Sri Lanka is known for its warm hospitality, fabulous food, vibrant culture and ancient history; its unspoiled beaches and its verdant forests. It's teeming with birdlife and exotic animals, from elephants to the elusive leopard, and for those who want to beat the heat, the hill country's tea plantations and waterfalls offer a cool respite.
However, the prospect of getting around this fascinating island on your own can be daunting: roads are chaotic, journeys slow, road signs rare. So for those who of you who prefer to have everything arranged for you but don't want to feel part of a package tour, we've teamed up with Columbus Tours, a Colombo-based operator who have been operating bespoke tours in Sri Lanka for the past 23 years, and whom we have used for our own trips there. They are a niche market operator with excellent consultants and English-speaking staff.
Besides suggesting the best itineraries to cover the country's many highlights, and selecting the most charming and stylish accommodation (including those featured on i-escape), they can arrange private transfers and book specialist guided tours. These range from providing a glimpse into 2,000 year old Buddhist culture, to sampling a drink of broken orange pekkoe in a hilltop tea planter's bungalow, or viewing ruined ancient cities by hot air balloon at sunrise.
Why we chose this partner
- They are on-the-ground operators so can provide up-to-the-minute advice
- Breadth of local knowledge and honest, professional answers to all enquiries
- They work with Sri Lanka's best hotels and can offer a cool range of accommodation: designer boutique hotels, colonial mansions, beach properties and treehouses
- They can arrange unusual activities; including festivities of Kandy, swimming with dolphins and white-water rafting
- They've arranged trips for people in-house, and we've always been very pleased with them
- They can also book flights from Sri Lanka to the Maldives (just 1 hour away) and offer a choice of accommodation, from budget resorts up to once-in-a-lifetime indulgences. a few nights could be the perfect end to your trip, or treat yourself to a week there if you can afford it
Please be aware
- i-escape can only vouch for those properties which are featured and reviewed on our website. For other areas and accommodations, while we do trust our operator to provide the best options for your needs, you should make sure that you are happy with their suggestions before confirming
Best time to go
The peak seasons in Sri Lanka are from December to March for the west coast, the south coast and the Hill Country, and from April to September for the ancient cities and the east coast.
Our top tips
Don't leave without sampling fish curry. Insanely delicious, we ate it for almost every meal during our trip (including a few breakfasts) - and each was subtly different. Go on a spice tour and buy everything you need to try and recreate it at home. Rick Stein's recipe is excellent.
Our guests' ratings...
Based on 5 independent reviews from i-escape guests
Thank you so much for the hotel accommodation you suggested in our recent tour of Sri Lanka. Tailormade Tours put together a fantastic itinerary for us. I would recommend them to anyone. The hotels that you have on your list were everything we wanted both in location as well as size and quality. It has got to the stage that we now only stay in hotels that i-escape recommend on all our holidays. The food and attention of the staff were excellent.
Tailormade Tours were efficient and extremely responsive. Our guide in Sri Lanka was excellent: professional, flexible, informative, efficient and charming. He went above and beyond our expectations and we trusted him implicitly. The tour was organised extremely well and we had a fabulous holiday. Only one slight negative was that one of the hotels selected was not quite up to i-escape standards.
Ananda went above and beyond to make our trip memorable. Couldn't recommend him highly enough. Wonderful!
Each hotel chosen by Tailormade Tours was excellent, both quality and value for money.
Our tour of Sri Lanka was hosted by Colombos Tours Sri Lanka and was amazing, Our guide, Roshan, was knowledgeable, kind and enthusiastic every day, we can't recommend this company enough.
We will definitely use Tailormade again.
Nadine & Shashi at Columbus Tours were extremely helpful and provided an excellent Tailormade service. We booked some accomodation ourselves the rest of the tour was organised through Columbus. The itinerary can be as busy or relaxed as you like. Nadine & Shashi are flexible & will organise activities for you as you wish. We preferred to organise things ourselves once we arrived. We travelled to different places in Sri Lanka and stayed at five different places and properties during our 14 night holiday. It is worth spending time in researching where to stay. Our experience in choosing hotels was tricky & Columbus Tours do not always give an opinion on the hotels they recommend, nor can they have visitied every hotel in the country. A few of the hotels did not compare to their photos or reviews on the hotel websites or Booking.com. This was very disappointing. Columbus Tours & our Driver were very helpful in assisting us to find alternative, beautiful accomodation & a refund. Our advice is to please do lots of research on independent travel websites & don't always believe the reviews & images on the online marketing websites & YouTube.
We enjoyed a 2 night stay at Banyan Camp near Udawalawe National Park. The Staff were very friendly, organised a lake safari & dinner on a lake raft under the starry skies. Bring insect repellent, the lodges are completely open. We took our own wine & beer, but they do sell some drinks. Only vegetarian food, open fires & cold water showers, but it is absolutely worth it! Taru Villas are an excellent Hotel & Villa company. THey have properties throughtout Sri Lanka, Beautiful places & wonderful staff. Petra & Jonny.
Feedback is only from guests who have booked and stayed through i-escape