The Indian subcontinent is full of undiscovered and adventurous places. A great starting point for a journey through this world is the pearl of the south: Sri Lanka. The best time to travel is October to March, but you can actually go there all year round. Whether you have a month or a few days; That doesn’t matter if you go backpacking in Sri Lanka. The country is not big, but big enough for an epic route through ancient history, rich culture, safari among wild elephants and more! Backpacking in Sri Lanka is particularly popular due to the short distances between the sights. These are the top 10 budget tips. Your journey through Sri Lanka starts here!

1. Sigiriya and Pidurangala

In the heart of Sri Lanka lies Sigiriya, a town that shares its name with a 200-meter-high rock, better known as the Lion Rock. On top of a gigantic rock stands a palace in the shape of a lion, built by King Kapassa. The jungle surrounding it and the bizarre location of the rock make this the most iconic building in Sri Lanka. The only disadvantage: you can pay thirty euros per person to shuffle up a tiny staircase in a polonaise between Chinese selfie stick tourists. That may sound awesome, but it’s about as adventurous as a rodeo ride on an EKTORP sofa from IKEA: boring and painfully slow.

After some internet research, I quickly discovered that there is a fantastic alternative. Huup-huup backpacker trick: we visit the rock just NEXT to the Lion Rock: Pidurangala. You only pay five euros there and the hike up is even more beautiful, more challenging and even higher.
From this Sri Lankan table mountain we have a 360° view over, in my opinion, the whole of Sri Lanka. We see the vast jungle with beautiful rock formations and misty towns. And of course that spectacular Lion Rock! We could look at it for hours, so that’s what we do. And so you are one step further with your route: not Sigiriya, but Pidurangala!

2. Hundreds of elephants during ‘The Gathering’

Not far from our previous highlight, a special phenomenon is taking place. The Gathering is perhaps even more special, because you will not experience this anywhere else in the world. In Minneriya a major migration of wild elephants takes place once a year in the months of August and September. On a good day you have a chance to see up to two hundred at the same time. A must-see while backpacking, if you ask me.

We get into the jeep from Polonnaruwa and go on safari in the afternoon. We see foxes, pelicans, cranes, hornbills, deer, crocodiles and most importantly: 163 elephants! Yes, I counted them to share this with you. In groups of thirty or forty at a time they stand right next to our jeep. We see them frolicking, playing, splashing through the water. By far one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen in the world. Don’t forget to bring some sunscreen and your camera!

3. Royal heritage in Anuradhapura

Annuradhapura is a town where you don’t go for the vibrant social life. When we arrive in the pitch dark, we find a forgotten place in the middle of the jungle, ruled by large hordes of street dogs. Suus in particular found it very pleasant to take a night walk through the neighborhood. A person has to eat!
Why do you actually have to go here? Fortunately, it is a completely different story during the day, when we explore the old royal city by tuk tuk. The budget option is a bike ride, but with temperatures around 40 degrees I would rather put my energy into negotiating with a friendly tuk-tuk driver. For a tenner we can be driven like a king through this royal city all day long and that also has its charms.

We see the most beautiful old temples, the most sacred Buddha in Sri Lanka and the so-called Bodhi Temple. The latter is dedicated to a tree, which came from a seed of the tree under which Buddha himself once took a nap. The Sri Lankans are perfectly capable of providing interesting background information to the sights. Would there ever be a temple dedicated to the bench on which Suus and I were eating a ‘Cheese Roti’ that afternoon? Who knows, if our videos will one day become world famous. I hereby invite you to visit Wout’s Roti Temple in 2034. Beautiful to see are the Langurs, black monkeys with white crests, who sometimes come storming over the steps of the temples in large hordes!

4. Train journey from Kandy to Ella

Kandy is further down the list, but the city is also the starting point of one of the most legendary train routes on earth. A route through high mountains and past the most impossibly remote villages, between green tea plantations and bizarre ravines. The route is so popular that you should get a ticket in time. You have two options for this: make a reservation or buy last minute. In my blog about the train journey from Kandy to Ella you can read exactly how this works.

The route to the Ella terminus runs straight through the tea plantations of Nuwara Eliya. If you have time to spare, I recommend making a stopover here for a few days. The total train journey from Kandy to Ella takes about eight hours, but it seems to fly by. In this part of Sri Lanka you can sometimes suddenly look out for a hundred kilometers over valleys with bright green mountains and waterfalls. So make sure your camera is always at the ready!

5. Historic fishing town of Negombo

If you are planning to go backpacking in Sri Lanka, you will undoubtedly fly to Colombo. However, when you get there, the airport turns out to be closer to the town of Negombo, a fishing town with a fascinating history. Not everyone may know that the Netherlands plays a significant role in the history of Sri Lanka. Even before the English came along in 1802, it was the Dutch who had a lasting relationship with the then Singhalese. They built hospitals, dug waterways and laid the foundation for an advanced civilization. For example, they introduced birth and death registration. The Netherlands is still popular with Sri Lankans.

Negombo is therefore the starting point of your trip through Sri Lanka. It is also a leap into the deep. My tip is to start with a visit to the most hectic and chaotic place in the city: the famous fish market. You don’t have to try hard to find it either, because you just follow your nose. If the incredible stench increases, you are probably going in the right direction. Hundreds of people scream at each other and bulldoze almost every unsuspecting tourist with large carts. Once through the large entrance gate we see sweaty men busy negotiating over stinking piles of fish. On the other side is the woman, in a matching bloody apron, chopping the heads off the fish. With an axe that Chuckie, Jason and Freddy Kruger would envy! The place almost begs for photos and the atmosphere is unique.

A walk through Negombo takes you past an old Dutch fort and a famous old waterway, which was also built by the Dutch. Okay, there are not a thousand bicycles along the quay, but if you squint your eyes you would think for a moment that you are in Amsterdam; Dutch canals in Sri Lanka!

6. The other royal city Polonnaruwa

Sri Lanka has three royal cities, including Polonnaruwa. In contrast to Annuradhapura, the city is located in a beautiful nature reserve, with many nice cheap hotels in the area. We sleep in a large country house called Ruins Villa just outside the city and right next to the ruins of the old capital. My tip: grab your bike and take a day trip. We received a bicycle from the hotel for free and enjoyed the wonderful tropical climate. In the meantime, the monkeys swing over us, the locals take a thorough bath in the river, tropical birds appear everywhere and we see the remains of old temples and palaces among a fierce jungle.

The entrance to the old capital is quite expensive: 25 euros per person! However, there is another option: in many places you can also enter for free. We put the bike down and walk in through a broken gate and save fifty euros that way. That’s quickly 20 cheese rotis, 30 egg rolls, 40 samosas and 18 650 ml bottles of Lion Beer: moreover, you are helping the local population instead of the government!

7. The temple caves of Dambulla

Sri Lanka’s ‘golden triangle’ includes the greatest cultural sights. Buses run back and forth over short distances between Annuradhapura, Sigiriya, Polonnaruwa and our next highlight: Dambulla. The bus ride takes an hour and only costs you about forty euro cents per person! This shows how wonderful public transport is in Sri Lanka; at a Dutch station you can’t even get to the toilet.
Dambulla is a small village with a major attraction: the temple caves. We walk around ancient caves, in which thousands of Buddha statues have been collected over the centuries. In addition, archaeological research shows that this is the oldest inhabited place in Sri Lanka and even in the entire world. A special place, with multiple meanings.

Walking through the temple complex we see many monkeys, who are happy to check your bag for food! So be warned. We see hundreds of them during the climb up. We sleep in homestay Lotus Inn, with a friendly family who cook whatever we want all day long, for a few euros. This way you will quickly get to know Sri Lankan cuisine. The dough snacks are especially recommended, which you see everywhere along the road: rolls with vegetables, fish or egg; samosas and roti pancakes with cheese or meat.

8. The beaches on the South coast

From October to March you won’t see a drop of rain on the beautiful south coast. However, it is also worth moving to the beaches at other times of the year. In August we are living proof that you should definitely do this. The hotels are three times cheaper and the beaches are beautiful. Just keep a close eye on the weather forecast!
In hotspot Mirissa it is worthwhile to take a short walk and climb the so-called Parrot Rock. You could once walk there over the bridge, but it has now been swept away by a tsunami. It is quite an art to avoid the high waves with my camera in the air, but once on the rock we have an amazing view of Mirissa.

I also recommend Unawatuna. Skip ‘Main Beach’, which has almost as many tourists as grains of sand and take the tuk tuk to the lesser-known Jungle Beach. There, as the name suggests, we walk a bit through a dense jungle and arrive at a remote Robinson Crusoe beach. You can even walk all the way back to Main Beach from there, with more beach gems along the way.

End your beach-hopping adventure in the less popular seaside resort of Hikkaduwa. Outside the high season you can easily go there for six euros per person per night! And then you often have a nice swimming pool too; a little luxury while backpacking in Sri Lanka is welcome!

9. The quirky city of Kandy

The third royal city is Kandy: a backpacker’s paradise where you will not be short of anything. A highlight is – and here comes another beautiful Sri Lankan background story – the temple of the tooth! The most famous temple in the city and the most sacred in the country revolves around a tooth of Buddha.

Buddhists from all over the world come to Kandy to pray near the small relic. This is strictly guarded in a large locked room and only brought out a few times a day for a ritual ceremony. I keep wondering: how do they know the tooth belongs to Buddha? Did they find it in Buddha’s mouth? Then wouldn’t they have had more use for the body? Or have they neatly divided and scattered the body so that Buddhists travel more to collect them: a kind of ‘gotta catch them all’ idea? Or was it perhaps the great-grandson of Buddha’s dentist who suggested it? We will never know.

Also nice to see is the Peradeniya Botanical Garden, a little further away. We walk through a gigantic ‘Alice in Wonder landscape’, where the entire nature of Sri Lanka is divided into different categories. Worth seeing!

10. The Dutch heyday in Galle

Do you really want to see some of those influences and the golden age in which our compatriots founded a colony here? Then you have to be in Galle. The old fortress of the former colony is located on a peninsula in this city. Thanks to its designation as a UNESCO World Heritage site, you can still view the Dutch fort; with typical colonial houses, Dutch churches and special museums. We take a beautiful walk on the wall of the fortress in an hour or two. It gives a powerful feeling to look through the eyes of our ancestors, who discovered an amazing country here with fantastic nature.

Just outside the top 10

Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka, is extremely chaotic. Be sure to visit the city park with the rather simple name: Viharamahadevi Park. Now that’s a good one for 18-letter word lingo! We also visited the Gangaramaya temple, which this time is not about a tooth, but a hair of Buddha! Yet less special, because the best man probably only had 32 teeth and about a hundred thousand hairs. On the other hand, Buddhists are often bald again, so how do they get hair again? Another mystery.

If you want to go sailing and experience a little more luxury in the Saint-Tropez of Sri Lanka, visit Arugam Bay.

The budget

The most amazing thing about a tour of Sri Lanka is the price tag. Therefore, below is an overview of the costs per person per day during fifteen days of backpacking in Sri Lanka.

Overnight stay: 3.54 euros
Breakfast: 1.21 euros
Lunch: 2.68 euros
Dinner: 3.49 euros
Local transport: 1.26 euros
Other/groceries: 0.87 euros
Entrance/tours: 4.34 euros
Beach/sea: free
Walking/hikes: free

Total: €17.39

Below are the highlights on the map! And while you are in the area, consider a backpacking trip through the Maldives: Backpacking in the Maldives for 20 euros per day.