# 5 days in Sri Lanka: Five days, one half of the island, and no wasted afternoons 5 days, 4 nights · Airport · Sigiriya · Kandy · Colombo · https://srilankatour.travel/itineraries/5-days **Who it suits:** A stopover on the way to or from somewhere else, or a first look at the island before you commit to a longer trip. **The trade-off:** You see the Cultural Triangle and the edge of the hills, and you skip the coast entirely. Five days is not enough for both, and the itineraries that claim otherwise are quietly asking you to spend two of your five days in a car. **Best months:** December to March, or July to September · **Total driving:** About 9 hours in total ## Day by day ### Day 1: Land, drive inland, sleep near the rock Base: Sigiriya or Habarana · Drive in: 4 hours from the airport (150 km) Most flights from Europe and the Gulf land between one and four in the morning. If yours does, the drive inland is the easiest one of the trip — the roads are empty and you arrive in time for breakfast. If you land in the afternoon instead, you will hit Kurunegala traffic and it becomes five hours. Either way, do not try to sightsee on day one. > **Note:** Habarana is fifteen minutes further north than Sigiriya but has the better hotels and is closer to Minneriya, so most people sleep there and drive to the rock. ### Day 2: Sigiriya at opening, Dambulla in the afternoon Base: Sigiriya · Drive in: Local (—) Be at the Sigiriya gate when it opens. It is roughly 1,200 steps with almost no shade, and by ten o'clock it is a hot staircase with a queue on it. Down by mid-morning, then the Dambulla cave temples after lunch — five caves cut into a rock face, 150-odd Buddhas, and cool inside, which by then matters. > **Note:** Pidurangala is the cheaper climb across the valley and gives you the view of Sigiriya rather than the view from it. Doing both in one morning is a real option if you are fit and start early. ### Day 3: South into the hills Base: Kandy · Drive in: 2 hours 30 (90 km) The road to Kandy runs through Matale and the spice gardens, which are a sales pitch with a garden attached — pleasant enough, skippable. Kandy itself is a lake, a temple that holds the Buddha's tooth, and a botanical garden at Peradeniya that is genuinely one of the best in Asia. The Temple of the Tooth is at its most alive during the evening puja. > **Note:** Cover shoulders and knees for the temple, and you will take your shoes off. There is a shoe counter; it is fine. ### Day 4: A day that is not spent driving Base: Kandy · Drive in: Local (—) Four days in and this is the one day you are not in a car. Peradeniya gardens in the morning, then whatever suits — a tea factory towards Hantana, the Udawattakele forest reserve behind the temple, or the market. If you want the hill country train, this is the day for a short out-and-back run down the line rather than the full journey, which does not fit in five days. ### Day 5: Down to the coast and out Base: Colombo, then fly · Drive in: 3 hours to the airport (120 km) The E04 and E01 expressways make this a genuinely quick drive, which is not something you can say about many Sri Lankan roads. If your flight is late evening you have time for Colombo — Pettah market, Gangaramaya, and Galle Face Green at sunset in that order. If it is early, go straight to the airport and do not cut it fine. > **Note:** Leave four hours between arriving at the airport and take-off for a full international flight. Katunayake queues are slow at the 01:00–03:00 departure bank. ## Indicative cost | Tier | Per person | Note | | --- | --- | --- | | Budget-friendly | $280 – $420 | 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 | $620 – $980 | 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 | $1,700+ | 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 5 days enough for Sri Lanka?** It is enough for one half of the island done properly — either the Cultural Triangle and Kandy, or the south coast and Galle. It is not enough for both. The island is small on a map and slow on the ground: 150 km can take four hours, so an itinerary that strings together five regions in five days is mostly an itinerary about driving. **Can I do Sigiriya and the beach in 5 days?** You can, but it costs you roughly seven hours of driving to move between them, which is a day and a half of a five-day trip. If the beach is the point, start on the south coast and skip the Cultural Triangle entirely — Galle, Mirissa and Yala make a much better five days than a rushed loop. **Should I fly into Colombo or Mattala for a short trip?** Colombo (CMB, Katunayake) for almost everyone. Mattala in the south handles very few flights. If your trip is south-coast only, landing at Colombo and driving down the E01 expressway is still about two and a half hours and is the normal way to do it. **How much driving is in this itinerary?** About nine hours in total, spread over three transfer days, with two days that involve no long drive at all. That is deliberately at the low end — five-day itineraries that add the hills or the coast push it past fifteen. --- Source: https://srilankatour.travel/itineraries/5-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).