Sri Lanka is compact enough to walk across several very different landscapes in a single trip. The hill country around Ella and Nuwara Eliya offers tea estate trails and cool mountain forests. Further north, the cultural triangle around Sigiriya and Polonnaruwa mixes history with birding walks led by local naturalists. Down south, the colonial streets of Galle Fort and the wildlife of Yala round out a country that packs a lot into a small footprint.ParkTours runs small groups of 8 to 16 through easy to moderate walking, typically 5 to 15km per day, with an Australian group escort and locally based guides who know the trails, the birds, and which tea estate does the best lunch.Sri Lanka suits travellers interested in birding, botany, wildlife and living culture. It rarely makes it onto people’s shortlists; that’s exactly what makes it worth going.