Sri Lankans love children, and travelling with kids more or less guarantees you a warm welcome wherever you go. Locals will always do whatever they can to help or entertain – there’s certainly no need to worry about disapproving stares if your baby starts crying or your toddler starts monkeying around, even in quite posh establishments. Dedicated family-focused holidays can be arranged through some local and international tour operators such as Firefly, who also rents out equipment for families travelling with young children.
All the same, travelling with babies may prove stressful. Powdered milk is fairly widely available, but disposable nappies and baby food are more difficult to find, while things like baby-sitting services, nursery day-care, changing facilities, high chairs and microwaves for sterilizing bottles are also the exception rather than the rule; car seats will also probably have to be brought from home. Breast-feeding in public, however discreet, is also not something that Sri Lankan women usually do, while prams are virtually useless, since there are few decent pavements to push them on. The heat, and the associated dangers of dehydration, are another concern, not to mention the risks of mosquito-borne diseases such as dengue fever.
Older children will get a lot out of a visit to the island. Sri Lanka’s beaches are likely to provide the main attraction, with endless swathes of golden sand to muck around on and warm waters to splash about in – though you should always check local swimming conditions carefully and guard carefully against the very real possibility of sunburn and dehydration. Beaches apart, there are plenty of wildlife attractions. The Millennium Elephant Foundation offers the chance to interact with these majestic beasts, while the Elephant Orphanage at Pinnewala is another guaranteed child-pleaser. There are further elephant-spotting opportunities around Kandy, while a visit to any of the national parks is also likely to stimulate budding zoologists; Yala, where there’s a good chance of sighting crocodiles, peacocks, flamingos and other wildlife, is a particularly good choice, as is Uda Walawe, where you’ll find another elephant orphanage. Activity sports, such as banana-boating or kayaking at Bentota, may also appeal, while the island’s varied forms of transport – whether a tuktuk ride, a train trip through the hill country or a boat cruise along one of the island’s rivers or lagoons – should also keep little ones entertained. Energetic kids with a head for heights might also enjoy the challenge of clambering up Sigiriya and its rickety iron staircases. And if you’ve exhausted all the preceding possibilities, you can always go shopping. There are plenty of fun handicrafts to be had, with gruesome masks, painted elephants and wooden toys aplenty – and if you’re in Colombo, don’t leave without bagging a cuddly colourful stuffed-toy animal from Barefoot.