Hikkaduwa: Sri Lanka's Original Beach Town Done Right

Hikkaduwa discovered the backpacker in the 1970s and the backpacker has been coming back ever since. The town is busy, the main beach road is loud with restaurants and guesthouses and surf shops, and the reef just offshore is a protected marine sanctuary where sea turtles feed in the late afternoon with extraordinary reliability. Hikkaduwa is not the most refined beach town in Sri Lanka. It is one of the most alive.

The turtle watching here requires no boat and no ticket. Rent a mask and snorkel from any beach shop, wade in off the main beach, and within ten minutes you will almost certainly have a large green turtle cruise past within arm's reach. They are entirely unbothered. They have been grazing this reef for decades and the presence of snorkellers is simply the background condition of their afternoon meal.

The surf at Hikkaduwa breaks on a reef that produces a consistent right and a more temperamental left. It works best from November to April and the break has produced some of Sri Lanka's best surfers over the decades. The surf culture here is genuine and the local rippers in the lineup have been surfing since childhood. Show some respect and the water is immediately a more welcoming place.

For food, walk away from the beachfront strip and find the local spots on the road behind. The rice and curry lunch at a family restaurant a block back costs a third of the price of the tourist-facing places on the beach and is invariably better. The lagoon at the northern end of Hikkaduwa is beautiful and calm and largely ignored by visitors, which makes it exactly the kind of place worth going.