Sri Lanka National Park Holidays

Differences in topography and climate has served to accentuate differences in habitats between the reserves and this, in turn, has created natural settings ideal for the widest variety of mammals and birds, reptiles, amphibians, insects and flora. Impenetrable tropical jungle, open grassland, lagoons, swamps and mangroves, rolling sand dunes, wetlands, evergreen forest and inland lakes, hills, high altitude plateaus and cloud forests – this diversity provides sanctuary for a number of key, sometimes rare, animals for which Sri Lanka is rightly famed from leopard and elephant to monitor lizard and crocodile. The island is also a paradise for bird watchers with well over 500 species of endemic and migratory birds recorded.

The greatest conglomeration of wildlife reserves in Sri Lanka is centred on the island’s south coast. The best known of these, and arguably one of the premier national parks in Asia, is Yala which covers a huge area and is known for its leopard population. Within a morning’s drive of Yala are three more reserves, Bundela, Udawalawe and Sinharaja, each with their own distinct identities, whilst to the north and east of Yala lies little-visited Gal Oya National Park. Central and northern Sri Lanka also have a number of excellent protected areas – Sri Lanka’s hill country is the setting for Horton Plains National Park, elephant herds can be seen in Minneriya National Park in the Cultural Triangle whilst northern Sri Lanka is the location of the country’s joint-oldest wildlife reserve, Wilpattu.