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May to October is dry and sunny on the east coast and northern parts of the island, while western and southern areas are dry between November and April. This makes the country ideal to travel throughout the year. March to April and October to November are considered inter-monsoon months with periodical showers pouring down mainly during evening hours.
Yes, for tourism, as well as for other purposes, all nationals need to apply for visa. We recommend applying about a month prior to arrival. A visit visa (tourist visa) is charged at 30 USD per person above 12 years of age. Below 12 – free of charge. Nationals of 20 countries including Singapore, India, Australia, United States as well as 28 countries under the European Union are exempt from paying a visa fee but are still required to submit an application (please follow the link below to see if your country is listed in). Children below 12 years who possess passports are required to apply too. For kids with no passports but are endorsed on mother’s passport, the parent should furnish details of the child on the specific area on her visa application form. You can apply on-line at: www.eta.gov.lk/slvisa/
Your passport needs to be valid for no less than 06 months (from the date of completion of your tour).
Cotton clothes, flip-flops or sandals, sunglasses, a hat or a cap, bathing suit, sun block are recommended throughout the year. You may however need woolen clothes when travelling to highlands and appropriate clothing if you plan to climb mountains, engage in hiking, cycling or whitewater rafting. We will provide with baby seats at our end for families with toddlers.
When visiting places of worship, you are encouraged to be more conservative and wear appropriate attire, which is equally valued anywhere around the world. Strappy vests, armless T-shirts, shorts are not a good idea. Locals visit temples barefooted but you may go in socks. However removing headgear is a must. Taking a photograph with your back to a Buddha statue is considered disrespectful. In the Northern parts of the Island, men are required to take off all upper-garments when visiting Hindu shrines.
Majority of hi-end hotels don’t encourage guests to enter restaurants in shorts either.
At the time of booking, please let us know all of your health issues, allergies, treatments, medications or the special diets that you follow. We will keep the hotels informed duly.
Generally, majority of hotels serves buffet. If you observe a special religious diet, do carefully choose the right food. If this is insufficient, you may go for A’la Carte, which of course is at an extra cost that can be paid locally direct to the hotel.
Contrary to the common misconception, tap water across the island is quite good, tasteless and hygienic. However during excursions throughout the tour, we will provide you with bottled drinking water.
Local cuisine can be quite spicy and hot but tourist hotels and restaurants serve mildly hot dishes.
Children above 12 years of age are considered adults and hotels as well as tourist attractions will charge them in full. Kids under 12 will be charged half price or a concessional rate. Send us an enquiry mentioning the age of your kids and we will advise you accordingly. Toddlers travel, stay and eat free.
Itineraries marked ‘family’, entertain families with children best. They are free of risks, informative for inquisitive minds, interesting and comparatively less strenuous. As we see it, the ideal minimum age would be 10-12 years. However if parents have a clear picture of what it would be like to go on a tour with more advanced activities and adventurous destinations, we don’t mind welcoming families with kids aboard.
Absolutely! If your preferred site is not on our itinerary, or feel it’s going to be too strenuous, or completely ‘not your taste’, do tell us at the time of booking. This applies to hotels too. However when it comes to hotels, some of our itineraries are based on the most suitable, for that particular area, lodging. Making dramatic changes would affect the smooth flow of the tour. All of our itineraries can be customized according to your preferences. However all the changes need to be done at the time of booking. Changing while on tour is not recommended.
Some of our itineraries can be physically demanding. At the time of booking, if we feel it will be too challenging for your age, we will let you know.
Yes, we can attach guides who speak some of the widely spoken languages like Chinese, Japanese, Russian, Spanish, Italian, German or Tamil. At the time of booking this needs to be requested. An additional charge will apply.
As a rule we include only breakfast in our itineraries and leave the dinner-option open. We encourage half-board, of course! That’s dinner and breakfast. If you are hoping to dine out, it’s noteworthy that some hotels are located in remote areas, far away from towns and cities which can make travelling at night frustrating. On the other hand, some hotels might not have decent restaurants in the vicinity either. Therefore we encourage booking on half-board!
As for lunch, during excursions it’s almost impossible to predetermine where exactly to have it. We rather prefer to leave lunch open and let you rely on your chauffeur-guide to recommend the nearest best eatery.
Once you have chosen an itinerary on our site, please drop us an enquiry with all the necessary details. And we will get back to you with the prices. Upon your confirmation, we book your accommodation and allocate transportation. If any of the proposed hotels is full, we shall propose a similar option. If the new alternative incurs an extra cost, we will bring that to your notice for consent.
And once we have booked all your accommodation and made other preparations, we will send you an invoice for payment. Modes of payment are mentioned in a separate section below. And when we have received funds, we will confirm to you with a tour confirmation voucher. About a month prior to arrival you may apply for tourist visa (see point # 01). And a week before arrival we will e-mail you contact details of your chauffeur-guide and the airport representative as well as our emergency numbers.
Cost includes entrance fees to sites, service of a chauffeur-guide, an air-conditioned car or van, accommodation on mentioned meals, bottled drinking water, taxes and any mentioned incentives such as cycling, whitewater rafting, whale-watching, domestic air taxis.
Cost does not include visa processing, any meals in addition to what’s mentioned, mini-bar in the room, mandatory festive supplements (if these supplements apply, we will advise you duly at the time of booking), video/ camera charges at sites, tips and gratuities or your international flights.
You may choose to pay by a bank transfer or by credit card. We prefer bank transfers to card payments. All bank charges are at the expense of payee. For card payments a surcharge of 3% applies. Sri Lanka cannot receive PayPal payments.
Unless otherwise stated, the penalty-free cancellation period is one month prior to arrival. Less than a month, penalties may incur according to each hotel’s policy. Apart from hotels, we do not charge anything for our services i.e. transport, guide, outdoor activities. If cancelled no less than a month before the tour, we shall wire back the whole payment to you. However bank charges will be at your expense again. And if cancelled within a month, we shall return the balance after deducting hotel penalties.
Our packages don’t come with hidden costs. At the time of your booking, we bring to your attention what the cost ‘includes’ and ‘excludes’ and for what exactly you are paying. Anything beyond is at your own cost. For instance mini-bars at hotel rooms, room service, gratuities and tipping, visa processing are not included in our prices generally. Lunch is usually not included either. So is dinner.
On arrival at the airport you can change your currency in to Sri Lankan rupees (LKR or simply Rs). Be sure to secure the receipt till the end of the tour. Whatever that’s left over from local money you can change back to your currency by producing this receipt. Apart from banks, there are a number of authorized dealers around the island, mainly in big cities. Almost as a rule, hotels have a low exchange rate.
Basically a chauffeur-guide is pretty much like a waiter: salaries are nominal and they make a living mainly on tips. At the end of the trip, tipping your chauffeur-guide generously is undoubtedly the best way to tell him how happy you have been to have his service. We believe 15 USD per couple per day is a reasonable tip. However, how much exactly, is at your own discretion.
Whereas LKR 100 is a good tip for a Bellboy, LKR 500 is decent for a tracker or an outdoor activity host. At restaurants, 10% of service charges are included in the bill.
Upon arrival you may go for a local SIM card. They can be bought at the stores of local mobile service providers within the arrival lounge at the BIA airport.
The chauffeur-guide is attached to you throughout the tour and therefore he needs to be informed of any mishap in the first place. If a solution is beyond his reach, our travel specialist who arranged your trip will assist you.
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