About this experience
This is a private tour from Kandy to Minneriya National Park, a protected area in the North Central Province of Sri Lanka best known for its wild elephants. You are collected from your hotel in Kandy in an air-conditioned private vehicle with an English-speaking chauffeur, and the outing centres on a jeep safari inside the park before the drive back to the same hotel.
The park is laid out around the Minneriya tank, a reservoir built by King Mahasen in the third century AD. Its surroundings mix wetland, grassland, scrub, forest and rocky outcrops, so the animals and birds that use it differ from one visit to the next. Elephants graze on the open grass beside the water and at times wade into the shallows, while deer and water birds share the same ground. Crocodiles and the rarely seen grey slender loris are also recorded in the park.
Minneriya is also known for the Elephant Gathering, when large numbers of elephants come to the grasslands around the tank in the dry season. It is a seasonal event rather than a daily sight, and wild animals keep their own schedule, so no safari can promise a particular sighting or a particular number of elephants.
The safari itself is taken in a jeep with a driver-tracker, on unsurfaced tracks inside the park. Because the tour is private, the vehicle is for your party alone. Park entrance tickets, a bottle of water per person and all taxes and service charges are included. Food and drinks, gratuities and expenses of a personal nature are not included.
Children must be at least seven years old to join. The tour is not wheelchair or stroller accessible, and it is not recommended for pregnant travellers or for people with back problems or heart conditions.
