Experience Tea Trails and Wild Elephant Encounters Curated by Kalukanda House

yoga

tea plantation visit

Curated & Hosted By

Kalukanda House

Location

Weligama

Sri Lanka

Duration

5 Days/4 Nights

Price Starts At

$1,725 Per Room

About The Journey

From the rare virgin white tea estates to wild elephant encounters, southern Sri Lanka begins at Kalukanda House. We believe the most rewarding journeys aren't measured by how much you see, but by how profoundly you experience a place. That's why we've thoughtfully brought together experiences that reveal the many layers of southern Sri Lanka, from its wildlife and landscapes to its tea heritage, wellness traditions and everyday village life. Instead of rushing from one experience to the next, you'll experience the island at a gentler pace, guided by thoughtful moments that invite you to slow down and reconnect with the charm of Sri Lanka.

Begin your day with yoga in the garden shala, visit Sri Lanka's only virgin white tea estate, head into the wild in search of elephants, cycle through paddy fields and tea estates, drift across Koggala's mangroves to a peaceful monastery, and end your day with restorative massage and sound meditation. Each experience leaves you with a story of its own.

The postcards below introduce the experiences waiting to become part of your own journey. Come, experience southern Sri Lanka as we know it.

CURATED & HOSTED BY

Kalukanda House

Weligama, Sri Lanka

STANDARD PRICE

$1,725

Per Room

4 Nights / 5 Days, Double occupancy

STARLIFE MEMBER PRICE

$1,500

Per Room

Save $225 | Members Only

Pricing is based on double occupancy and the starting room category. Rates may vary for higher room categories, seasonal travel periods, and special requests. Group booking benefits and solo traveller discounts are available.

6 EXPERIENCES | ALL INCLUSIVE

The moments that make

this journey

STAR PARTNER

Weligama, Sri Lanka

Begin the Day With Yoga in the Garden Shala

Yoga

Kalukanda House

Sri Lanka has a long tradition of plant-based healing and contemplative practice, and the south of the island — with its slower rhythm and abundant gardens — has become one of Asia's most considered places to practise yoga. At Kalukanda House, your day begins in the garden shala. A teacher works one-on-one with you, tailoring the practice to your level, your aches, what you want to deepen. The space opens onto the pool on one side, the jungle on the other. A guided meditation closes the session. Sri Lankan breakfast is served when you're ready.

STAR PARTNER

Weligama, Sri Lanka

Tour Sri Lanka's Only Virgin White Tea Estate

Tea Plantation Visit

Kalukanda House

Handunugoda Tea Estate, thirty minutes inland from Kalukanda House, is the only estate in Sri Lanka producing Virgin White Tea — a rare leaf hand-picked with gloves and dropped directly into bowls, sold in small batches to tea houses as far as Paris. It's a small family operation that nearly didn't survive: once almost lost on a gambling bet before being saved through intentional farming. You'll walk the estate with a guide, see the original nineteenth-century machinery still working, and taste a flight of teas the way the family drinks them.

STAR PARTNER

Weligama, Sri Lanka

Safari Among Sri Lanka's Wild Elephants

Wildlife Safari Wildlife Spotting

Kalukanda House

Udawalawe National Park is famed for its Asian elephants — several hundred wild individuals roaming the scrubland around the great reservoir at the park's centre. Nearby is the Elephant Transit Home, a government-run sanctuary where orphaned calves are raised and released back into the wild; they are fed by rangers four times a day, and you can watch. You'll leave Kalukanda House at dawn, take breakfast on the road, and head into the park with a naturalist in a Land Cruiser. Buffalo. Eagles. Crocodiles. Then the elephants — sometimes in herds of fifty.

STAR PARTNER

Weligama, Sri Lanka

End the Day with Massage and Sound Meditation

Spa Treatments

Kalukanda House

Sri Lanka's wellness tradition draws on Ayurveda and Buddhist practice — both of which understand healing as something done slowly, with intention. At Kalukanda House, the late afternoon is given to it. You return from your safari, swim in the pool beneath the canopy where langur monkeys move through the trees, and then receive a long massage. A sound meditation follows — singing bowls, slow attention, the day settling. The garden and the wildlife around it combine with the work of the therapist into the kind of deep rest the property is designed for.

STAR PARTNER

Weligama, Sri Lanka

Drift Through Koggala's Mangroves to a Monastery

Birding River Cruise

Kalukanda House

Koggala Lake sits on Sri Lanka's south coast, a shallow tidal lagoon dotted with small mangrove-fringed islands. Several of them have been inhabited for centuries — by fishermen, by traditional craftsmen, and on at least one, by a small community of Buddhist monks. You'll drift through the mangroves in a wooden boat with a naturalist who knows the birds — kingfishers, herons, egrets, brahminy kites, and seasonal migrants — and step ashore at the monastery to walk its quiet grounds. The pace is slow on purpose. Koggala is meant to be moved through gently.

STAR PARTNER

Weligama, Sri Lanka

Cycle the Paddy Fields and Tea Estates

Biking

Kalukanda House

Southern Sri Lanka is patchworked with paddy fields, small tea estates, coconut groves, and the slow back-roads that connect them — the kind of landscape that's more legible on a bike than from a car. You'll head out from Kalukanda House on a private guided ride, pace set by you, past rice paddies in different stages of cultivation, past tea bushes, over wooden bridges. A stop for a cold drink in a private jungle garden marks the halfway point. The longer route loops back through the local rainforest.

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$1,725

Per Room

Starlife Rate $1,500