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A day in Yala begins long before you reach the park gates. This full-day safari takes you from your hotel in Bentota across the island to Sri Lanka's second largest national park, a reserve on the southeastern coast known above all for its leopards. You travel in an air-conditioned vehicle with an English-speaking chauffeur guide, then transfer into an open safari jeep for the drive through the park itself.
Yala was set aside as a wildlife sanctuary in 1900 and became a national park in 1938, and it remains the most visited park in the country. Block 1, the section most safaris explore, covers a comparatively small stretch of the park's dry-zone scrub, rocky outcrops and waterholes, yet it holds one of the highest densities of leopards recorded anywhere in the world. Sightings are never guaranteed, but trackers who work this ground daily know where the leopards rest on granite rock in the heat of the day, where sambar and spotted deer come down to drink, and where wild boar move through the leaf litter with bee-eaters perched close by.
The rhythm of the day is built around the safari itself. Your chauffeur collects you from your hotel in Bentota in the morning and drives you to Yala, arriving in time to meet your safari jeep and driver-tracker for a three-hour game drive through the park. Elephants, sloth bear and the Sri Lankan water buffalo also range across this landscape, alongside the park's many birds, reptiles and smaller mammals, so the jeep moves slowly, stopping wherever there is something worth watching. Afterwards you return to your vehicle for the drive back to Bentota, with the tour completing the same evening.
Hotel pickup and drop-off in Bentota, air-conditioned road transport with an English-speaking chauffeur guide, and the safari jeep for the three-hour drive inside the park are all part of the day. Entrance tickets to Yala National Park are not included, nor are food, drinks or gratuities, so it is worth arranging the ticket option that suits you before setting out. The tour is set up for private travel, with a minimum age of five for anyone joining the safari.
