A GUIDE TO HIKING THE PEKOE TRAIL IN SRI LANKA

BACKGROUND INFO

The Pekoe Trail is a 300 km trail, or more precisely, a 300 km series of connected trails, paths, and roads, that takes hikers through the stunning tea estates, national parks, mountains, and towns of the Central Highlands of Sri Lanka. The trail is segmented into 22 stages that all start and end in a town, allowing hikers the opportunity to stay in local guest houses and experience life in rural Sri Lanka, and avoid having to carry camping and cooking equipment. The trail officially starts in Kandy and ends in Nuwara Eliya, but it can be hiked in either direction and can easily be done in sections without completing the entire 300 km, as you will see below. The trail officially opens in July 2023.

In late February–early March 2023 (yes, 5 months before the trail officially opens) my fiancé and I trekked stages 16–18, 22, and finally 12 of the Pekoe Trail. We took this unusual route because we wanted to start from and ultimately come back to Ella (start of stage 16), we were able to find accommodation information for most of these stages, and we knew we could get around just using buses and trains if we needed to adjust along the way. Our original plan was to hike 16–22 and then 12–15 with a train ride in the middle, but rainy weather and accommodation limitations caused us to shorten our route. 

While we were planning our trip, we couldn’t find much information online about non-trail things like accommodations, food, etc. since the trail is new and the official website wasn’t up at the time. We thought it might be helpful to others to provide that sort of information + any other helpful tips and musings we had along the way, so I wrote this blog! We hope it helps you make the decision to trek the Pekoe Trail! We loved it and hope to come back in the future to do the rest!