Weekend Escapes from Colombo: The Best Short Trips Out of the City

Colombo is excellent but it is also dense, loud, and relentless in the way that all serious cities are. The good news is that you are never more than three hours from something completely different. The infrastructure of weekend escapes from Colombo is well-developed — boutique hotels, good food, and extraordinary nature are all within reach of a Friday evening departure.

Galle is the classic weekend. Two and a half hours down the highway, a night or two inside the Fort, the ramparts at sunrise, dinner at a restaurant in a 300-year-old Dutch building, the drive back on Sunday afternoon with the windows open and the ocean to your left. This is the weekend trip that never gets old regardless of how many times you make it.

Kandy is two hours up the highway in the opposite direction and it feels like arriving in a different country. The hill air, the lake, the temple, the botanical gardens, the food. Spend one night and walk the town in the early morning before the day tours arrive. The market area near the lake is where Kandy actually lives.

Bentota is the quick coast option — ninety minutes south, a wide flat beach, the Bentota River behind for kayaking and boat rides into the mangroves, Geoffrey Bawa's Lunuganga estate nearby for an afternoon visit. Stay at one of the smaller boutique hotels rather than the large resorts and the weekend takes on a completely different quality. Come back on Sunday evening and you will have covered beach, river, architecture, and possibly a crab lunch. Not a bad two days.