Sri Lanka Has a New Walking Trail With Wild Forests and Centuries-old Wellness Retreats — What to Know
The hiking path covers 186 miles, visiting towns and locations rarely seen by travelers previously.
By Erin Vivid Riley
Published on April 1, 2024
From left: The Nine Arch Bridge, in the central highlands of Sri Lanka; the loose-leaf selection at the W15 Hanthana Estate, in Kandy. Photo: From left: iStockphoto/Getty Images; Courtesy of W15 Hanthana
Heavy clouds rolled overhead, clearing out the day’s humidity in Sri Lanka’s central highlands. Below a forested hillside, tea pickers in colorful saris moved among rows of electric-green bushes, as if the scene were set to high contrast. In the distance, plumes of smoke carried the scent of roasting tea leaves.
I was walking the Pekoe Trail, a long-distance hiking path that opened in Sri Lanka last year. Largely made up of existing paths used to travel between tea fields and factories, it winds 186 miles through estates and national parks. The trail, which connects 80 hamlets and villages that see few foreign visitors, was designed to bolster Sri Lanka’s tourism industry in the aftermath of the terrorist bombings that took place in the capital, Colombo, on Easter Day 2019.
More a walking holiday than a backpacking expedition, the entire trail is designed to take a laid-back 22 days, with hikers covering an average of nine miles each day. For those who don’t have three weeks to spare, it’s possible to link up separate sections with the help of a guide and driver, as I did on my five-day trip.
After arriving in Colombo, I boarded a three-hour train to the ancient city of Kandy, where the trail starts. I spent my first night at the 10-suite W15 Hanthana, where a wraparound veranda overlooked misty mountains topped with stupas and temples. The next morning, after a late breakfast of string hoppers (rice noodles) and curry, I set out on the first segment on my route: 7.5 miles of easy dirt road that cut through colorful villages and the Hanthana mountain range, a popular hiking spot, before ending in the small town of Galaha.
I was accompanied by Miguel Cuñat, the sustainable-tourism consultant who designed the trail. “You know that saying ‘To understand an island’s soul, head to its interior?’” he asked me as we ate mangoes from a roadside stand during one of our breaks. I knew what he meant. Like many visitors to Sri Lanka, I had only spent time along the beautiful coastline, and it wasn’t until this hike that I began to sense the island’s true character.
On my second day, Cuñat and I walked uphill through a steep pine forest and then followed a ridge that overlooked the Knuckles mountain range and the snaking Mahaweli River. Thick fog in the distance signaled the looming monsoons. Two hours later, the forest opened up to the Loolecondera, Sri Lanka’s first tea estate, which dates back to 1867.