Sri Lanka with kids

Hi
Sri lanka is one of the country respect lot for child that will make you trouble-free when you moving around the country so starting from negombo good idea stay few days there for initial orientation just half hours from air port. then you can hire the drive or catch train from Colombo to kandy will take about 3 hours ,based in kadny make convenience to reach sigiriya and dambulla (2 hours drive) , elephant orphanage (1 hours drive), nuwarae;iya tea country (2hours) then catch train to directly ella .
Heading to south cost from ella best to hire the driver that will take about 4/5 hours to getting unawatuna if you could hire the drive fro entire journey will more easy with kids.

Have a nice trip,

mawa

Negombo beach can be dangerous for bathing - look for a hotel with a pool.
From Negombo to Kandy, take a taxi; catching the train in Colombo would take some two hours more; there are some buses also, but you may need to wait some two hours for the bus (happened to me last April when I went from Kandy to Negombo), and the bus takes 4 hours.
From Kandy to Nuwara Eliya, there are more buses available; I did that a few years ago, and I guess it took some three hours.
Nuwara Eliya to Ella is far, taking the train from Nanu Oya is a good suggestion; take the first class "observation car" which will offer best views of the scenery.
Several years ago I went from Hambantota on the South coast to Ella, and I remember that that was quite a fast trip. But Unawatuna is several hours west of Hambantota. Last April, I started my holidays in Beruwala on the west coast, and took a taxi to Ella: 5 hours for quite exactly 200 km.
I would also suggest to go to Negombo for the last day before leaving Sri Lanka, since from there you can reach the airport quickly, without going through Colombo.
Have a nice trip!
Bernhard

I spent 3 weeks in Sri Lanka this past March and found it to be a wonderful part of the world - especially the people. I am male and was travelling alone but met some very interesting foreigners among the relatively few tourists at that time.

Your post interests me because I made 3 trips to Bali (Ubud and the NE coast) with wife and kids when we were all younger. Sri Lanka is quite different. It does not have the tourist infrastructure that makes Bali one of the easiest places in the world to take a family. It is not as clean and does not have the food options that Bali has. But in some ways, you might find it more adventurous than Bali, because it is not so dependant on tourism.

I always did self drive in Bali, but I'm not sure that would work as well in Sri Lanka. If you could find the right driver, who didn't have his own agenda and wasn't looking for kickbacks, that might work out better.

Kandy was a little too crowded and hectic for me though I've heard good things from people who got to know it better. The cultural triangle was fascinating but HOT.

Nuwara Eliya left me very cold (literally and figuratively) - an opinion shared by many of the tourists I spoke with. On the other hand, Ella is small but WONDERFUL - go to the Dream Cafe.

Good luck. I'm sure you'll have a great time.

Are you thinking of self-driving? Because if so, I really wouldn't recommend it. We've driven in several Asian countries, but Sri Lanka was by far the worst place as regards traffic and awful driving. Fortunately we'd hired a driver for the week, but I've honestly never seen such dangerous behaviour going on - particularly from the bus drivers. Even with a good driver, we had several near misses (or what felt like them to us).

I can't stress enough - don't do it (if indeed, you were planning to - it's not clear). There are any number of good and cheap drivers out there.