Our story
A Sri Lanka travel company that started with one van, one driver and a lot of borrowed maps — and grew the slow way: one traveller telling another.
How it started
Back in 2013, our founder was driving a borrowed van around Negombo when a couple from Hamburg — stranded after a cancelled bus — asked if he could take them to Kandy. One trip became three days. Three days became a full loop of the island. By the end they'd stopped calling him "driver" and started calling him by name, and they still email every Christmas.
That trip taught us the thing we've built everything on since: people don't remember the van. They remember the person who pulled over at the roadside stall because the king coconut was better there, who knew which temple would be quiet at 4pm, who waited an extra hour at the airport without being asked when the flight ran late.
Today Top Guide Sri Lanka is a team of SLTDA-licensed guides and drivers — most of us grew up within an hour of Negombo, and between us we've covered every road worth driving on this island. We're still small on purpose. Every itinerary is checked by someone who has actually slept in that town, eaten at that junction, climbed that rock in the rain.
12+
years on the road
5,000+
travellers guided
40+
destinations covered
4.9★
average review score
Every travel company has a values page. Here's ours, written the way we'd say it to your face.
We don't own hotels, we don't get kickbacks from gem shops, and we will never route you through a 'cousin's spice garden'. If a stop is on your itinerary, it's there because it earns its place — or because you asked for it.
Plans change — rain moves a safari, a festival closes a road. What doesn't change is having someone beside you who knows the plan B, the plan C, and the little roti shop where you wait out the downpour happily.
The quote we send is the price you pay. Fuel, driver's meals and accommodation, highway tolls, parking — all inside. Twelve years in, our most-repeated review line is still some version of 'no surprises'.
We hire local, eat local and follow park rules even when other jeeps don't — no crowding leopards for a photo. Sri Lanka is our home long after your holiday ends, and we drive like it.
Licences and insurance aren't exciting until the day they matter. Ours are in order, every day.
Registered with the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority — guides carry their licence on every trip, and you're welcome to ask to see it.
Every car and van is fully insured for tourist transport and serviced on schedule — not when something rattles.
Everything agreed lands in writing before you pay a cent: route, inclusions, price. The paper trail protects you as much as us.
On TripAdvisor and Google, from travellers in 30+ countries. We read every one — including the rare tough ones, which teach us the most.
Tell us your dates and what you'd love to see. We'll send a friendly, no-obligation itinerary and quote within 24 hours.
