Tangalle
Tangalle has the south coast’s best combination of quiet and beautiful – wide, empty bays, the Rekawa sea turtle nesting beach and resorts with more space and more privacy than anywhere further west. Specifically recommended for travellers who have done the southern circuit before and want something less packaged.
Hiriketiya
Hiriketiya is a bowl-shaped bay with a consistent beach break, warm water and a strip of genuinely good beach cafés behind the sand. It has the energy of a surf town that has not yet been packaged – which is precisely why it keeps appearing in the itineraries of travellers who have been to Weligama […]
Weligama
Weligama Bay has a long, gentle right-hander that works for complete beginners and rewards more time in the water. The fishing village behind the bay is still a working port – boats out before 5am, the morning catch laid out at the harbour by mid-morning. The restaurants that have opened here are genuinely good for […]
Arugam Bay
Main Point in Arugam Bay delivers a long right-hander from May to October that works for complete beginners and rewards experience. The fishing village behind it is genuinely low-key – a few good restaurants, Pottuvil Lagoon five minutes away by boat, and a pace entirely unlike the south coast.
Mirissa Whale Watching Point
Sri Lanka sits above a deep-water canyon where blue whales and sperm whales migrate reliably from November to April. Pre-dawn departure from Mirissa harbour, out beyond the headland, and then – on a good morning – a blue whale surfacing within a few hundred metres. A responsible licensed operator only, with strict distance standards maintained […]
Galle
Galle Fort is a UNESCO World Heritage site that also functions as a town – boutique hotels, independent bookshops, galleries, a Dutch Reformed Church from 1755, all inside 17th-century coral-stone ramparts above the Indian Ocean. Portuguese foundations, Dutch reconstruction, British additions: three layers of colonial history readable in a single afternoon walk. The rampart walk […]