We meet you at arrivals. Then we drive the rest of your trip.
Colombo Airport to Negombo is $25, to Kandy $74, to Galle $105 — per vehicle, for a car carrying two or three. Your driver is named before you fly, sends you a photo of himself and the plate, tracks the flight and waits if it is late. No night surcharge, no airport surcharge, nothing paid up front. And if you want the same driver for the whole trip, every leg gets cheaper. Prices verified September 2026.
1. The pick-up
Most flights from Europe and the Gulf land between midnight and 5am. That is the hour when a transfer either works or ruins the first day of a holiday, so this is the part we are most careful about.
Before you fly you get the driver’s name, his photograph, the vehicle and the plate on WhatsApp. He is in the arrivals hall with a board. If the flight moves, we see it and he waits — no charge for that, and no surcharge for landing at 3am rather than 3pm. Pay in cash at the end, in rupees, dollars, euros or pounds.
| From the airport to | Car2–3 | Vanup to 8 | Or, on a tripcar |
|---|---|---|---|
| Negombo7 km · 0h 11m | $25 | $35 | $3as part of a trip |
| Colombo city36 km · 0h 57m | $27 | $36 | $15as part of a trip |
| Bentota103 km · 2h 43m | $72 | $96 | $42as part of a trip |
| Kandy107 km · 2h 49m | $74 | $99 | $44as part of a trip |
| Galle Fort165 km · 4h 20m | $105 | $140 | $68as part of a trip |
| Sigiriya165 km · 4h 21m | $105 | $140 | $68as part of a trip |
| Mirissa196 km · 5h 10m | $119 | $159 | $80as part of a trip |
| Ella240 km · 6h 20m | $135 | $181 | $99as part of a trip |
All 27 destinations, with the full explanation of why online quotes vary so wildly →
2. The first night
If your hotel is an hour away, we take you there and that is the end of it. If it is four hours away and you have landed at 3am with children, there is a better answer than starting the drive.
We have one, and we should say plainly that it is ours: Private Villa with staff by the beautiful ocean at Nainamadama, on the west coast, 35 minutes from arrivals. By the ocean in a working fishing village, with a pool, a cook and staff. Sleeps 6, in three bedrooms with a king bed each and three bathrooms. $120 all-in for up to four — the airport pickup, the night and breakfast; $10 a head beyond four, so six people is $140 — about $23 each. No cleaning fee, no linen fee, no extras. Check in at any hour, which matters when the flight lands at 3am. Check out at 2pm. The pickup on its own is a flat $40 in a car — any hour, waiting time included, because we do not put a meter on a delayed flight. Book the night and it is waived.
Rated 4.89 across 109 reviews over 13 years of hosting — read them on Airbnb rather than taking our word. The point is the check-in-at-any-hour part: you land, you are in bed in 35 minutes, and the real driving starts the next morning with everyone awake. If you would rather push straight on, say so and we drive you. We are not going to pretend the night run is dangerous when thousands of people do it weekly.
One road it is genuinely on, rather than merely near: the north-west. Kalpitiya and its kite lagoons are 145 km up the A3 — $95 for a car, $127 for a van — and the villa sits on that road 35 minutes from arrivals. Kite flights land in the small hours. Land, sleep, eat breakfast by the sea, and drive the remaining 3h 02m awake and in daylight, instead of four hours in the dark on no sleep. The first night is $120 for up to four with the pick-up in it; the onward run is quoted with it, before you fly. The Kalpitiya run, priced →
3. Then the trip — and why it costs less
This is the part almost nobody explains, and it is the reason the same airport run is quoted at $50 by one operator and $600 by another.
| What you are buying | What the driver does | Airport → Kandy |
|---|---|---|
| A one-way transfer | Drives to you, drops you, returns 107 km empty. You pay for both directions because he cannot sell the way back. | $74$99 van |
| The first leg of a trip we are driving | He is with you all week. Nothing to recover. You pay for the kilometres and nothing else. | $44$59 van |
Same road, same car, same driver, $30 apart. If you are hiring a driver for the whole trip, never pay the transfer rate for the first leg — from us or from anyone. That is not a discount we invented for the website; it is what the run actually costs when there is no empty return in it.
Trips we would drive
All thirteen, from 3 days to 3 weeks → · Or build your own and watch the price move →
The vehicle you actually get
Four vehicles. Three drivers. Savindu, Indika and Suresh. That is the whole company, and every vehicle has a named driver rather than whoever is free that morning.
| Vehicle | Plate | Carries | Day rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Toyota Corolla Axio2017, petrol hybrid, automatic, A/C | CAZ 6620 | 2–3 people, 2–3 large bags | $70 |
| Toyota HiAce KDH, high roof2017, diesel, automatic, A/C | ND 2160 | 7–8 people, biggest luggage capacity | $95 |
Every seat has a belt. Two child seats are owned rather than borrowed. The plate on this page is the plate at arrivals — if a different vehicle ever turns up, you have grounds to refuse it.
Because there are four vehicles and three drivers, there is always a spare: a breakdown reschedules a service, not your holiday. It also means we can run three jobs at once and no more. If we say a date is gone, it is actually gone.
Photographs of all four, inside and out, and a walk-round of the van →
What is included, and what is not
Included: the vehicle, the driver, his meals and his room, fuel, air conditioning, flight tracking and waiting time. Not included: hotels, expressway tolls (at cost — airport link Rs 400, full Southern Expressway Rs 1,300), park and site tickets. Extra kilometres beyond the agreed route are LKR 100/km car and LKR 200/km van, the same rate as everything else, told to you before we drive them.
We take no commission from any hotel, shop, spice garden or gem showroom, and we will not deliver you to one that pays for arrivals. It is the one thing on this page we would not trade, because it is the only reason our advice is worth anything.
Questions before you book
How much is a taxi from Colombo airport to Kandy?
$74 car or $99 van as a one-way transfer, per vehicle, 107 km and about 2h 49m. $44 if we are driving your whole trip.
Is the price per person?
Per vehicle. Two people or eight, the van is the same price.
What if my flight is delayed?
We track it and wait, at no charge, whatever the hour.
Do I pay in advance?
No. Cash at the end, in rupees, dollars, euros or pounds. The price is agreed in writing on WhatsApp before you fly, and it does not move.
Is there a cheaper way from the airport?
Yes — there is an airport bus to Colombo, and ride-hailing apps work if you have a local SIM and are travelling light. For one or two people going to Colombo or Negombo they are genuinely cheaper. For a family with cases heading to Kandy at 3am they are a false economy, and we would rather say so than pretend the bus does not exist.
Does the month change the price?
Yes, and we publish the rule. December to February +10%, March and November +5%, April, September and October −5%, May and June −10%, banded from Sri Lanka’s own arrivals figures. The month-by-month breakdown is here.
Book your pick-up on WhatsApp →
Everything else
Prices last verified September 2026. We check them monthly and change the date only when we have actually looked. Distances marked as modelled read high on expressway routes and are being replaced with measured ones as our drivers log them.