotel: the region’s giant lagoon crabs are cooked in a clay pot with a coconut-milk rich curry, and flavoured with leaves from the moringa plant. For similarly excellent local fare with a heavy seafood focus, try the string of eateries opposite the bus stop in Trincomalee.

DO: Visit Fort Frederick, built by the Portuguese in 1623, and walk up to the beautiful, clifftop Koneswaram Temple to see locals arrive for sunset puja. Swim at Nilaveli Beach, where you can take a snorkelling trip out at Pigeon Island. From Trinco, you can slowly wind your way down the east coast by bus – to the lagoon town of Batticaloa, with its rich Portuguese heritage, past the serene waters of Passikudah, and on to the famous surf breaks of Arugam Bay.

Colombo

Don’t bypass Sri Lanka’s capital – come for the connecting flight, stay for the food and burgeoning cultural scene.

STAY: At the grand dame of Sri Lankan hotels, the Galle Face has long mesmerised travellers with her prime location and charm.

EAT: Have the Sri Lankan breakfast buffet at the colonial Mount Lavinia Hotel, a short train ride out of the city along the water. The kitchen is run by Dr Publis De Silva, Sri Lanka’s answer to our Margaret Fulton, and his cooking lives up to the reputation that precedes it. Lunch is the best time to eat at the hole-in-the-wall rice and curry shops known as bath kades – literally, rice shop. Walk past the glass display cabinet of fried savoury snacks, take a seat, and ask for rice and curry.

They are all generally excellent, but favourites include Lantheruma and Praneetha. Refuel with cold drinks and short eats (snacks) at the new and consciously cool Café Kumbuk, or the old and unintentionally cool Pagoda Tea Rooms. For dinner, sample excellent Tamil fare at Palmyrah in the Renuka hotel or try classic rice and curry at Upali’s.

DO: Colombo’s sunsets are magnificent. Join families on Galle Face Green as they gather to watch the sun sink into the Indian Ocean. Head next door to the Galle Face Hotel for a gin and tonic, or enjoy spectacular views of the city from the rooftop bar of the Ozo.

SHOP: Visit Barefoot and Paradise Road to take a piece of tropical Sri Lankan style back home with you. Both shops also have chic and tranquil cafes that provide cool relief from the hottest part of the day. On Saturdays, visit Good Market for hipster handicrafts and the best pollos (jackfruit) cutlets in town at Jeewa’s food stall.

Sigiriya and the cultural triangle

This city on a rock is the pick of Sri Lanka’s cultural triangle.

STAY: Heritance Kandalama, the hotel built by Sri Lanka’s beloved architect Geoffrey Bawa into the side of a rock, seems to emerge out of the jungle. The vines growing over and through this building with polished concrete floors confuse even the wildlife – large signs need to be put up to stop birds from flying directly into the glass.

EAT: The Sri Lankan food at Heritance Kandalama is also legendary – eat egg hoppers for breakfast, and for dinner order ‘rice and curry’ from the hotel’s Kaludiya Restaurant for a feast of so many dishes it requires a trolley to be annexed at your table.

DO: For travellers without an intimate knowledge of the country’s ancient history, the significance of its UNESCO-listed sites is often lost as they can be poorly signposted, and guides are of variable quality. The awe of Sigiriya, an ancient city built on top of a giant rock, is self-evident.

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Galle and the South Coast

This restored colonial fort offers tropical luxury, and a gateway to those palm-fringed beaches.

STAY: The Fort has no shortage of luxurious, colonial-era properties. Two of the most exquisite are the Amangalla and the Galle Fort Hotel, though booking out an entire villa such as Fort 52 is great if you’re travelling in a group.

EAT: Authentic local food can be hard to find within the fort for travellers. The new Galle Things Roti, from Galle Fort Hotel, offers Sri Lankan street eats in an upmarket setting and Mama’s serves homestyle food in a rooftop cafe. If you need a break from curry three times a day, Poonie’s Kitchen serves beautiful salady things in a lush courtyard.

DO: Join locals sitting on top of the fort walls with a free view to the cricket at Galle Stadium during the season, or simply walk along the ramparts, and have a sundowner at the Amangalla. The fort buzzes in January during the Galle Literary Festival, when many of its heritage spaces are used to host talks with authors and poets. A weekend in Galle is the ideal springboard for heading to the many idyllic beaches of the south: pick a quieter one (Talalla and Tangalle are good choices), and go off the grid for a week living on nothing but fish curry and surf.

SHOP: Buy vintage prints as postcards and posters from Stick No Bills and ayurvedic beauty products from Spa Ceylon.

Up Country

Sri Lanka’s hill towns can be touristy, but for good reason.

STAY: With little to do but explore tea plantations or hike mountains, this is another region where good accommodation (with a good cook) is crucial. The new Santani Wellness in Kandy ticks all the boxes, winning both design awards and loyal patrons who come back for their traditional food.

EAT: Guesthouses in the hills are renowned for their wonderful home cooking, and many, like Ella Spice Garden, offer cooking classes. It’s also worth a visit to Kandy to eat at Hela Bojun, a government initiative that has the noble joint aims of empowering local women through employment, and preserving traditional Sri Lankan dishes – the result is truly excellent food.

DO: A train ride through ‘up country’ is as beautiful as Instagram would have you believe.

After youth-led protests in 2025, this year Nepal elected a 35-year-old former rapper as Prime Minister. In a country where tourism is its biggest industry, what’s next for travellers?

In 1986, Nepal changed its clock. It had used India Standard Time since 1920 so, to differentiate, it wound its clock 15 minutes ahead of, not behind, its big-brother neighbour. Boss move. “Nepal is strongly opposed to the idea that our identity is connected to India,” says Community Homestay Network (CHN) guide Bikal Khanal.

Tharu dance is traditionally set to hand drums. (Credit: Kate Lewis)

Today, Nepal is the only independent country with a 45-minute deviation to universal time; an oddity that’s become a symbol of national pride. The quirk is nearly as endearing as Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan airport where carved varnished wood and shiny red bricks rule. One sign points to a ‘Travelator’ and another to a ‘Grievance Handling Desk’ while visas are noisily stamped at customs for US dollars, cash only. When am I?

Spot the endemic Nepal gray langur. (Credit: Simon Urwin)

The 15 or 45 minute anomaly sees me tap out completely on timezone calculations. Why bend my brain calculating if it’s quarter to or quarter past elsewhere when I’m in the honking here and now of Kathmandu where the air is high-altitude crisp, the prayer flags flutter and the street dogs howl?

How tourism is changing in Nepal

Bardiya National Park is rich with wildlife. (Credit: Simon Urwin)

India is not the only association many Nepalis would like to shake. With eight of the world’s 10 tallest mountains, including Mount Everest and Annapurna, Nepal has long attracted mountaineers and trekkers, and expedition numbers are continuing to rise.

Tourism is one of the country’s biggest sources of foreign currency, so this growth is not negative, per se. But according to Ang Tshering Lama, who co-founded Phaplu Mountain Bike Club, being reduced to a mere trekking destination is limiting.

“Trekking is just one layer of our identity,” says Ang. “When it becomes the dominant narrative, it limits how we’re seen and how we see ourselves.” Nepal’s recent success, however, in diverting trekkers to less-trafficked areas such as Manaslu mofuntain, where visitor numbers rose by 117 per cent last year, offers hope that tourism can diversify even more radically.

Local men in Bhada village. (Credit: Simon Urwin)

The founder of CHN, Shiva Dhakal, wants that change. “The whole idea of the Community Homestay Network is to promote experiences outside of trekking,” he says. “Community tourism changes lives and helps kids stay home instead of coming to the city or migrating to the Middle East.”

Ang grew up seeing people leave, “not because they wanted to but because there weren’t enough opportunities to stay”, he states. Yet from remote villages to living traditions; food, art, music and emerging subcultures, “there’s so much that’s not being seen.”

CHN is opening some of those doors. It doesn’t own, or fund, any homes. Rather, it promotes homestays to travellers on a single, slick platform, while fostering entrepreneurship in places where women, marginalised castes, Indigenous people and the youth stand to benefit the most.

A new generation demanding more

Dalla Town Hall, where volunteers discuss anti-poaching tactics. (Credit: Bheem Thapa)

The future prospects of next-gen Nepalis can no longer be ignored. On a Kathmandu tour with 33-year-old guide Monica K.C, we pass buildings torched in the September 2025 ‘Gen Z protests’, including the Supreme Court and Parliament House. Seventy-two people died. “They were anti-corruption protests,” says Monica. “Politicians’ children are living a lavish life but the airports are crowded with youngsters leaving to find work.”

We stop in ‘little Tibet’ at the wondrous sixth-century Boudha Stupa. “The wheel of life is Buddhism in a nutshell,” says Monica. “Things such as hate, ignorance and anger keep you rotating around the wheel, so you must follow the principles of Buddhism to detach. If you can’t, there’s no nirvana for you.”

Boudha Stupa's prayer wheels — Boudha Stupa’s prayer wheels are used to recite Buddhist prayers. (Credit: Kate Lewis)

In a sun-drenched twist to the usual temple visit, we ascend the stupa’s sloping plinth and roam its whitewashed dome. Tendrils of diaphanous prayer flags stream from a steeple-like structure where the Buddha’s unblinking eyes stare out. No nirvana for you…

bouda stupa prayer flags — Tibetan-style prayer flags embellish the whitewashed dome of Bouda Stupa, a Buddhist temple. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)

The dome is delightfully free of guard rails or chiding from security. There is, however, a stern ‘No TikTok’ sign, perhaps in response to the youth’s newly flexed power. The booted-out Prime Minister, K.P. Sharma Oli, was replaced in a resounding election victory in March by 35-year-old Balendra Shah of the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) – a former rapper and mayor of Kathmandu. The RSP’s manifesto indicates tourism is a priority, and that Nepal’s cultural identity in areas such as gastronomy will be strengthened.

Boudha Stupa vendors — Vibrant souvenir shops and cafes around Boudha Stupa. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)

A more confronting stop awaits at Pashupatinath Temple. Today is Bala Chaturdashi, a Hindu festival where thousands of devotees gather to honour their dead ancestors. Vendors hauling foam mattresses do a lucrative trade as people set up for a night of vigil. This includes burning the bodies of recently deceased relatives on bamboo pyres in the Bagmati River, which flows into the sacred Ganges.

A woman at annual Hindu festival Bala Chaturdashi, in Kathmandu. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)

Wrapped in a shroud, the bodies are positioned with their heads facing north to the Himalayas where Lord Shiva resides. They’re covered with flowers and straw and set alight by male family members.

Hours later, the ashes are swept into the river where devotees will take a holy dip the next day. As much as Monica assures us it’s not voyeuristic to watch, I struggle to do so. “Here you see the reality of life because everyone ends up there,” she says, gesturing to the river.

Life unfiltered in the Terai region

tharu woman — Tharu woman and master weaver Parbati Chaudhary in Bhada Village. (Credit: Bheem Thapa)

The reality of life needs processing time, which the western Terai region delivers in spades. The Terai is largely separated from India by the Karnali River and Bardiya National Park, where elephants, rhinos and the elusive Bengal tiger roam.

Once a nomadic tribe, the Indigenous Tharu people are now the largest ethnic group here. “They didn’t know their daily life was interesting for international travellers but they’re starting to understand now,” says CHN founder Shiva.

Take a Jeep safari through Bardiya National Park. (Credit: Bheem Thapa)

We fly Buddha Air to Dhangadhi airport and drive five hours to stay in Tharu homes. The journey to Bhada village is a blur of roadside fruit stalls, traffic-stopping sacred cows and fields sown with wheat, rice, mustard, spinach, cauliflower and potatoes. Nepal’s agriculture feeds only Nepal.

Marigolds are an important part of Hindu rituals. (Credit: Simon Urwin)

“The only thing we export is young people,” says our guide Bikal. As the light dims and we plunge evermore rural, mysterious mounds of compacted hay – some house-sized – loom like the creatures from Where The Wild Things Are. Even our trusty driver gets flummoxed by a dirt road that abruptly ends and we find ourselves hurtling across a paddock.

On arrival, some are ferried to mud-walled cottages greened by gourd creepers, with thatched roofs and rustic-chic mosquito nets. Myself and two others are ushered to the home of corner store owner, mechanic and mushroom farmer Man Kumar Chilaruwa and his wife Rajkumari.

community homestay entrance — A warm welcome at a community homestay. (Credit: Simon Urwin)

They escort us to a bunker-esque back building with steel doors and a folding security gate, behind which is gleaming linoleum, dolphin-printed tiles and a shower cavity that must be gingerly stepped through to reach the toilet.

The ceiling lights emit a rainbow of colours (the bathroom light gets stuck in, frankly, a quite frightening red). We’re nevertheless touched that our hosts invested in all this bling when the average salary is around $275 a month.

In the coming days, we participate in Tharu traditions such as making moonshine, dancing, weaving straw handicrafts and gold-panning. We’re fed well with staples of rice, mustard greens, lentil pancakes, daal, curried chicken and tomato chutney served on antibacterial saal leaves.

food at community homestay — Dig in. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)

Sonara community homestay president Indradevi Tharu tells us river snails are often served, and the boiled and pickled flesh of rats hunted in the rice fields. “Perhaps next time?” we say and all have a laugh.

The power of community homestays

community homestay owners in Nepal — Barda community homestay owners Parbati Chaudhary and Ram Krishni Devi Chaudhary. (Credit: Simon Urwin)

Immersing Western visitors in foreign cultural practices is not new. But with the Tharu, I never get that uneasy sensation that I’m being performed for. Despite being the only tourists, there’s no ‘othering’; just warm, composed and ultra-dignified welcomes. Like we’ve always been here.

“I love to have travellers in my village so I can see the world,” says local woman Parbati Chaudhary. “Why would I travel the world when the world comes to me?”

The graceful acceptance the Tharu offer, as well as the slow pace, works miracles on my frazzled nervous system. One day I even take a nap on a vacant homestay bed.

Sonara community room — An authentic stay in the Sonara community. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)

Roosters strut and goats bray as we sit on the ground in al fresco kitchens, rolling rice flour into cylinders steamed to make dhikri (dumplings). When water is needed, we fetch it using a hand-operated pump as a family of ducks strolls by, side-eying us like curious neighbours.

Animal lovers will delight in Tharu villages. Kind and resourceful inventions are everywhere, such as snacking stations where two posts lean together, with leafy boughs dangling on rope for baby goats to forage from.

CHN’s CEO, Aayusha Prasain, nods knowingly when one in our group says she cried when she left her host, Shayam Chaudhary, in Bhada. Shayam’s 17-year-old son, Prashant, had translated, which deepened the connection.

“Community tourism turns travel into a relationship, not a transaction,” says Aayusha. “It places decision-making power in the hands of local communities, especially women and youth.” Since 2018, CHN has hosted more than 4000 travellers from 52 countries in 408 households, and estimates women’s participation has increased by 381 per cent.

In the Bardiya community, where vexing human-animal conflict has been a balancing act for decades due to elephants raiding crops, long-time homestay operator Salik Ram Chaudhary says young people keep the older ones on their toes.

“We can’t keep homestays stagnant,” he says. “We have to upgrade our service and redefine our product or young people won’t see it as an attractive business. If we can keep evolving with this travelling trend we’re confident the youths will stay and continue it.”

Back in Kathmandu, Monica explains that after the deaths of young protestors in September, a determination had spread to not let their sacrifice be in vain. “We want to keep holding the government accountable,” she says. “We don’t know what situation we’re facing, but we’re ready to face it.”

Interested in Nepal but prefer to experience it in total comfort? Read our guide to luxury travel in Nepal.