A straight comparison of two very different trips: distances, driving times, food, beaches, cost and how many days each country actually needs — based on the routes we run, not the ones that sound good.
Two countries a short ferry crossing apart, and they ask completely different things of you. Here is how to decide, based on the trips we run.
The short answer
Choose Sri Lanka if you have around two weeks, want beach time built into the route rather than bolted on, and would rather not spend whole days in a car.
Choose India if you have one week, or three or more, want the food and landscape to change every few days, or specifically want Rajasthan's forts, the Taj Mahal or Kerala's backwaters.
At 7 to 10 days, India is the only one of the two that works. Our shortest Sri Lanka trip is 13 days, and a one-week version would be mostly driving.
Size and pace
Sri Lanka is roughly 430 km end to end — crossable in a long day. Our six Sri Lanka routes are 13 or 14 days and run variations of one loop. Kandy is in every one. Most add the cultural triangle around Sigiriya and Dambulla, the tea country around Nuwara Eliya and Ella, a national park, and coast at the end. That loop is the country, and two weeks does it properly.
India is about 2,800 km by road from Delhi to its southern tip, and the two ends have different languages, food, climates and architecture. We list 15 India trips, from 5-day beach add-ons to a 25-day route: Rajasthan's desert forts, Kerala's backwaters, the Tamil Nadu temple towns of Madurai and Thanjavur, the tea hills above Darjeeling. You are not choosing India. You are choosing one region of it.
Driving is the part people underestimate
Sri Lanka's distances are short and slow. Colombo to Kandy is 115 km and takes about three and a half hours. Kandy up to Nuwara Eliya is 80 km of hairpins, again about three hours. The map lies to you. But you rarely do more than one such leg in a day.
India's legs are longer and the itineraries are built around that. Delhi to Agra is 230 km, roughly four hours on the Yamuna Expressway. Agra to Jaipur is another 240 km and about five. Jaipur to Udaipur is close to 400 km — a full travel day, and that is exactly how our 7-day Holi route treats it.
Longer India routes use domestic flights to skip what would otherwise be two lost days: Jaipur to Kochi on the 14-day north-to-south trip, Varanasi to Delhi on the 8-day Golden Triangle, Delhi to Bagdogra on the 12-day Rajasthan and Himalayas route. Those internal flights are in the price. International flights are not.
Food: one cuisine, or twenty
Sri Lanka does one cuisine and does it consistently. "Rice and curry" means five or six small dishes around a plate of rice — dhal, jackfruit, beetroot, coconut sambol. Hoppers for breakfast, kottu roti chopped on a hot plate in the evening. The chilli heat is real and it does not let up. Across 430 km, the food barely changes.
India changes every few hundred kilometres. Rajasthan is wheat and dairy and largely vegetarian: dal baati churma, and laal maas if you eat meat. Kerala is coconut, fish and rice — appam with stew for breakfast. Tamil Nadu is dosa and sambar on a banana leaf; Varanasi is chaat, and mostly meat-free near the ghats.
If food is why you travel, India gives you more to work with. If you want to know what you are ordering by day three, Sri Lanka is easier.
Beaches
In Sri Lanka the beach is in the itinerary. One route gives you four nights at Nilaveli on the east coast, days 7 to 10. Another has a beach day at Pasikuda mid-route and adds a Maldives stay at the end. A third starts at Unawatuna and finishes with three nights around Bentota. Which coast works depends on the month.
In India the beach is a separate module you attach to a culture route: Goa (5 days, from EUR 350), Marari in Kerala (from EUR 400), the Andaman Islands (from EUR 410) or the Maldives (from EUR 700). Two India routes build it in: the 14-day north-to-south trip ends on Marari beach, and one 15-day route finishes on a Maldivian island.
What it costs
All prices are land-only starting prices.
- Sri Lanka, 13 days: from EUR 750. The 14-day routes run EUR 1,050 to EUR 1,380.
- India: the shortest full route is 7 days from EUR 1,515 (built around Holi); the 8-day Golden Triangle with Varanasi starts at EUR 1,175. The 14-day routes run EUR 1,520 to EUR 1,840, and the 25-day South India route is EUR 2,860.
Like for like, Sri Lanka is cheaper: a 14-day Sri Lanka trip sits several hundred euros below a 14-day India trip. India's longer routes carry domestic flights and more ground.
To be clear: there is no five-star tier here. Rooms are Standard, Deluxe, Superior or Executive. If you want palace hotels and a butler, we are not the right operator.
Flights matter too. There are direct London–Colombo services; from continental Europe you usually change once in the Gulf. Delhi has more direct options and cheaper fares. Put that in the total.
When to go
North India — Delhi, Agra, Rajasthan, Varanasi — works October to March. December and January mornings drop to around 7–10°C, with fog thick enough to delay flights and trains. April to June, Rajasthan runs 40–45°C. July to September is the monsoon. South India suits November to March. We break this down properly in Best Time to Visit India Month by Month.
Sri Lanka has two monsoons, so somewhere on the island is always in season. The southwest monsoon (roughly May to September) hits the west and south coasts and the hill country. The northeast monsoon (roughly October to January) hits the east and north. So: December to March for Galle, Unawatuna and Bentota. May to September for Nilaveli, Pasikuda and Trincomalee. The hill country is cool year-round: Nuwara Eliya sits at about 1,900 m, and nights fall to around 10°C. Pack a jacket even in July.
One date is fixed rather than flexible: our 7-day Golden Triangle route is built around Holi, so it runs on the Holi dates in March.
Wildlife
Sri Lanka: Udawalawe for elephants, on two of our routes. Yala is a jeep safari with a genuine chance of a leopard, not a promise of one. Sinharaja rainforest you cover on foot, with a ranger.
India: Ranthambore for tiger, on five of our India routes; Sariska and Dholpur on the 10-day Rajasthan trip; Periyar in Kerala for elephants and birdlife, on three southern routes. Tigers are not guaranteed anywhere. Book the park for the park, and treat the tiger as a bonus.
What we don't sell
April to June is when Himalayan hill stations like Shimla and Manali come into their own, and Munnar's tea hills in Kerala are good in the shoulder months. We run no trips to any of them.
The Himalayan route we do run goes to Kalimpong and Darjeeling — sunrise over Kanchenjunga from Tiger Hill, the 1881 narrow-gauge railway up to Ghoom — on the 12-day Rajasthan and Himalayas trip. If a region matters to you and it is not on our tours page, ask. We will tell you straight whether we can do it well.
How to decide
- One week: India, the Golden Triangle. Sri Lanka does not work in seven days.
- Two weeks, first long-haul trip in Asia: Sri Lanka. Shorter drives, gentler learning curve, beach at the end.
- Two weeks, you have travelled Asia before: India, either north to south or a full Rajasthan loop.
- Three weeks or more: India. That is where the 21-day and 25-day routes earn their length.
- Travelling with someone who worries about heat and crowds: Sri Lanka, December to March.
- You want both: pair Sri Lanka with a Maldives beach stay, or do them as two separate trips. Under three weeks they do not combine well.
Every trip is private and guided, with a German-speaking guide included, and there are no fixed group departures. The itineraries are a starting point, not a fixed product. Tell us which of the above sounds like you and we will build from there.
