Kandy Day Tour Från Colombo

The drive was the worst experience ever with tons of traffic and very reckless driving all around. I don’t recommend trying to do this tour in one day.

We were taken on the tour by Kaveesha Gimhan and Pasindu. Pasindu was our driver. He drove extremely nicely and safely on this long tour. Kaveesha is a very knowledgeable guide and he explained everything in detail on this trip which took @ 13 hours. They were absolutely punctual and picked us up from our hotel, Taj Samudra Colombo so that we left at 6 am sharp. Lots to see on this tour and thanks to our guide, Kaveesha and our driver, Pasindu, we thoroughly enjoyed it. We would definitely recommend hiring their services.

We booked the kandy tour with the itinerary of: botanical gardens, temple of the tooth, kandy viewpoint, kandy (4 hours) geregama tea factory.Ultimately the tour did include the tooth temple a tea factory and botanical garden, however the timings were incorrect and we had no time in kandy and were forced to eat at a random hotel, which was also tied into a woodwork factory visit, which is clearly arranged to make you spend , the hotel buffet was poor and 3,500 LKR per person, we had planned to eat in kandy during the ‘4 hour kandy stop’ this was also discussed with the organiser when we arrived at the temple who agreed , after the toooth temple we were told no time in kandy and rushed off to the random woodwork and hotel lunch. The tour also began with an optional $15 unethical elephant ‘sanctuary’ we chose not to do this ( partly as it was unnexpected) but as others chose to do it it took up an hour of our day. We also stopped off at a breakfast stop, which was not in the itinerary and used up time we hadn’t expected. Our tour guide Krish was lovely and polite, gave good insights into all of the stops, but it still felt that the itinerary we had booked was not what we experienced, we would have rather enjoyed a few hours in Kandy ( maybe not the full 4 hours as traffic was heavy) then have attended the unscheduled breakfast, elephants and woodwork/hotel lunch. Ultimately its disappointing the day panned out this way, but equally we did see the 4/5 of the planned sights.

We had a most amazing trip from Colombo to Kandy & back. We had very enlightening simple, end-to-end walk-through visits of a tea factory, a batik painting shop, and a wood carving products shop, with excellent products buying opportunities. Our driver, Krish, was just go-to-expert on the roads, handling the topsy-turby ride, with ease and elan, the car being very comfortable. We were a small, cosmo group brought together for a time by chance - an Aussie, two American Indians, and one Norwegian. I and my wife - both of us, absolutely relished this trip end-to-end.

We did a full-day trip from Colombo to Kandy and it turned out to be one of the highlights of our time in Sri Lanka. I was genuinely impressed with the quality of the car provided—very comfortable for a long day on the road—and even more so with our guide, Chathu. Chathu picked us up promptly right on schedule, was extremely pleasant, and brought a deep level of knowledge and context to everything we saw along the way. Despite it being a long day (close to 12 hours), the time flew by and we enjoyed every bit of it. The highlights included a visit to an elephant sanctuary where we got to feed the elephants, a stop at a beautiful and very authentic Sri Lankan spot for breakfast (which was excellent), and fun roadside stops to see macaques. In Kandy, we visited the Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic, followed by a herbal garden, a tea factory, and a gemstone place. As expected, some of these stops include a sales pitch after the tour, but everything was very low-pressure and entirely up to you how much you want to engage. My mom, who was traveling with me, especially enjoyed the shopping experiences and had a great time throughout the day. Overall, this was a well-planned, enjoyable, and memorable experience. I would absolutely recommend this day trip and would strongly suggest choosing Chathu as your guide. Cheers!

Really good experience! It ended up being a private tour and the driver was very nice and adjusted the trip to my preferences. We even stopped to see the elephants, which was not in the original plan. Overall was a good tour and we did quite a few stops.

The tour around Kandy and each stop was simply unforgettable. What made it even more special was our guide and driver, Rangan, he did a stellar job showing us around and going above and beyond. Truly a memorable tour.

We had a beautiful time. The driver of our van was so very kind, professional and spoke English well. We loved tge itinerary too. However, the driver from Kangaroo Cabs who was contracted to pick us up from where we were staying was thoroughly confused, decided we were not the people he needed to pick up and left, much to our dismay. We had to call the Apple Vacations phone several times before they told us they would ask the cab driver to come back to pick us up. He was also confused as to where we were to ge dropped off to get to the van. I had to make another call and give my phone to the driver so he could speak in Sinhalese to the person on the other end so he could take us to the right place. Then, he asked us to pay him. The van driver had to step in to say he would be paid by Apple Vacations. The rest of the tour was perfect. Please thank our van driver too, he was terrific!

While being in Sri Lanka, we really wanted to see Kandy and to have a round tour with which apple vacations were of great help! Tour guide was Chathuran and he provided so many details during tour about local culture, main sightseeings, music taste and so many more! We've had a really productive day and went to Herbal garden (had great massaj with ajurvedic healing oils, had best tea with spices), Elephant orphanage and learned so many interesting things about elephants, went to tea factory and learned more about white/golden tea (for me best part), went to temple of tooth, and got rest from tiring but very interesting day in Royal Garden. Make sure to bring some cash :)

Amazing my driver was Krish lovely man he picked me up on time and we set off for Kandy taking me around a very informative. We went to the elephant reserve, tea , factory , botanical gardens, wood carvings work shop , gems and diamond lab ( got to see them actually make some beautiful pieces) . Textiles making , I was fasting as well so he made accommodation for me to break and a Local s&p for me to freshen up and grab some food very thoughtful and kind so thanks soo much