Udawalawe National Park is said to be one of the best places in the world to see wild elephants. Once we decided to visit Sri Lanka as part of our honeymoon, and we heard that you could see elephants in the wild we booked our trip to Udawalawe immediately! Udawalwe did not disappoint, we saw hundreds of elephants, countless beautiful bird species, reptiles, water buffaloes, monkeys and so many other incredible animals, all in their natural habitat. Udawalawe is a beautiful national park and one that we recommend anyone visiting Sri Lanka adds to their itinerary! Here are some of our favourite photos from our two safari’s in the park… they are fairly elephant heavy but as they are some of the most magnificent animals on earth we aren’t going to apologise!
We’d booked a glamping & safari package with Master Campers Udawalawe that included our accommodation, all our meals and drinks, park entrance fees, guide and driver! It was an amazing experience and worth every cent. It is certainly an experience we would recommend to anyone visiting Udawalawe and you can read all about out experience here.
We saw such an incredible range of wildlife in Udawalwe including a number of very rare jungle cats…
plenty of cheeky monkeys…
a really curious mongoose…
loads of hilarious water buffalo who stay in the water and mud all day to avoid the flies (and I really don’t blame them)…
huge lizards…
an incredible range of beautiful bird species (seriously Udawalwe is a bird lovers heaven)…
spotted deer…
and crocodiles just waiting for their dinner on the river banks!
We visited Udawalawe at a great time as it was just at the end of the monsoon season and so everything was lovely and green and there was plenty of food for all the animals. Our guide explained that it is also the perfect time to see baby animals, especially elephants as there is so much food around at the moment and they don’t give birth during the dry season! There was also a lot of mud which was perfect for skidding around in our four wheel drive safari vehicle!
I think the biggest highlight for us without a doubt was seeing the elephants! Udawalawe is bursting with elephants and it was both Dan and my first time seeing these incredible animals in the wild. They are so majestic and beautiful and I can’t believe there are people out there that would want to hurt these animals. They are one of my favourite animals and we were so blessed to see so many of them and also some babies! We saw one that was only a few weeks old and one that was only a few days old and he kept stumbling and was really unsteady on his feet! He was absolutely adorable and I actually cried happy tears when we saw him. Our guide said it was really rare to see them that young so we were very lucky!
Udawalwe National Park completely blew our minds! We’d done minimal research and planning for the Sri Lanka leg of our honeymoon as we were so busy planning our wedding and so we didn’t really know what to expect. Our safari experience and seeing all these beautiful animals in the wild was the highlight of our Sri Lankan honeymoon and was also one our favourite travel experiences to date! It has also seriously moved an African safari up on our bucket list too. If you are planning a trip to Sri Lanka, we cannot recommend Udawalwe National Park any higher. Plus, you are guaranteed to see hundreds of elephants and seriously, what is better than that! You may even be lucky enough to spot a leopard!
