Prices in Sri Lanka – 2024: food, entertainment, accommodation

My name is Alyona, and I’m spending this winter in Sri Lanka. I have been writing texts and organizing events remotely for many years, so I can work from anywhere in the world. And this is the fourth time I have chosen beautiful Sri Lanka for this.
I share with those who are going to relax or travel here, information on prices at resorts in Sri Lanka in 2024 – in rubles and rupees.

At the same time, let’s talk about the high and low seasons in Sri Lanka, charter flights from Moscow, look at budget hotels with and without a pool, and estimate how much a vacation in Ceylon costs for two. We will also discuss the prices of alcohol, food in the markets, Ceylon tea, mobile communications and the Internet. Let’s go!

The cost of air tickets to Sri Lanka in 2024

Sri Lanka (or Ceylon) is an island in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of India. You can get here from Russia by plane: direct flights have been open since last year.

However, most likely you will fly with a transfer — direct flights are like the wing of the very plane in which you will spend 8-9 hours. The way to any resort in Sri Lanka starts from the main airports of the country — Colombo or Hambantota. In the 2024 season, you can fly here directly from Moscow, Yekaterinburg and Novosibirsk.

Let’s open Air Sales and see how airlines compete for customers on the route Russia–Sri Lanka:

• The most pleasant price of a plane ticket from Moscow to Colombo is from 52,000 rubles per person round—trip on a Jazeera Airways flight with a 10-hour transfer in Kuwait (you cannot leave without a visa).
• We throw 10,000 rubles on top — and now you can get there more comfortably with a short transfer to Sharjah by Air Arabia.
• From the “heavy suite” there are Etihad and Emirates. Where should Aeroflot’s direct flights go? I think that they also have tickets that cost from 100,000 rubles.

It is cheaper to fly in the “transitional” months, when the season in Sri Lanka is nearing its end or beginning – for example, in October or April-May. It is very likely that you will be able to snatch a ticket for charter flights from Red Wings for 50,000 rubles round trip for one. In my opinion, it’s still expensive, so an independent trip to Sri Lanka makes sense if you have at least twenty days to rest. If you have 7-15 days set aside for a vacation, it is still more profitable to buy a tour.

How much does a tour to Sri Lanka cost in 2024?

My husband and I have never flown to Sri Lanka on a voucher, always on our own, but from the experience of friends and tips from services, I see that the prices for tours to Sri Lanka in 2024 are not higher (or even decently lower) than Turkey and Thailand.

Let’s do the math! We choose any of the well-known tour aggregators:

• Travelata
• Level.Travel
• Online tours

We enter our request — obviously, this is a vacation in Sri Lanka in 2024, for example, in the second half of January for 10 nights — and we price it. Let me remind you that there are direct flights only from Moscow, Novosibirsk and Yekaterinburg. Flights from other cities will be connected.

A similar trip to Unawatuna (this is a popular tourist village on the island, read more about it here) with departure from Moscow costs from 165,000 rubles for two, that is, 80 kopecks thousand rubles per person. A 2-star hotel with good reviews by the sea, but without food (although the prices in Sri Lanka for food are adequate, more on this below). It’s not bad if you remember that a round-trip ticket to the island alone costs about 55 to 70 thousand rubles. If you travel on your own for ten days, you will definitely spend more than the cost of the tour.

Now let’s look at the cost of a trip to Hikkaduwa from Yekaterinburg. The price range starts from 200,000 rubles for two people — 11 nights, a 2* hotel, but the first line. But the same conditions, but with departure from Moscow, cost 160,000 rubles for two, that is, much cheaper. If we take into account the impeccable hotel-resort, where everyone likes everything, as in 4* Hikka Tranz by Cinnamon, then the dilemma of “departure from the region or the capital” can also be solved by simply comparing the cost of a tour: 345,000 rubles vs 280,000 rubles for two.

Conclusion: if you are ready to overpay for convenience, buy a ticket with departure from the nearest major Russian city (Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, and so on). If there is no such option or you want to save money, take a tour from Moscow and get to the capital by domestic flight.

Prices for attractions in Sri Lanka

The main attractions of Sri Lanka and entertainment are natural: national parks, hills, waterfalls, boat trips, surfing. But there are also temples, tea plantations and factories and other recreation options.

Let’s run through the prices of the main attractions in Sri Lanka in 2024. In some cases, you will be charged in rupees, but in some places there is a fixed price in dollars:

1000 rupees = 300 rubles

• Pinnawala Elephant Nursery — 2500 rupees
• Horton Plains National Park or Horton Valley — 11,400 rupees
• The ancient city of Sigiriya — $ 30
• Golden Temple of Dambulla — 2000 rupees
• Royal Botanical Garden in Kandy — 3,000 rupees
• Ella—Nuwara-Eliya train ticket on one of the most beautiful railways in the world — 1300-2600 rupees one way
• Whale Safari — 1700-6700 rupees
• Labookellie Tea Lounge Tea Factory — free tour (at the end you can buy tea, but not necessarily)
• Surfing lesson — $15 for 1.5 hours

Almost all waterfalls, tea plantations, mountain climbs and viewpoints are free, as are walks around the city-Fort Gaulle (Halle). But! Everything is changing fast on the island, tourism is developing, and free places may soon become paid. In any case, prices in Sri Lanka for natural attractions usually do not know super-stupidity — even if the locals put up a barrier, you will get to a conditional waterfall for 250 rupees.

I have read a lot of tourist reviews about holidays in Sri Lanka in search of interesting and exciting locations. As a result, after theory on the Internet and practice on the spot, I got this top places on the island:

✔️ Diyaluma Waterfall — falls from 220 meters, be sure to go up!
✔️ The town of Ella and a 1.5-hour hiking trip to Ella Rock Mountain (green hills in tea plantations); the landmark on the map is Ella Rock View Point.
Galle Fort city — there are interesting shops, narrow streets in Portuguese style and a white lighthouse.
The Tangalle beach is long, wide, with a beautiful palm forest.
✔️ Horton Plains National Park — the feeling that you are walking through the valleys of Arizona, and deer are galloping around.

You can get to all the points mentioned above in Ceylon on your own. However, if you come for a short time and like comfort, I recommend taking organized excursions.

There is a Tripster website for tours of the world in Russian. Prices for excursions in Sri Lanka start from 150 euros per person – as a rule, these are tours only for your company on comfortable air—conditioned buses. They are taking you to see not one waterfall, but several interesting points at once, which are located mainly in the hard-to-reach center of the island. Kandy, Ella, Nuwara Eliya are some of the most popular destinations.

So it’s worth it: I’ve traveled half the island without excursions, by bike and local buses, and I can tell you for sure that it will be more comfortable, more reliable and faster with an excursion.

Transportation in Sri Lanka

If you still prefer “independent” tourism, you can go to interesting places bypassing excursions.

But first I want to point out this. In the main resorts of Sri Lanka, as well as many places in Asia, there are not too many sidewalks for pedestrians. You can walk comfortably along the seaside tourist streets, but you will not see an equipped embankment, as in Turkish cities, in the resort villages of Sri Lanka. How do you move between the points you need?

Local buses can be used for this purpose. They walk all over the island, and the fare costs pennies (about 65 rupees / 20 rubles per 10 km). But you can’t call them convenient transport: drivers drive crazy, there are a lot of people, and the seats are small and hard. Nevertheless, for traveling around the south of the island — for example, from the resort of Hikkaduwa to Galle, between Unawatuna and Veligama — this transport is very suitable. Seven years ago, I rode such buses even to the center of the island (3-5 hours)! I must say that the entertainment is quite extreme and not suitable for everyone.

You can also get there by taxi or tuk-tuks. Surprisingly, the prices in Sri Lanka for them are almost the same and depend on your ability to bargain. The reasonable cost of a tuk-tuk is 150-200 rupees (45-60 rubles) per 1 km of travel. I recommend that you immediately find your “tooker”, take his phone and write as soon as you need transport, immediately agreeing on the amount of rupees from point to point.

The prices for taxis (cars) will be about the same. If you have internet access outside the hotel, you can call a taxi through the PickMe app. I haven’t tried it, but they say it only works well in big cities.

By the way, about the Internet: if you want to be online and on the beach, I recommend buying a SIM card from local operators Mobitel or Dialog. It catches almost everywhere, the cost of 30 GB of Internet per month is about 1200 rupees (360 rubles).

Many people ask about the railway on the island. Here it is inexpensive, but very slow and not too comfortable to transport, so I do not recommend using it. The only exception is a three—hour trip between the cities of Ella and Nuwara Eliya. This section of road with a length of about 50 km is among the top 10 most beautiful railway sections in the world, and it can only be driven for the sake of views. The trip will cost 1,300-2,600 rupees (400-800 rubles) depending on the car.

Rent a car and scooter

This is my fourth time on the island, and I’ve been renting a scooter in Sri Lanka for the last three. This is very convenient: the distances on the coast are small (between Galle and Unawatuna, for example, 5 km), the roads are smooth and straight. There is only one lane and they cannot be called wide — as a result, we get that the most convenient transport for such is just a scooter or a bicycle.

The cost of renting a bike starts from 1400 rupees per day (420 rubles), and if you take it for a month, it turns out cheaper — we rent our own right now for 25,000 rupees per month (7,500 rubles). Do not forget the basic requirements and rules of the lease: you need to leave something as collateral (documents or money) and be sure to take a picture of the bike along and across with all its scratches before use, so that later you will not be presented with unnecessary damage.

• Gasoline prices in Sri Lanka in 2024 are 420 rupees per liter of regular (125 rubles). My husband and I spend no more than 700 rubles a week on fuel, using a bike every day.

What about the rights? It’s simple: here you can drive with a Russian or international license, which has category A. If this is not about you, you can also drive, but be prepared to pay the traffic police a one-time fine of 500-1000 rupees. By the way, for a month and a half on the island we have never been stopped, although we have the rights.

And an important warning: if the roads on the coast are smooth and straight, then in the center of the island they rise to a height of up to 2200 meters above sea level — these are real serpentines! If you are not sure of your driving level on such roads, it is better not to use a bike. Or at least rent a car to travel deep into Ceylon.

Cars for rent in Sri Lanka can be found at a price of $ 20 per day, and if you take it for a month, the price starts from $ 500. Cars and their condition can be very different — from small hybrid to large eight-seater. By the way, you can rent a tuk-tuk in Sri Lanka. Locals say it costs about 40,000 rupees (12,000 rubles) per month.

Hotel prices in Sri Lanka in 2024

Probably, now the section about housing in the guide to any country in the world in Russian should begin with an answer to an important question: how do I find anything and book it without a foreign bank card?

Fortunately, there is a choice of services and it is not even limited to one:

• The island is suitable to book a hotel separately from the flight
• Travelata is an aggregator of both tours and hotels; sometimes offers here are more profitable or with better cancellation conditions than on the Island
• Yandex.Travel is also for self—booking hotels both in Russia and abroad

Just type in the parameters you need there, and the system will show you the best options. And always compare the hotel you like on all three sites. You can also search for 1-night options for those who arrived on their own in Sri Lanka and want to find accommodation for a long time on the spot. All these sites accept payment for the hotel with Russian cards, you can choose according to the rating of hotels and reviews.

As for the prices. I will make a table where I will indicate the cost of different categories of hotels by season using the example of Hikkaduwa, one of the most popular resorts in Sri Lanka.

Hotel prices in Sri Lanka in 2024:
(for 1 night)

Despite the fact that we always rent apartments in the jungle on the island and have never stayed in hotels by the sea, over time I began to notice hotels that tourists like or my friends who flew to Sri Lanka for a standard 10 days choose.

• 2* Rockside Beach Resort (Bentota) is a compact hotel on the first coast with ocean view rooms. Secluded, the beach is good, but far from the centers of tourist life.
• 3* At Ease Beach Hotel (Hikkaduwa) is a good hotel with a swimming pool and breakfast. A three-storey villa by the sea (and Hikkaduwa has a good beach), cozy and with large rooms.
• 4* Hikka Tranz by Cinnamon (Hikkaduwa) is a record-breaking hotel in terms of the number of reviews. This is because the quality and convenience of tourists are above all. There is an all inclusive power option. There is a coral reef adjacent to the hotel, and turtles can sometimes be seen here!
• 3* Green Villa (Unawatuna) is a nice villa with large and bright rooms in the popular tourist area of Unawatuna. The advantages of the villa are that you will most likely have access to the kitchen, there are several neighbors (not hundreds, as in the hotel), plus the landlord will live within walking distance.
• 5* Thaproban Pavilion Waves (Unawatuna) — small, with good grades and a swimming pool, close to the beach, but not on the shore. Staying here, you will be in a quiet place, but immediately outside the hotel there are a lot of restaurants for every taste, as well as interesting shops and much more.
• 5* Jetwing Lighthouse (Galle) is a cool and beautiful hotel in a relatively large city in the south of Sri Lanka. Its peculiarity is that there will be more locals than tourists outside the hotel.

Where is the best place to stay in Sri Lanka? You can read a detailed article about the island’s resorts or take my word for it: if I were a tourist, I would choose Unawatuna. From here, by bus, it is close to Veligama (surfing there), and to the city of Galle (a beautiful fort), there is a good beach and many delicious cafes nearby.

Food prices

Sri Lanka is a wide variety of fruits, vegetables and food in general, especially if we are talking about the choice on the menu in a cafe. Here you can easily find European dishes, Russian borscht, and local rice&curry (rice with curry). By the way, prices in cafes in Sri Lanka are on average lower than in Moscow. For a decent portion of food, which my husband and I often take for two, in tourist places you will give 1000-1700 rupees, and in local cafes — 500-1000 rupees. Let me remind you that 1000 rupees = 300 rubles.

What should food gourmets try in Sri Lanka?

• Tuna dishes
• Curry rice
• Kottu — minced tortillas with chicken and vegetables
• Kerd is a local analogue of yogurt made from buffalo milk
• Roti — lean pancakes with a variety of fillings

Here are some good cafes in tourist spots:

Unawatuna: Grecha Lounge with cocktails at 3500-3800 rupees (alcohol prices are not low in Sri Lanka) and cheesecakes at 2500 rupees; Society with brunches in the form of avocado toasts, benedicts and bowls for 3000-4000 rupees.
🥭 Veligama: “New Hummus Restaurant” with simple breakfasts for 1000-2000 rupees and an amazing shawarma for 1800 rupees; “Fujisan”, which got its name for the presence of Japanese cuisine on the menu, generously flavored with Italian, Mexican and seafood (1800-3500 rupees per dish).
Galle: “Ocean Bistro by Starbeans”, where I really like kottu (550-850 rupees) and mojito (250 rupees); “Pedlar’s Inn Café”, where food prices are much higher than the average in Sri Lanka in 2024, but taste and quality take their toll (2000-4000 rupees per dish).

Prices of fruits and other food in Sri Lanka in 2024

You can buy food on the island at fruit and vegetable shops, which in Sri Lanka are everywhere along the road, as well as in small and large shops. Fruits (mango, papaya, passion fruit and bananas) are better to take from street vendors.

A popular tourist question is: where is mango tastier, in Thailand or Sri Lanka? As far as I understand, mango varieties are different here: in Thai it is sweeter, here it is slightly sour, but no less tasty. At the same time, passion fruit is tastier in Thailand, and papaya is better in Sri Lanka.

We buy food from the Food City chain — they have a noticeable red sign, you will find it almost everywhere where people live in Sri Lanka. And we go to Cargills or Keels stores to buy seriously. These are ordinary chain supermarkets where you can buy the food we are used to.

In general, food in stores is cheaper than in Russia. Here are the approximate prices in Sri Lanka for products in 2024 (in rupees, 100 rupees = 30 rubles):

• A kilogram of mango — 500 rupees
• 10 eggs — 400 rupees
• A kilogram of chicken breast — 1,700 rupees
• Fresh shrimp — 1300 rupees
• A kilogram of fresh tuna (fish) — 850 rupees
• Canned tuna — from 400 rupees
• Potatoes, cucumbers, tomatoes, carrots and greens — up to 200 rupees per kg
• A kilogram of cheese — from 1,700 rupees
• Coconut or sunflower oil, large bottle — 400 rupees
• Toast bread — 330 rupees
• Good black bread from the bakery — 850 rupees
• Cola 0.33 — 120 rupees

When you leave the store with a set of familiar products, it is noticeable that for a thousand rubles you can buy more delicious things here than in Russia.

How much does a vacation in Sri Lanka cost in 2024?

It is difficult to name even an approximate amount: it depends on your vacation needs. Let’s estimate the cost of a trip to Sri Lanka for 14 days on our own for 2 people.

• Medical insurance (we arrange it ourselves on Cheryokhap) — 1500 rubles
• Round-trip tickets for two (we take the average cost) — 120,000 rubles
• Rent accommodation in a hotel within walking distance from the sea without meals — 3000 rubles per day, a total of 42,000 rubles
• Food without alcohol — 3,000 rubles a day, a total of 42,000 rubles
• Transportation (tuktuks, buses and taxis or bike): 500 rubles per day, total 7000 rubles
• Excursions — $200 dollars each, total $400 (40,000 rubles)

Total for 14 days: approximately 250,000 rubles for two.

Here is such a big budget for a trip to Sri Lanka for two. Is it expensive? For us, yes. We spend less due to the fact that we cook at home and rent cheaper for a longer period of time. And you can also not go on excursions, but move around the island on your own — then the price of a holiday in Sri Lanka in 2024 will be much less.

Currency and finance: what kind of money should I take to Sri Lanka?

In Sri Lanka, the official currency is the Sri Lankan Rupee (LKR). There are two ways to get it profitably.

Method 1. Bring dollars or euros here and exchange them for rupees at the airport or at the exchange offices that are in the large settlements of the island (Unawatuna, Hikkaduwa, Veligama, Ahangama and so on). At the same time, to my surprise, every time the dollar / rupee exchange rate at the airport turns out to be the most profitable, so feel free to change money immediately upon arrival.

Method 2. If you have a card from a foreign (not Russian) bank, you can withdraw money from it directly in local currency.

Pay attention:

• It is better not to take rubles to the island — the exchange will be unprofitable.
• Russian bank cards are not the best way to withdraw money in Sri Lanka: they do not work here.
• Foreign cards are accepted on the island, but not everywhere — you can pay with them only in tourist cafes and large shops. Therefore, it is better to carry half of the amount that you plan to spend on Sri in cash.
• Credit cards are not accepted everywhere in Sri Lanka, so I recommend that you carry cash in local currency to pay for minor expenses and purchases.

How is the situation in the country?

If you are going to fly on vacation to Sri Lanka in 2024, then surely someone has already hinted to you about the crisis, riots, interruptions in resources … Security, electricity, water – what is there with all this now?

Yes, Sri Lanka has experienced several crises in recent years – economic, energy, and political. The country had problems with medicines, gasoline and food, in addition, it suffered from a lack of tourists during the pandemic years.

Now the situation has returned to normal: there are medicines in pharmacies, there are enough products and everything else in the coastal zone, there have been no protests in the tourist part for a long time, everything is calm. The only noticeable consequences are short—term power outages during the day (for a maximum of a couple of hours a couple of times a week). In addition, if you rent a vehicle, you will be given a special QR code – without it, they will not pour fuel at the gas station. According to it, you can pour 4 liters of gasoline into a scooter per week, and 20 liters in a car, no more. This amount is enough to travel along the coast and the island in general, and we never stood in line at the gas station, if there is one, for more than 5 minutes.

It seems that the prices at the resorts of Sri Lanka have all the key information in the text. If you have any questions, ask!

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