Udawalawe National Park
Often cited as Sri Lanka’s best national park, Udawalawe rarely disappoints. Thanks mainly to the landscape of low forest and grassland, animals are easy to spot, especially elephants, with a total of around 600 animals inside the park boundaries, often seen in herds up to 50.
Park tours are by motor vehicle, rather than on elephant-back, but crowding these wild animals can alter their natural behaviour. Tell your driver to keep a healthy distance, and avoid the road-side stalls on the approach to the park selling fruit to feed to the elephants. This erodes their fear of humans, as you’ll see from the elephants waiting by the park fence, effectively begging for food.
Bundala National Park
If you want to avoid the crowds hemming in the wildlife in larger national parks, compact little Bundala is a mesmerising mix of islands, lagoons and dunes, and a wetland area of international significance. Often overshadowed by Yala National Park, its famous neighbour, Bundala is less frequently visited, so animals are relatively undisturbed by human presence.
Commonly seen residents include elephants (between 10 and 60 depending on the season), langur monkeys and crocodiles, while four species of marine turtle (olive ridley, green, leatherback and loggerhead) lay their eggs on the coast between October and January. The wetlands mean superb bird-watching too, and there are fewer visitors to scare them away.
Minneriya & Kaudulla National Parks
In the flatlands of north-central Sri Lanka, the national parks of Minneriya and Kaudulla form a giant corridor for elephants to move relatively freely across a large area. The parks are most famous for the annual ‘Gathering’, from August to October: this is when elephants congregate in vast herds as lake water recedes, giving way to fresh grass. When visiting, drivers kept a healthy distance and the elephants seemed undisturbed by our vehicles. To give the herds breathing space, bring a long camera lens and encourage your driver not to participate in the scrum to get close to elephants for photos.
Whale-Watching at Mirissa
The southern coastal town of Mirissa is famous for two reasons: its beautiful beach is a favourite backpacker party destination, and it’s an excellent place to see whales. Top of the bill are blue whales, as well as fin whales, sperm whales and various species of dolphin. Boat tours are easy to arrange and, best of all, Mirissa has reputable operators who respect welfare guidelines about cetaceans.
Ethical operators take small groups on small boats, approaching pods slowly and avoiding practices such as ‘leap-frogging’, where boats race ahead of whales so that animals will pass close by for photos. Cetaceans are so abundant here that there is no need for operators to crowd the whales, and better operators will move on in search of other whales if a pod is already being observed by several boats.
Ethical Elephant Encounters
‘Elephant orphanages’ are popular tourist attractions in Sri Lanka, but many are little more than commercial zoos, breeding elephants in captivity for public display. The good news is that there are some ethical operators. Near Uda Walawe, the Elephant Transit Home is a centre for young elephants whose parents have been poached or captured, and rehabilitated elephants are released back into the wild.
The work here is supported by the Born Free Foundation, and viewing platforms keep a safe distance between humans and jumbos, while providing a vantage point for an up-close look at the youngsters in an environment that is not distressing to these traumatised animals.