Lonely Planet™ · Thorn Tree Forum · 2020

Goyambokka Beach advice

Country forums / Indian Subcontinent / Sri Lanka

Hello all,

I am currently trying to work out an itinerary for a 5 week trip to Sri Lanka. I know roughly which places I am visiting and we are hoping to take it slowly as we are taking our 2 year old son with us and so for this trip I want to book most of it not all of my accommodation in advance.

We are starting in Negombo and heading out to the hill country and will visit Udawale on our way down to the south coast. I am trying to work out which beaches to visit. So far I am quite certain about Goyambokka. Then we were going to visit Talalla before heading to Mirissa. Probably spending 4 or 5 days in each.

Do you think it is better to spend more time at two rather than split it between three? We want to go to Mirissa as we hope to do a whale watching trip and want to break up our journeys back up the coast to Colombo. I also noticed on the map that there are quite a lot of other nice looking beaches around Goyambokka. Any ideas/advice much appreciated.
Many thanks
Woody

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Hi, how do you plan to travel? Better be a reserved vehicle for the trip; because you are planning on long distance travells. Goyambokka would be nice, why dont you visit the yala national park too? It is on the way to colombo from hambanthota. Passing mirissa and talalla .. you would come to galle, hikkaduwa. You can see the beautiful coral reefs at hikkaduwa and enjoy the beach at unawatuna. Negombo itself has quite a number of beaches. Browns beach would be the ideal.

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Thanks for your relpy.
We plan to travel to and around the hill country by train. Down to Udawale from Ella by hired car. Down to and along the coast by bus.
I have worked out that none of our journeys should take more than 2.5 - 3 hours which is fine.
Is Yala ok for a child? We thought about Udawalawe because it's enroute and sounds like quite an easy tour.
Beach wise we are looking for quiet and undeveloped beaches.

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Yala should be fine for kids. There is no large herd of animals there. Main attraction is the chance to see leopard(s). Udawale has more animals so it would likely be more interesting for the kid.

Tangalle has a nice beach. Weligima to Galle also has many nice beaches.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/youngadventure/albums/72157666257955621

https://www.flickr.com/photos/youngadventure/albums/72157666257955621

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Hi woody27, how old is your child? And how are you going to hire the car? Travel to kandy by train is a great idea specially if you can reserve observation compartment tickets. When you hire the car, better contact an experienced good driver. Because the rest of the journey depends on him. I can give you the contact details of the person i travelled with, if you need. If the child is too small, you would better stick to udawalawe. There are occasions where you can feed the elephants too. But in yala, you can only observ them at a distance. Yala is famous among leapord watchers. True, undeveloped beaches are more free and enjoyable. But you need to take guidance from a local person. Because there can be dangerous spots that you are not aware of.

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