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St Francis |
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Sri Lanka Travel Notes
March 11-24, 2025
About the Trip
Visas: Americans need visas for Sri Lanka. It was easy to use the online visa application portal, and we were emailed visa within hours of applying. They cost $52 USD. It took a couple of credit cards before we got one to work. We printed these out and were asked for them at the airline ticket counter on check-in and at Immigration on arrival.
Travel Arrangements: We made most of the trip's arrangements ourselves online. (Google Flights, Airline websites, Booking.com, Agoda, Klook, Trip Advisor, etc).
Attached is a PDF of our overall plan (coming soon).
DIY Travel:
Sri Lanka is easy to travel in. If
you have the time, you don't need to book a tour or a use a travel
agent. Hotels are easy to book on Agoda or Booking.com, and once at a
hotel, the hotels are quite eager to help you with other arrangements
(tours, transfers to your next town, etc).
Best Time to Go to Sri Lanka: We were told that the best season is November to March.
Other than in the hill country, we made sure our hotels/homestays had air conditioning and we were fine.
Time Zone: Sri Lanka is +5:30 UTC.
Money: Most tourist oriented things quote in USD and/or Sri Lankan Rupee (LKR) (about 295 LKR to $1 US in Mar 2025). There are money change signs everywhere, and many mainstream currencies are accepted at the money changers. We also found multiple ATMs in nearly every larger town. The smaller towns and establishments want cash, but a lot of places will take VISA (with a 3-4% surcharge tacked on).
There were ? ATM's in the Colombo airport.
Cell Sims & Internet: tbd
Booking Hotels: We mostly used Booking.com, unless someone gave us the name of a recommended hotel, and then we would search for a direct booking site online. (ie, the hotel's own website). The booking sites take around 15% of the booking price, and control your interaction with the hotel (ie, you must communicate thru the app, not directly). This control issue can get problematic, and a direct booking gives more of your $$ to the actual hotel owner vs the advertising site.
Our Rough Plan in Excel Spreadsheet format
References/Resources we Used: