To help inspire or plan your trip to Sri Lanka, some of its major attractions for travellers are shown below, including some of the best natural, historical, cultural and adventure sites in the country. These include all of UNESCO World Heritage Sites for Sri Lanka which represent the best of the world's cultural and natural heritage.
Click on the icons below to focus on specific types of features (click again to return to all).

NaturalHistoryWildlifeTrekkingCitiesReligious MonumentBoat
Journey
Rail
Journey
DivingCulturalAdrenalineUNESCO WHS

Cities of interest in Sri Lanka

Kandy

Kandy became capital of the kingdom in 1592 and resisted European domination for hundreds of years. It is most famous as a scared site of pilgrimage for Buddhists, who flock to see Dalada Maligawa, the Temple of the Tooth, which contains the sacred tooth of the Buddha, taken from his funeral pyre in 543 BC and brought to Sri Lanka in the 4th century AD. Each evening the casket containing the tooth relic is put on display during the Thewawa ceremony whilst the city hosts the spectacular Esala Perahera festival every July or August, when thousands of dancers and hundreds of elephants march through the town with a replica of the tooth carried on a richly decorated elephant. Elsewhere in town, the Peradeniya Botanical Gardens contain 4,000 species of plants including a massive weeping fig tree, numerous orchids and the rare Coco de Mer coconut tree while a performance of Kandian dancers and fire eaters is worth checking out.

UNESCO World Heritage Site: Sacred City of Kandy