I’ve spent over three months in Sri Lanka now. I find it’s a great place if you are into surf and nature. The nomad community down south is also pretty lively. It’s actually popping here! When I just landed in November, things were a bit slow. For example, some restaurants looked abandoned and there were not that many people at the beach. After returning in mid-January, there were crowds everywhere and even a few new cafes popped up! Unfortunately, the surf breaks got affected too
The cost of living here is pretty low too. The range goes pretty wider from 400$/mo to anything like 3000$/mo - depending on how close you want to live to the beach and what standard of life you maintain. It’s a great spot if you are traveling on a budget imo.
The local food is delicious too! This set of curries and couple egg hoppers costs around 1500 LKR (~6 USD).
How’s the language barrier? I assume more touristy places speak at least some english, but what about elsewhere?
I know little about Sri Lanka other than they shot themselves in the foot a year or two ago with something about fertilizer, and that caused all sorts of problems
People generally speak very basic English around here it’s enough to get by. There’s always someone around to translate, usually a younger person. With some tuk-tuk drivers you’d probably need to use neanderthal-English like “can drive Weligama? how much? expensive! 500 ok?”
The most remote I’ve gotten when searching for new surf spots was in a random guest house next to the surf break. I arrived about 11pm and nobody spoke English accept a very young, I’d guess 7y/o, girl. Everyone was relying on her to communicate and the people were genuinely.
Another time I decided to talk to a fisherman on the beach and ended up using google translate through voice. Not the most vibrant conversation, but was enough for small talk
Sri Lanka is still struggling with financial collapse few years back. I think the organic fertilizer and no pesticides fiasco was around same time. The country had fairly recent civil war as well… so there’s lots to unpack if you go deeper into history.
