Best Beaches and Surfing Spots

If you love a bit of an action packed holiday with gorgeous sunsets and long walks on the beach, Sri Lanka is a perfect spot!

Click on the highlighted links to see the locations.

If you are looking for a relaxing beach holiday, to sip on cocktails and tan, our all time favourite spot was Hikkaduwa Beach. It’s perfect for a 2-3 night stay with plenty or things to do.

We stayed at Neevana Hotel Hikkaduwa (available through Booking.com), a small hotel with a beachfront and a pool. It’s a nice stroll away from Turtle Beach. Yes we saw mahooosive turtles! They come super close! AND you can feed them. There are locals who sell bags of seaweed but it can get crowded with tourists if the turtles show up. If you don’t get a chance to see turtles, there is a turtle conservatory just a short drive away where you can pick up baby turtles and see quite a few types of turtles.

Disclaimer: they are in small empty tanks and some of them are injured so won’t be returned back to the ocean but they do look after the hatched eggs and safely let the baby turtles make their way into the ocean without any harm.

You can also go snorkelling! We got scammed to go snorkelling lol but if you want to snorkel and see fish then we suggest buying a pair of snorkels (for hygiene purposes and probably cheaper) and looking around the corals but be careful! You can also spot baby black tip fin sharks along the beach walk from the hotel.

Hikkaduwa is a fishing village and at the harbour there are so many colourful fishing boats, really cool for photos. There is also a fish market at the harbour early in the mornings where all the fresh fish are sold. We didn’t get to see this bit in action but it would be a cool street market experience!

Hikkaduwa

 

Weligama Bay is a huge beach. In my experience, it’s one of the best surfing spots specially for beginners. I stayed at Kima Surf Camp for a week and it was one of my favourite experiences! There’s guided surfing sessions included in your stay no matter what level you are. There’s food available at the camp throughout the day or plenty of restaurants around. It’s a great place to meet so many people doing all sorts of things from all over the world!

They also organise several social activities with Doctor’s House being a prime beach club only 20 mins away. Honestly given the whole experience it was a steal and a half. But if you don’t want to stay for that long there’s plenty of boutique hotels and villas in Weligama. And if you still want to surf, there’s surf lessons you can get at the beach or if you already know how to surf you can rent a board as well.

Side Note: if you want a little fancy getaway, Malabar Hill is a goorrgeous place to stay ;)

Weligama

 

Hiriketiya is another gorgeous beach. This one is very secluded and small but is very pretty. It’s good for a 1-2 night trip or even a day trip. There’s surfing here too and Kima Surf Camp has a branch here. There’s loads of yum beachfront restaurants!

Not too far away from Hiriketiya Bay is Blue Beach Island - this is where two sides of the ocean meet and during low tide you can cross over to the island. It’s a nice spot for photos!

Tip: There are locals that will try and get you to buy surf lessons at Dickwella Beach (to the left of Hiriketiya). Dickwella beach is not very nice, it’s quite polluted and murky water so best to stay away and the currents are very strong so not ideal at all for surfing.

Hiriketiya

 

  • Galle Fort and Jungle Beach

    • We took the 7am train from Panadura station to Galle railway station. It is ideal to go quite early to avoid the sun.

    • We walked around the Galle Fort for about an hour, there’s a lot of souvenir shops and cafes and pretty views and a lot of history.

    • We then took a tuktuk (20 min ride) to Jungle beach. There’s a little trek through the jungle and you come to a very secluded beach. We had lunch at one of the local restaurants along the beach, and headed back to Galle station to get the 4pm train back.

  • Unwatuna Beach is also really close to the Jungle Beach and has a lot better and more food spots.

  • Mirissa Beach is quite famous, has a nice beach with turtles as well and you can visit the famous Coconut Tree Hill.

Day trips to the south

Hotels and Villas in the south