Boasting a string of fine beaches along with tourist amenities of every conceivable standard and style, this is Sri Lanka’s most developed stretch of coastal beaches.
Sri Lanka’s west coast shows the island at its most developed, it’s most westernized and its most tourist oriented. A string of fine beaches, backed by hundreds of hotels and guesthouses of all sizes and standards, dot the coast from Negambo in the North to Hikkaduwa in the South. Despite increasing development in other parts of the island, the large resort hotels of Negambo, Kalutara, Beruwala and Bentota continue to serve as the main engine of the island’s substantial package-tourist industry, offering two-week stays to tourists rearing for the sun, sand and surf, particularly during the northern winter.
Parts of the coast from Beruwala south were badly affected by the 2004 tsunami,
“And always it is the same; the slender palm trees leaning over the white sand, the warm sun sparkling on the waves as they break on the inshore reef, the outrigger fishing boasts drawn up high on the beach. This alone is real; the rest is but a dream from which I shall presently awake.” Arthur C. Clarke.