Sri Lanka

Vagabonds guide till Sri Lanka. Här tipsar vi bra hotell, om hur du bäst reser runt, när det är bäst tid att åka och vad du inte får missa i matväg.

In Tissamaharama (usually shortened to Tissa), eyes are automatically drawn upwards and outwards. Upwards to the tip of its huge, snowy-white dagoba and outwards, beyond the town’s confines, to nearby wildlife reserves crawling with creatures large and small. With its pretty lakeside location, Tissa is an ideal mellow base for the nearby Yala and Bundala National Parks.

Negombo is a modest beach town located just 10km from Bandaranaike International Airport. With a stash of decent hotels and restaurants to suit all pockets, a friendly local community, an interesting old quarter and a reasonable (though somewhat polluted) beach, Negombo is a much easier place to find your Sri Lankan feet than Colombo.

Prepare your senses for overload, for the South is Sri Lanka at its most sultry and enticing: a glorious shoreline of dazzling white curves of sand set against emerald forested hills. Yes, you'll find the region a delight to explore, with each bend in the coastal highway revealing yet another idyllic cove to investigate.

With towering, rainbow-colored Hindu temples and a spectacular coastline fringed with palmyra and coconut palms, the North is a different world. Here the climate is arid for most of the year and the fields sun-baked. The light is stronger: surreal and white-hot on salt flats in the Vanni, bright and lucid on coral islands and northern beaches, and soft and speckled in Jaffna’s leafy suburbs and busy center. Look for the shimmer of colors from the wild peacocks that seem to be everywhere.

Lovely Arugam Bay, a moon-shaped curl of soft sand, is home to a famed point break that many regard as the best surf spot in the country. It's a tiny place, with a population of a few hundred, and everything is dotted along a single road which parallels the coast. So in other words, the epitome of the laid-back beach scene that first drew surfers and sun-seekers to Sri Lanka.

Leaving Colombo most eyes look south, but for those with time on their hands and a sense of curiosity, or for those on the slow road towards Anuradhapura, the northbound A3 heads out of Colombo, skirts some charming old Dutch canals, slides past some sandy beaches and gets utterly lost among a matted tangle of coconut groves and wildlife-filled woodlands. It all adds up to a wonderful sense of discovery.

Berg med gröna teplantage och sköna vandringar. Stränder med vit sand och slingrande kokospalmer och kolonialstäder med historisk atmosfär. Vagabonds Per J Andersson har rest till ett otal gånger sedan tidigt åttiotal. Här är hans bästa tips.

Wilpattu means 'natural lakes' in Sinhala and '10 lakes' in Tamil and lakes are exactly what you'll find at Wilpattu National Park. Visitor numbers remain low, even in high season, which gives Wilpattu a genuine sense of wilderness. On the flip side, however, the dense forest and general skittishness of the animals means that actually sighting wildlife is less of a sure thing than in the country's more-visited parks. This is a place for the more dedicated safari-goer.

With palm-lined beaches, turquoise waters and a good selection of guesthouses and restaurants, Unawatuna is very popular with travelers. The resort's location is superb, with the historic city of Galle just 6km away and a wooded headland to the west dotted with tiny coves.