Sri Lanka with family: Essentials, practical advice

How to organize a 15-day trip to Sri Lanka with children?

It's hard to answer because there are thousands of ways to travel. What's great about Sri Lanka is that you can approach it in different ways. You can imagine only doing the beaches in the south of the island, they are all different and the distances are not too great. Or as we did, a 15-day tour starting from Colombo , passing through Lion Rock, Kandy, Ella, Udawalawe National Park and finishing on the south, southwest coasts.

Practical information:

To enter Sri Lanka, you need a visa. Here is the link to do it. Nothing complicated to fill out, everything is done online and we got it in less than a day. I advise you to print it, some counters ask to verify it.

Our tips for traveling as a family during a trip to Sri Lanka with children!

In Sri Lanka, people travel a lot by bus and train. We had a nice train ride, it is very accessible with children and really cheap. The most local means of transport is the bus but we did not take it because it takes a lot of time to travel by bus across Sri Lanka.

Most often we travel by tuktuk and taxi, you can find them absolutely everywhere. The Uber application works like in France, and it is valuable to give us an idea of ​​the price for a trip. To give you an idea, the good price for a tuktuk trip: 1km = 50 rupees maximum.

How do you organize your days with your children?

To explain a little about the context of our trip to Sri Lanka, we traveled the country through a 15-day itinerary, during which we moved every day. Generally we try to be there the day before to do the visits in the morning and hit the road after lunch so that our daughters can take a nap in the taxi and everyone can rest to be in shape and enjoy the evening. During our trips we take advantage of the first few days to see as much as possible and in Sri Lanka we changed hotels every night during the first week. Taxis are easy to find for long journeys, the prices are affordable around €40 for a 3-hour taxi ride and the cars are large which gives maximum comfort.

For taxis we used UBER which works like in France and for tuktuks we used the PICKME app.

Which hotels to choose in Sri Lanka for an easy trip with children?

I advise you to choose a hotel with breakfast and swimming pool. (Really nice with children after a long day.) The average budget for a hotel with breakfast and swimming pool for 4 people is between 12 and 35€ per night. Hotels in Sri Lanka are really cheap! The most comfortable thing is to prepare your itinerary and book the hotels of your trip with the free cancellation option on booking.com.

The best: the best is to find a hotel room in suite mode with a room for the children and another for the parents!

What is the weather like in Sri Lanka? What should you pack?

In Sri Lanka, there are two distinct seasons: dry and wet. I read that the best time to go is from December to March. We had 7 days of rain on our 15-day trip at the end of December... Temperature-wise, when the weather was nice, it was around 30° (in the water too). On rainy days, it was nice, but in the evenings, it was cool.

In our backpack, we had planned beach gear, of course, but also leggings-type pants for the children, a sweatshirt, a windbreaker/K-way, a pair of sneakers for walks, and flip-flops for the rest of the time.

Don't burden yourself with too many clothes, in every village you will find people to wash your clothes. We left 2.5 kg of clothes with a lady who returned it to us washed, folded, dried the next day for €6.

What do you do when there is heavy rain in Sri Lanka?

To keep ourselves and the children busy on rainy days, we found activities such as getting massages (Ayurvedic treatments are famous in Sri Lanka and children can also get massages), visiting cave temples to be sheltered, a private yoga session for the whole family, games of Uno with a good "chocolate roti" (chocolate pancake). Some days of bad weather, we took the opportunity to drive between the different points of our trip.

Isn't the food too spicy for children in Sri Lanka?

Sri Lankan cuisine is a mix between Indian and Asian cuisine, fish by the sea and a lot of rice and curry. Don't hesitate to ask for "not spicy" and everything will be fine. You will find white rice in any restaurant to fill small stomachs. One of the country's specialties is "rotis", a kind of savory or sweet crepe. Cheese rotis are filled with a cheese like cow kiri that children love. My daughters enjoyed "chocolate roti" like a chocolate crepe. You can also find carbonara pasta, pizzas and fries in most restaurants...

What the kids loved in Sri Lanka:

This country is very easy to visit with children because it is varied and rich in beautiful beaches. Our children loved the tuk-tuk rides, picking tea with the pickers, climbing the 1200 steps of the lion rock, looking for elephants during our safari in the Udawalawe national park, trying surfing on the Hirikitya spot, swimming with turtles on the beach of Hikkaduwa ... in short there are a lot of things that will interest children.

What is our best memory of this family trip to Sri Lanka?

It's hard to choose: bathing elephants in the river, the great view from the top of Lion Rock, swimming with turtles, collecting porcelain on the beach... But I think what I like the most is being together and introducing my daughters to new cultures. We've explored quite a few corners of the world, but we really loved Sri Lanka! It brings together everything we love about family travel. The landscapes are sublime, the sea water is warm, you see lots of animals, the authenticity is preserved and life is cheap.

What are the activities you absolutely recommend when traveling to Sri Lanka with children? Kid-friendly Sri Lanka: where to have fun with the family?

Sleep one night at the hotel "Grand Royal Pinnalanda" to wake up with elephants in front of your eyes, watch the fish with the mask and snorkel in 40cm of water, swim with the turtles, the large children's park in the city center of Narawa Eliya with many games including a small train, relax in the hotel swimming pools, collect tea with the pickers, the warm water of the beaches...

The parents' must: the train ride, the road through the tea plantations, the climb and the view from the top of Lion Rock, the elephants from the orphanage in semi-freedom on the banks of the river, the Ayurvedic massages, the mutual help to pull up the fishing nets on the beaches of Tangale, the food... EVERYTHING to sum up!

Budget for a stay in Sri Lanka with 2 children (6 and 3 years old)

We had been warned that life in Sri Lanka is cheap but we didn't expect life to be so sweet. Beer costs €2, a traditional dish costs around €1.80 per person, a carbonara pasta dish costs €6. Hotels are very cheap, we paid an average of €35 for 4 with breakfast and swimming pool. To get around, the train and bus are really the least popular and cheapest means of transport to get around Sri Lanka. In town, we use tuktuks, around €1.40 for 15 minutes.

Overall budget for 15 days for 4 during the Christmas holidays €1700 or less than €500/week/person.

Things to avoid and what you didn’t like about the trip?

The feeling of being ripped off when the hotel arranges a taxi for us, the overly tactile side of the Sri Lankans which annoyed our daughters and the showers in some hotels which are far from our French standards...

The day-by-day story of our trip to Sri Lanka, the tear of India.