Colombo Airport · your first night, sorted

Land at 3am. Be asleep by the sea before four.

Long-haul flights into Colombo land in the small hours, and most people start the island the next morning half-dead after three hours to Kandy in the dark. We do it the other way round: a driver waiting at arrivals, 35 minutes up the coast to the family’s own villa by the sea, and a Sri Lankan breakfast when you wake.

Going straight on somewhere? Transfer prices to every town ↓  ·  Staying a while? Plan the whole trip →

Pickup + first night + breakfast

Airport arrivals → a bed by the sea, any hour

$120all-in, up to four people. $10 a head beyond four, so six is $140.
  • Driver waiting at arrivals, whatever time the flight lands. We watch the flight number — if you are late, you are late, and it costs nothing
  • The villa to yourselves: a pool, three bedrooms with a king bed and bathroom each, staff on hand — a working fishing beach a short walk away, not a resort strip
  • Sri Lankan breakfast next morning, made in the villa kitchen
  • Check in when you land, check out at 2pm. No cleaning fee, no linen fee, no extras
  1. Message us on WhatsApp with your flight number and dates
  2. We confirm the room and the price in writing, usually within a few hours
  3. Pay on arrival. Nothing to pay now, no card details on this site

Just want the lift? Airport to the villa is a flat $40 — any hour, waiting time included, because we do not put a meter on a delayed flight. Book the night and it is waived. Transfers to Kandy, Galle and everywhere else are priced by distance below.

Two ways to book, and both of them are ours

Thirteen years of strangers’ reviews sit on our Airbnb listing. Read them. And if you would rather a platform held your money until you had actually arrived, book it there instead — we would genuinely rather you came either way.

Direct with us
$120 all-in
Pickup included. Nothing paid up front — you settle with the driver at the end.
Through Airbnb
Protected
They hold the money until you arrive, and their cancellation terms and support apply. It costs a little more, and the pickup is quoted separately.
See the listing and the reviews on Airbnb ↗

The last afternoon

Almost every flight out of Colombo leaves at night. So your last day is a 10am checkout, a long drive, and then eight hours with your luggage — which is the worst day of the trip and nobody sells you a way out of it.

Afternoon · meal · drop-off
$100for the group, not per head
  • The villa from early afternoon. Shower, pool, somewhere to put the bags, somewhere to sit that is not a departure gate
  • Rice and curry from our own kitchen, eaten at a table, before you fly
  • We drive you to the airport when your flight actually goes — thirty-five minutes, not a four-hour run at the end of a long day
  • Early flight instead? Take the night rather than the afternoon. Same price.

Both ends is $200. First night with the pickup, last afternoon with the drop-off — you start and finish the trip in the same house, and it is $20 less than booking them separately.

Why this is worth anything at all

One traveller on r/SriLankaTravel described his last day as a late checkout, six hours driving back to the airport, and then a hotel directly across the road from the terminal booked so he had somewhere to sit for another six. He is not unusual. That is what the last day looks like when nobody has thought about it.

Inside the terminal your options thin out fast — the airport’s own site lists its duty-free shopping in detail and does not list a single restaurant. There is a Burger King.

We are not going to pretend this is a hotel. It is a house with a pool and a cook, half an hour from departures, and you have it for the afternoon. If your flight is at 9pm that is a better last day than a lobby, and if you would rather go straight to the airport we will simply drive you.

Airport transfers · any hour

Just landed and just need the lift?

A named driver in the hall whatever the clock says, a flat $40 to Negombo or the villa with the waiting time included, and every other town priced by distance. Landing in the small hours and going far? The honest advice is to sleep first and let us drive you on after breakfast — every route page shows both prices.

The price, before you ask

$0
car, 2–3
$0
van, up to 8

Opens WhatsApp. We reply in a few hours, confirm the price in writing, and you pay the driver on arrival.

From the airport toRoadCarVan
Negombo, or the villaflat · 35 min$40$55
Kandy107 km · 2h 49m$74$99
Ella240 km · 6h 20m$135$181
Galle165 km · 4h 20m$105$140
Mirissa196 km · 5h 10m$119$159
Sigiriya165 km · 4h 21m$105$140
Nuwara Eliya204 km · 5h 21m$122$163
Bentota103 km · 2h 43m$72$96
Trincomalee282 km · 7h 26m$156$208

Every town, and the quieter rate when the leg is part of a trip we are already driving: the full transfer list →  ·  Wondering whether to just open an app? Should you just use PickMe? →

The only score on this site a stranger wrote

Everything else here is our own number. These are not — they are on Airbnb under our real listing, they include the bad one, and you can read all 109 without taking our word for anything.

Read all 109 on Airbnb ↗
Private drivers, Sri Lanka

Plan the rest on a map that prices itself

Sri Lanka is not A to B, it is B, C, D. Tap the stops you want in the order the road runs, set how many nights you want at each, and the kilometres, the driving days and the price move as you go. Hidden gems sit exactly where they fall on the road, so you can see what one really costs you before you commit.

Cultural Triangle Hill Country South & West Coast East Coast The North Colombo Your route
Start from a real trip:

Open the full planner →Forty-six stops, each with the honest note, the price to add it, and where to stay.
Tap cards to build your trip. Airport start and finish are already on the route.

0
km
0
hours
0
days
$0
sedan
$0
van
Estimates at LKR 135/km sedan, LKR 180/km van, with a standby floor of $70 a day for the car and $95 for the van, adjusted for the month you pick. Confirmed exactly before you book. Pace assumes a comfortable 150 km driving day. Park and site tickets are separate and always yours to choose. Send the route and you get a firm price back from Indika, not an automated quote \u2014 and nothing is charged until you have it in writing.
Read before you go

Every stop, written properly

Not brochure copy. What each place is actually like, what is worth your time, what is not, and what travellers on Reddit said about it this year — with the sources.

34 places

The guides

Kandy to Kumana, Jaffna to Hiriketiya: history, what to see, where to stay, and the honest note we would give a guest.

Open the guides →
3 days to 3 weeks

Itineraries, costed

Fourteen routes with real kilometres, driving days and the price for a car or a van. Nobody else’s itinerary post has numbers.

See the itineraries →
Month by month

When to come

Two coasts, two monsoons, and the arrivals figures behind our seasonal prices — when it is cheapest, and by how much.

Best time to visit →

Three drivers. Fifteen years. The same three.

Not a dispatch pool and not whoever answered the phone. Indika, Suresh and Savindu are the people we have worked with for fifteen years, and guests have been naming them in reviews for over a decade — you can read those on Airbnb rather than taking it from us.

Indika
Chauffeur tourist driving licence · number published once we have the card on file
✓ Named by guests in reviews since 2014
✓ Meets the small-hours arrivals himself
✓ No-shop-stops pledge
English15 years with us
Runs the fleet and answers the WhatsApp
Suresh
Chauffeur tourist driving licence · number published once we have the card on file
✓ Long-run and hill-country driving
✓ Rear seatbelts fitted
✓ No-shop-stops pledge
English15 years with us
Photo and plate sent before you fly
Savindu
Chauffeur tourist driving licence · number published once we have the card on file
✓ Airport runs and family trips
✓ Child seat on request
✓ No-shop-stops pledge
English15 years with us
Photo and plate sent before you fly

What we are not going to do is invent numbers. Licence numbers go on this page when we have photographed the cards, and not before. Everything else here — the plates, the kilometres, the prices — is already checkable, and this will be too.

The four vehicles they drive, what those cost on an island that taxes imports at 300%, and why Indika takes the bus: the vehicles →

Who you are dealing with

A Kandy family, not a booking platform

The villa is our family home. The three drivers — Indika, Suresh and Savindu — have been the same three for fifteen years, and guests have been naming them in reviews since 2014. In our village in Matale there is a statue of my grandmother, because she gave the land the school stands on; we will put a photograph of it here rather than an adjective.

I ran an events company in Hong Kong for twenty years, which is why this site publishes its kilometres, its day rate and its seasonal rule instead of a contact form and a promise.

A booking with us is kept. On this island a driver can take a better fare on the morning and ask you to cancel; it happens, and it has never happened to a guest of ours. The price we confirm in writing is the price on the day.

Do not take our word for it. 109 reviews over thirteen years on Airbnb, written by strangers on a platform we do not control — including the one bad one, and our answer to it. The rest of the story, and where the money goes →

The questions everyone asks before booking, answered on the page

The same worries come up in every planning conversation, so the answers live here in plain sight, not buried in a chat.

"Paid exactly what they promised, no hidden fees. The car was immaculate and he followed our plan, not his."

Traveler review, 10-day loop, February 2026
Do I pay for the driver's room and food?No. It is inside every price you see.
Is the price per person or per car?Per car. Four people pay the same as one.
Will we be taken to spice gardens or gem shops?Never. Drivers sign a no-commission pledge.
What if we go over the km on the card?Extra km at LKR 135, stated up front.
Can I pay by card and get a refund policy in writing?Yes. Stripe checkout, plain-English refund terms.