Around Sri Lanka, Day by Day: Our Full Itinerary

This is the day-by-day companion to the thematic summary (a separate post) — same loop, same verdicts, sequenced by day. We arranged the in-country hotels, the private car and driver, and the site guides as one package through a travel agent — worth doing for a multi-city loop like this, especially traveling with parents.

Day 1 | Fly SFO → Singapore, Tuesday, June 30

• Singapore Airlines SQ 33, business class on points (~120,000 pts / ~$1,200 value per ticket). Highly recommend — restful and luxurious. Best-value part of the whole trip.

Day 2 | Singapore → Colombo, Wednesday, July 1

• Connect and fly Singapore to Colombo on SriLankan Airlines UL 307 (bundled in the package). Old aircraft, worn seats, no seatback TVs, mediocre food. Skip if you can — look for Singapore Airlines or another carrier on this leg.

Day 3 | Colombo, Thursday, July 2

• Cinnamon Grand (suite + connecting double), five-star. Highly recommend — our best hotel and best value of the trip. Get executive lounge access if you can: top-floor views, all-day food and drink, breakfast, a great 3pm high tea, 5pm happy hour.
• Dinner: Nuga Gama (Cinnamon Grand's village-style restaurant), private A/C room booked through the hotel for our group of 30, live music + traditional dance. Highly recommend — a genuinely authentic, fully Sri Lankan buffet, not a token section. Best meal of the trip.

Day 4 | Colombo, Friday, July 3

• City tour: Gangaramaya Temple, Independence Square, Royal College, Port City, Old Parliament, Lotus Tower, BMICH. Good, not great — hire a guide instead of winging it.
• Shopping: Barefoot + adjacent batik store; Galle Face One mall (highly recommend for Sri Lankan brands in one place); Spa Ceylon for gifts.
• Dinner: Peach Valley. Okay for a work dinner with the Allion team; food quality has declined.

Day 5 | Colombo → Bentota, Saturday, July 4

• ~2 hrs down the Southern Expressway. Taj Bentota, night 1 of 2. Good — pool, beach, ocean, rooms, and buffet all solid; everyone enjoyed it. But book Cinnamon Bentota instead if available — still better for the same price.

Day 6 | Bentota, Sunday, July 5

• Beach and pool day at Taj Bentota, night 2 of 2.

Day 7 | Bentota → Nuwara Eliya, Monday, July 6

• Long ~5–6 hr climb into the hill country. Heritance Tea Factory (1 night). Unique setting, but a precarious ~30-min road up. Free in-house tea factory tour was nice and easy.
• In hindsight I'd have based in Nuwara Eliya at the Grand Hotel instead — a nicer property and far easier to reach and leave from. Plan around it rather than the Tea Factory next time.

Day 8 | Nuwara Eliya → Kandy → Kandalama, Tuesday, July 7 — the trip's longest, hardest driving day

• This is 5–6+ hours of driving before you count temple and meal stops. Start early. Rough budget: Nuwara Eliya to Kandy ~2.5–3 hrs on the winding A5, then Kandy to Kandalama ~2–2.5 hrs.
• On the A5: Seetha Amman (Sita Eliya) Temple — skip unless personally meaningful. Ramboda Hanuman Temple — skip. Ramboda Falls — nice.
• Kandy: quick meal/bathroom stop at Queen's Hotel, then walk to the Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic.
• Push on to Kandalama and arrive before dark — the roads get hard to see at night.

Day 9 | Kandalama, Wednesday, July 8

• Heritance Kandalama (night 1 of 2). Amazing — wish we'd stayed longer. Do the free in-house Geoffrey Bawa architecture tour of the hotel; best thing we did.
• Cultural triangle: we did Polonnaruwa with an on-the-spot guide — a mistake. Steep foreigner tickets, painful guide negotiations, "drive-by" guide showed us little. Consider Anuradhapura instead for larger, more striking monuments (but it's sprawling and driver-dependent), and book a vetted guide through your travel agent to meet you at the hotel.
• Don't do half board — keep dinners flexible for the cave dinner and high tea with elephants.

Day 10 | Kandalama → Negombo, Thursday, July 9

• Drive across to the coast. Jetwing Beach, night 1 of 2. Fine, but don't recommend — small, limited options, slow meal service. Stay at Heritance / Cinnamon Negombo or Jetwing Blue instead.

Day 11 | Negombo, Friday, July 10

• Beach day at Jetwing Beach, night 2 of 2. Negombo is close to the airport, which makes it a convenient last-night base before an early departure — but plan it as a wind-down beach stop, not a sightseeing day.

Day 12 | Fly home, Colombo → London → Austin, Saturday, July 11

• SriLankan UL 503 / BA 191 (part of the package). Break the journey in London to sleep. Underwhelmed by SriLankan; economy very cramped — get a business points deal if you can, or route the Colombo leg on another carrier.

Day 13 | Arrive Austin, Sunday, July 12

• Home.

Things we didn't get to but were recommended

• [Bentota: Hotels] Cinnamon Bentota over Taj Bentota (booked out for a wedding).
• [Nuwara Eliya: Hotels] Grand Hotel, Nuwara Eliya over the Heritance Tea Factory.
• [Kandalama: Time] A third night, using one day for Dambulla — Sigiriya, Dambulla Cave Temple, Pidurangala.
• [Anuradhapura: Sights] A day trip to Anuradhapura instead of Polonnaruwa.
• [Kandalama: Food] The cave dinner and high tea with elephants (skipped because of half board).
• [Cultural triangle: Guides] A pre-arranged, vetted guide through the travel agent instead of hiring on site.
• [Negombo: Hotels] A better base — Heritance, Cinnamon, or Jetwing Blue.
• [Return: Flights] A business-class points deal for the return flight (Colombo–London–Austin).