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Up in the mountains in central Sri Lanka, you can find a place that feels like it’s from a completely different country. That’s what you’ll find when you visit Nuwara Eliya, a gentle, sprawling town in the heart of tea country.
With elements of colonial English character, fresh mountain air, and a very open feeling to it, Nuwara Eliya is unlike anywhere else I saw on my trip. Here’s why it’s worth visiting Nuwara Eliya and why you should add it to your Sri Lanka itinerary.
How to get to Nuwara Eliya
Nuwara Eliya is located between Kandy and Ella, meaning it sits along Sri Lanka’s busiest tourist route.
This makes visiting Nuwara Eliya easy for many people travelling around Sri Lanka. Take the perfect opportunity to break up your journey with a visit here, and also enjoy the added flexibility this stop provides when choosing your transport options.
With Kandy and Ella nearby, Nuwara Eliya sits along Sri Lanka’s most famous train route. You can take this train from either destination and hop off at the local train station — Nanu Oya, a tuk-tuk ride from town.
I took the train from Nuwara Eliya to Ella, hearing that this is the most scenic stretch of the train trip. And it certainly is a memorable journey.
But I did something different to get to Nuwara Eliya, by taking a transfer tour from Kandy.
This shared transfer doesn’t just take you door-to-door; it stops at attractions along the way, from waterfall lookouts to a working tea factory.
The same company also offers transfer tours from Ella, but I don’t know where that might stop along the way. All I can say is that it was a comfortable and convenient way to get there from Kandy.
Where to stay in Nuwara Eliya
More than most common destinations in Sri Lanka, Nuwara Eliya is a very sprawling place with no normal “center”.
This can make deciding where in town to stay a bit of a challenge, not helped by Nuwara Eliya’s huge range of hotels, villas, and guesthouses to choose from.
Some visitors choose to stay in guesthouses up in the hills to be by the tea plantations and enjoy their peaceful views.
Others stay in the residential streets that loop around the racecourse, which no doubt provide convenient access to restaurants and cafes.
However, the other option is to stay by Lake Gregory, as I did. I spent my stay at Medalin Lake Gregory, a family-run guesthouse with huge rooms, looking out at the lake.
Highly recommended, as is the neighbouring restaurant, Frostbite.
Other well-rated places to stay in Nuwara Eliya are:
Why Nuwara Eliya is worth visiting
While Nuwara Eliya is convenient to visit, that doesn’t automatically mean it’s worth seeing.
What makes it worth visiting are its attractions, setting, and ambience, all of which feed into the reasons I think you should go. You can also use these reasons to plan your sightseeing, as it includes many of the best places to visit in Nuwara Eliya, whether you visit on your own or with a private tuk-tuk tour.
Sri Lankan tea country
While you can find and see tea plantations not too far from other destinations, Nuwara Eliya is basically nestled among fields of tea leaves.
Tea plantations cover many of the hillsides surrounding the town. As such, it takes very little effort to find good views of tea fields here.
I just walked up Kalukele Road from my accommodation and quickly found awesome views. This easy walk along quiet local roads offered great views over places like the Pedro Tea Estate, but you can get better.
For the best views and to watch people working in the fields, hike up to Single Tree Hill or head out to the Lover’s Leap Waterfall. These places are a photographer’s dream, with the abstract forms in the tea fields and great panoramic views in some spots.
From Single Tree Hill, you can actually look out right across Nuwara Eliya. Just take the elevation into account — Nuwara Eliya is at 1,800 metres above sea level — when walking up.
Quiet and cool change of pace
Another thing I really liked about visiting Nuwara Eliya was how quiet and calm it felt compared to everywhere in Sri Lanka, even Ella and the coast.
And I don’t just mean when you’re walking among the tea plantations.
Many of the most popular landmarks in Nuwara Eliya are outdoor attractions, and feel quite relaxed to explore.
For instance, there’s Victoria Park near the center of the town, with gardens and trees surrounding wide open lawns. Or there’s the Swarnagiri Maha Viharaya temple, up on Single Tree Hill, which was even emptier and quieter than the hilltop temples of Kandy.
Generally speaking, Nuwara Eliya is a nice place for just walking around, although you can use the PickMe app to order tuk-tuks to get around.
You really can also just chill out in Nuwara Eliya, whether sightseeing or just lounging at laidback local cafes. My favourite was the Ayurveda Coffee Shop, serving up coffee, herbal drinks, and tasty food.
Speaking of chill, Nuwara Eliya can also get quite cool. This mountain town’s elevation makes it feel completely different from the rest of the country. Gone is the humidity and heat, replaced with crisp air and chilly nights.
If you do plan to visit Nuwara Eliya, make sure you pack a set of warm clothes.
Lots of outdoor attractions
While I’ve touched on this already, it bears repeating — Nuwara Eliya is an outdoor destination.
I can’t think of a single attraction where I spent longer than a few minutes indoors.
Besides tea fields, another thing you’ll spot on a local map is waterfalls. The easiest and most common one to visit is Lover’s Leap Waterfall, but there are other waterfalls around Nuwara Eliya.
You can take a tuk-tuk out to the road below the waterfall, then walk up through the tea fields. The road eventually turns into a path through the forest, diverging to take you to the bottom and top of the falls.
Getting to the top was a little steep, so if you’re solo or not confident on trickier paths, just admire the falls from below.
An even more common thing to do in Nuwara Eliya is visit Lake Gregory.
While it wasn’t my speed, Lake Gregory is a popular tourist spot with lakeside gardens and boat rides. The lakeside stuff requires an entrance fee, but you can enjoy views of it all from Badulla Road. You might even see horses and cows walking along this road, which adds to the town’s rustic feel.
The farther you get from the edge of town, the more and more outdoor attractions you get. Two I missed, but would keenly visit next time, are Moon Plains for a safari experience and Horton Plains National Park for its hiking.
Preserved colonial landmarks
This last reason for visiting Nuwara Eliya is a small one, but I think worth mentioning.
Unlike the occasional colonial architecture in Kandy, Nuwara Eliya has a much stronger colonial look to it. I’m not just talking about the lingering British names of things, or the prominent race course and golf course.
Around town, you can find a variety of colonial buildings with preserved, often Tudor-looking, architecture. Acknowledging the obvious troubles of colonialism, these landmarks do make Nuwara Eliya stand out.
Probably the most notable landmark of the group is the local post office, seen above. While it’s still functioning, it has old-fashioned elements inside that make it popular with visitors.
The other colonial buildings in Nuwara Eliya are often used for accommodation. There’s the sizable Grand Hotel by the golf course, and any number of others, including The Westbury Palace.
If only there were a good local museum to better explain the history of Nuwara Eliya, pre- and post-colonialism.
