# 10 days in Sri Lanka: Ten days, the full loop, and time to stop moving 10 days, 9 nights · Airport · Sigiriya · Kandy · Nuwara Eliya · Ella · Yala or Udawalawe · Mirissa · Galle · https://srilankatour.travel/itineraries/10-days **Who it suits:** The length we would choose ourselves. Ten days is the first point at which you can do the classic loop and still spend three or four nights not packing a bag. **The trade-off:** You are still on the western and southern half of the island. The east coast and the north are a different trip, and the honest answer is that adding them to ten days makes both halves worse. **Best months:** December to March, or a shoulder run in April or late July · **Total driving:** About 17 hours in total, none of it longer than four ## Day by day ### Day 1: Inland on arrival Base: Sigiriya or Habarana · Drive in: 4 hours from the airport (150 km) Same as every itinerary on this site, for the same reason: the drive inland is fastest in the small hours, and there is nothing to be gained by spending your first night near the airport. Sleep, eat, do nothing. ### Days 2–3: Two nights in the Cultural Triangle, not one Base: Sigiriya · Drive in: Local (—) Day two: Sigiriya at opening, Dambulla in the afternoon. Day three is the one seven-day trips do not get — Polonnaruwa, which is a ruined capital you cycle around rather than queue at, and is the best of the ancient cities precisely because most people skip it. Or Anuradhapura, older and more sacred and more spread out, an hour and a half west. > **Note:** Polonnaruwa is flat and shaded in places, and bicycles are rented at the gate for a few hundred rupees. It is the most pleasant archaeology in the country. ### Day 4: Kandy, and the last of the flat roads Base: Kandy · Drive in: 2 hours 30 (90 km) Peradeniya gardens, the Temple of the Tooth at the evening puja, and dinner somewhere on the lake. If you are here in late July or August, the Esala Perahera fills the streets for ten nights with elephants, dancers and fire, and is worth planning a whole trip around. ### Day 5: Up into the tea Base: Nuwara Eliya · Drive in: 3 hours 30 (77 km) The slowest seventy-seven kilometres in Sri Lanka, and the most beautiful. Stop at a working factory, watch the leaf go through withering, rolling and firing, and taste something that has not been in a bag. Ramboda Falls is on the road. Arrive cold. > **Note:** If Horton Plains and World's End appeal, it goes here — a 05:00 start from Nuwara Eliya, because the cloud closes in over the escarpment by about nine and there is nothing to see after that. ### Days 6–7: Two nights in Ella Base: Ella · Drive in: 2 hours 30, or the train from Nanu Oya (55 km) Ella is small, backpacker-ish and slightly overrun, and it is still worth two nights. Little Adam's Peak is an hour up and back and you can do it before breakfast. The Nine Arch Bridge is ten minutes out of town and best at a scheduled train time. Diyaluma Falls is forty minutes away and is the one people miss. > **Note:** Ravana Falls is roadside and busy; Diyaluma is a walk and is far better. Ask your driver for the upper pools rather than the base. ### Day 8: Off the escarpment, into the dry zone Base: Yala or Udawalawe · Drive in: 2 hours 30 (95 km) Elephants in numbers at Udawalawe, or leopards and jeep traffic at Yala. If you have already had elephants at Minneriya, Yala is the more interesting second park. If you have not, Udawalawe is the safer bet — you will not leave without seeing elephants. > **Note:** Yala Block 1 usually closes for part of September and October; in 2026 Blocks 1 and 2 are shut from 14 September to 15 October. Block 5 and Kumana stay open. Confirm before you book. ### Days 9–10: Two nights that are not about seeing anything Base: Mirissa or Weligama · Drive in: 2 hours 30 (110 km) This is the part the seven-day itinerary sacrifices, and it is the part people remember. Whale watching from Mirissa runs roughly November to April and leaves at dawn. Weligama is where you learn to surf. Or you do neither and sit still, which after eight days of driving is a defensible plan. ### Day 10: Galle Fort, then the expressway Base: Galle, then fly · Drive in: 1 hour, then 2 hours 30 to the airport (40 km + 160 km) Walk the ramparts in the last hour of light — the fort is Dutch, walled, lived-in, and the best hour of architecture in the country. Then the E01 north, which is fast and boring and gets you to Katunayake with time to spare. ## Indicative cost | Tier | Per person | Note | | --- | --- | --- | | Budget-friendly | $550 – $820 | Land cost per person for two people sharing, excluding international flights. Entry fees to the big sites are extra and add up faster than people expect — budget separately using the calculator. | | Comfortable | $1,250 – $1,950 | Land cost per person for two people sharing, excluding international flights. Entry fees to the big sites are extra and add up faster than people expect — budget separately using the calculator. | | Premium | $3,400+ | Land cost per person for two people sharing, excluding international flights. Entry fees to the big sites are extra and add up faster than people expect — budget separately using the calculator. | ## Frequently asked questions **Is 10 days enough for Sri Lanka?** Ten days is the sweet spot. It covers the Cultural Triangle, Kandy, the tea country, Ella, a safari and the south coast, with two nights in three of those places rather than one. Below ten days something has to give; above fourteen you start adding the east or the north, which is a different kind of trip. **What is the best 10-day Sri Lanka itinerary?** Anticlockwise from the airport: two nights Sigiriya, one Kandy, one Nuwara Eliya, two Ella, one at a national park, two on the south coast, out via Galle. About seventeen hours of driving in total, no single leg longer than four hours, and no doubling back. **Should I go clockwise or anticlockwise?** Anticlockwise — inland first, coast last. Two reasons. The drive from the airport to the Cultural Triangle is quickest in the small hours when most flights land, and finishing on the coast means the beach days come when you are tired rather than when you are fresh. **How much does 10 days in Sri Lanka cost?** Excluding international flights, roughly US$550–820 per person budget-friendly, US$1,250–1,950 comfortable with a private car and driver, and from about US$3,400 premium. Two people sharing a driver makes the middle tier considerably better value per head than it looks. **Can I add Trincomalee or the east coast to 10 days?** Not without breaking the rest of it. Trincomalee is six hours from Colombo and roughly three from Sigiriya, and the east is at its best from May to September when the south-west is wet — which is the opposite season to this route. Do the east as its own trip, or as a fourteen-day itinerary built around it. --- Source: https://srilankatour.travel/itineraries/10-days Published by Sri Lanka Journeys, operated by Clever Hub (Private) Limited (Sri Lanka company no. PV00308620). Enquiries: info@srilankatour.travel · +94 77 793 6904 (phone and WhatsApp).