7 independent reviews for Sri Lanka wildlife vacation, tailor made
Reviews for Sri Lanka wildlife vacation, tailor made
Ian Keel review 7 Feb 2020
1. What was the most memorable or exciting part of your vacation?
Photographing and seeing a wild Leopard about 20" away.2. What tips would you give other travelers booking this vacation?
Be prepaired for early starts and a fairly tiring trip with temperatures between 27°c & 33°c, make sure you drink at least 3 to 4 litres of water a day.3. Did you feel that your vacation benefited local people, reduced environmental impacts or supported conservation?
Whilst it is possible to claim all your VAT payments back when you leave Sri Lanka, I advise against doing so as I feel that if you spend time living within a community you should always try to contribute to it.4. Finally, how would you rate your vacation overall?
Sri Lanka is a very beautiful country (spoilt in a lot of places by large amounts of litter and fly tipping, it has fantastic wildlife that is relatively easy to see, including Leopards, Elephants, Water buffalo, Wild boar, Turtles, Tortoises, Mongoose, Dolphins and Whales. The food can become a little repetative when eating curry and rice three times a day for two and a half weeks, but over all vacationing there is a enjoyable experience.Andrew Abbott review 17 Nov 2019
1. What was the most memorable or exciting part of your vacation?
Yala National Park and Polwaththa Eco-Lodge(the food especially)2. What tips would you give other travelers booking this vacation?
Spend more time at Yala if you are going for wildlife3. Did you feel that your vacation benefited local people, reduced environmental impacts or supported conservation?
Yes, absolutely. Since the bombings in Sri Lanka their tourist industry has suffered big time, need more people to go back to this amazing country4. Finally, how would you rate your vacation overall?
OutstandingCatharine Fitzgerald review 2 Sep 2019
1. What was the most memorable or exciting part of your vacation?
I don’t know where to begin. It was all amazing. I couldn’t choose one thing. The main things were seeing leopard and also hundreds of nesting painted storks on a lake in Yala, the elephants and their young at Minneriya and seeing turtles and sharks when snorkelling. Good mix of Different types of accommodation, tents at the parks with dinner at tables round the camp fire, eco lodge in the forest in the hills, and some lovely hotels.2. What tips would you give other travelers booking this vacation?
Do it - it’s a wonderful varied country. It has plenty of wildlife, beautiful scenery including beaches, mountains, rivers - very green and lush vegetation. We concentrated on wildlife but if I had had more time I would have spent another couple of days in the mountains and some hiking - it was so beautiful.3. Did you feel that your vacation benefited local people, reduced environmental impacts or supported conservation?
Probably not in a big way but we had a great local driver (with excellent English) who was with us the wholeVacation. I bought some local produce and crafts where I could. We stayed in an amazing eco lodge in the mountains. The Sri lancans are very aware of climate change environment etc but tourist from certain countries are not and they don’t yet have laws in place to protect everything, for example the coral where tourist don’t have to have guide and they can’t swim and go out walking on the coral and kill it.4. Finally, how would you rate your vacation overall?
Excellent. Just what we wanted. Only wish we had had more time. The agent in Sri Lanka was very good and it was easy to plan the vacation with them. They have some Sample itineries but can tailor them to whatever you want to do and however many days/weeks you wish.Beth James review 9 Mar 2019
1. What was the most memorable or exciting part of your vacation?
Seeing the leopards in Yala National Park2. What tips would you give other travelers booking this vacation?
Add a night in the mountains somewhere - we drove from Kandy to Udewalwe in one day and it was too much.3. Did you feel that your vacation benefited local people, reduced environmental impacts or supported conservation?
The game parks all seemed to hire locals and they endeavoured to have reduced waste etc.4. Finally, how would you rate your vacation overall?
Catherine Stothart review 20 Feb 2019
1. What was the most memorable or exciting part of your vacation?
So many different birds - we saw 85 different types of bird. Lots of lovely fruit at breakfast and fruit juices - pineapple, papaya, water melon etc.2. What tips would you give other travelers booking this vacation?
Take binoculars.3. Did you feel that your vacation benefited local people, reduced environmental impacts or supported conservation?
Not really, except that tourism brings in income. Probably too many jeeps in Yala park, which is not good for the animals or the environment. It was good that we were discouraged from single use plastic bottles and were given access to water to fill up re-usable bottles.4. Finally, how would you rate your vacation overall?
Excellent vacation for anyone interested in wildlife - we did four jeep safaris, a whale watching trip and four walks in the rainforest - there was plenty of opportunity to be in nature and spot animals and birds. The trip was well planned and the guide was well organised and very pleasant and helpful. It was great and I would definitely go back to Sri Lanka.Jacqui Porteous review 28 Nov 2018
1. What was the most memorable or exciting part of your vacation?
Seeing leopards in the wild.2. What tips would you give other travelers booking this vacation?
Upgrade to the next standard of tent at the big game Safari lodges3. Did you feel that your vacation benefited local people, reduced environmental impacts or supported conservation?
4. Finally, how would you rate your vacation overall?
Great and Gal Oya was an amazing addition would recommend staying at least two nights.Roxana Feier review 29 Sep 2016
1. What was the most memorable or exciting part of your vacation?
We especially loved the second day of our tour, when we climbed the Sigiriya rock fortress in the morning, had a traditional lunch in a village near Habarana and interacted with the villagers in the afternoon, then saw elephants in Minneriya National Park in the evening. It was a perfect combination of everything that Sri Lanka has to offer. We also really enjoyed the campfire dinner at Big Game Camp in Udawalawe National Park.2. What tips would you give other travelers booking this vacation?
Check with the tour company what the schedule is each day. For example, it said in our booklet that we would be waking up early on our last two days of the tour, but we did not realise that meant waking up at 5 am, a full hour before sunrise! (On a related note, we were not convinced that waking up that early to go to Horton Plains National Park was necessary; it's true that all the tourists were going early, but the locals were not coming to the park until several hours later!). I would recommend bringing socks for visiting the ancient sites. You have to remove shoes and the ground can be extremely hot! Don't expect public toilets to have toilet paper. Bring tissues with you. We found the wood carving shop and the batik factory that we were taken to massively overpriced. If you want to buy something you should definitely negotiate (get your driver to help you). But it's also fine not to buy anything and just compensate the person showing you around for their time. We found the spice garden and tea plantation we went to relatively fairly priced so we were happy to buy stuff there.3. Did you feel that your vacation benefited local people, reduced environmental impacts or supported conservation?
We felt that this vacation benefited local people. This includes our safari drivers, hotel staff in Sigiriya, staff at the Big Game Camp at Udawalawe National Park, the family that cooked us lunch near Habarana, and of course our driver and guide. We thought it was wasteful that we were the only people in our jeep at Minneriya National Park, when it could have easily accommodated 6 or 8 people. These jeeps are also pretty polluting (and make a lot of noise, which is not ideal for wildlife), so I think something could be done here in terms of minimising environmental impact. Elephant Transit Home near Udawalawe National Park seems to do good conservation work and we were happy to support their efforts through our visit. There is a high entrance fee for Horton Plains National Park (especially since national parks in America/Europe have modest fees or even no fees at all), but the park looked pristine so maybe it's worth paying to maintain it.4. Finally, how would you rate your vacation overall?
My husband and I enjoyed this tour and we would not hesitate to book with this vacation provider (and Responsible Travel) again. It's clear that we would have not been able to see so much of Sri Lanka and learn as much about its history and people had we self-organised. We're taking a star off because we felt pretty tired by the end of it (some time off to explore on our own would have been great, even at the expense of seeing fewer attractions) and we felt we received insufficient information about some aspects of the tour (wake-up time, accommodation standards at Big Game Camp). But overall we had a fantastic time!Holiday Reviews
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