Sri Lanka is one of those places where you’ll hear you need a lot of time to explore.

When researching our vacation there, we frequently saw articles like, ‘One Month in Sri Lanka Wasn’t Enough!’ or ‘The Ultimate Three Week Sri Lanka Roadtrip.’ Well, that’s lovely, but we only have one week thankyouverymuch. How do you build an itinerary for a single week in a country so jam-packed with excitement that a week usually is met with raised eyebrows?

Here’s a totally doable, not insane, one week itinerary that will allow you to explore a nice big chunk of Sri Lanka, without feeling like you’re missing anything.

Day 1. Fly to Colombo. Pick your accommodation as close to the center of town as you can. This will make the most of your single day or night in the capital before heading out bright and early the next morning. Bonus points if you can stay near Colombo’s main train station, to be conveniently located for the next day.

Day 2. Galle. Galle is the next city south of Colombo and an obvious choice on any Sri Lanka itinerary. The fort circling the old town is easily walk-able, and the cobblestone streets are charming and photogenic. We picked a lovely little guesthouse right in the center of it all, which we chose because of the rave reviews of the daily Sri Lankan breakfast.

To get to Galle from Colombo, the train is a great choice. It’s a scenic journey and under three hours, so your day isn’t completed spent in transport. If you can aim to get to Galle by lunchtime, a full afternoon and evening exploring the fort area will be plenty.

Day 3. Tangalle. A couple hours south and east from Galle is the rugged southern coastline of the country. This is the area famed for blue whale watching. There are plenty of small towns dotting the coast with a beach-side resort calling your name. We chose Tangalle because we found a good hotel deal, and we loved climbing on the rocky beach and playing in the tide pools.

Side note: After reading online about a lot of shady practices around the blue whale tours, we decided to skip that attraction completely. I know. We probably could have seen a blue whale up close and we missed it. But the tourism machine that has built up around gazing at these majestic creatures isn’t our idea of a good time, so we were happy to just watch hermit crabs instead.

Day 4-5. Yala National Park. Instead of blue whales, we put our time and money to the leopards. Yala National Park is one of several major parks in Sri Lanka, located in the far southeast corner of the country. The park is a six hour drive from Colombo and at the furthest point of our week-long trip. Theoretically you could travel from Colombo to Yala all in one day, but this is a vacationers’ itinerary which includes short drives and lots of relaxing time.

Yala was truly incredible and we would recommend this park to anyone as the place to visit during a Sri Lanka trip, whether you’re in the country for a week or a month. It is literally not to be missed. We only planned for a single day here, actually, and ended up extending our stay by a precious extra day because it was so amazing.

Day 6. Ella. After safari game drives in the bush, the two hour drive north to Ella was like entering a new world of rainforest and mountains. If you ever saw the animated movie Fern Gully, it reminded me of that (cartoon) terrain. It is really incredible up here in the mid portion of the country, with vistas as far as the eye can see. The weather is radically different (oops, we were freezing) and the vibe of Ella is best classified as ‘crunchy hippie expat.’

We spent our time in Ella decompressing after an action packed time in the national park. Multiple hours were spent at Cafe Chill, recharging with pizza and beer. We got massages and relaxed at our Airbnb.

If you look up Ella online you’ll see that every article points you in the direction of Little Adam’s Peak, a short hike up to fantastic valley views. We took this hike early in the morning, hoping to see the fog burn off and beat the crowds. Mission accomplished.

Also, the shortcut through town is to walk on the active but not frequently used train tracks. It freaked me out every time, but Drew assured me that if a train snuck up on us, we could dive bomb off the track in plenty of time.

And that, my friends, is a week in Sri Lanka. Simple enough.

Before we go, we should mention a little something about the locations we skipped. We thought long and hard about visiting Kandy. This second-biggest city in Sri Lanka is often included in itineraries because it’s nice in its own right and also because it’s one end of the country’s most famous train journey. But the reviews we read online were pretty mixed and it would add a ton of extra driving, so we scrapped it in the end.

Speaking of, the train journey from Kandy to Ella was also an event we decided to skip. The journey is gorgeous and scenic and…slow…it takes about eight hours. With only a week in the country, we worried about wasting a day on a train. You COULD add this on, by shifting the itinerary and maybe skipping Tangalle and spending one night in Yala, but that’s all based on how much ground you’re willing to cover in a day. And how much you love a good train ride.

Oh, and we also missed out on a long stay in Colombo, which we’ve visited before.

Pro Tip: The best way to get from place to place in Sri Lanka is by private car. We looked at every option – trains, buses, renting a car – and none were ideal. With a severe lack of infrastructure, drivers and cars for hire are ubiquitous and easy to arrange. We pre-booked a driver for the first leg of our vacation and while we were literally in the car, we negotiated with him to follow us for the next week, driving us from location to location. It cost about $200 (USD, in early 2019) for the week, including a generous tip.

Sri Lanka is such a special place and one that we have a soft spot for, ever since we became temporarily Internet famous-is here. It’s worth mentioning that we rarely if EVER revisit a location we’ve already been to (a fact worth exploring thoroughly in therapy). That we came back to Sri Lanka should give you a sense of the draw of this place.

Three years away was too long.