€404.70 for 1 Night
24/7 Support
Looking for help choosing or for a property we don't list? Message our Private Rates Concierge on WhatsApp for member rates and insider knowledge on the right stay
€404.70/ Night
24/7 Support
Looking for help choosing or for a property we don't list? Message our Private Rates Concierge on WhatsApp for member rates and insider knowledge on the right stay
A six-tent luxury safari camp on the edge of Yala National Park, with air-conditioned en-suite tents, two game drives a day and a team of rangers rated among the best in Sri Lanka.
Collection:
Award Winner 2019
Asia's Best Honeymoon Hideaway Hotel
Free extra on us
Complimentary guided cooking class showcasing the rich history and flavour of authentic Sri Lankan cuisine.
Need To Know
- Six air-conditioned en-suite tents at the Yala camp: two Deluxe Tents with alfresco showers, two Lake Suites on raised decks, and two Pool Suites with a plunge pool.
- On the edge of Yala National Park, about 7km from the Katagamuwa entrance and roughly a five-hour drive from Colombo airport.
- Two included game drives a day with a private trained ranger, plus a jungle bar, campfire and candlelit bush dinners.
- A second Leopard Trails camp, also six tents, sits beside Wilpattu National Park in the north-west.
- Our Favourite Rooms: a Lake Suite for the water views and the interconnecting layout, good for families.
Check in - Check out
Check in from 14:00; check out before 12:00.
We Love
- The rangers. Leopard Trails trains its own guides through the first programme of its kind in Sri Lanka, and the guiding is widely rated the country's best.
- The game. Two drives a day in private jeeps put you onto Yala's leopards, plus elephants, sloth bears, crocodiles and hundreds of bird species.
- The tents. Six only, air-conditioned and en-suite, in a Ceylon safari style, with alfresco showers, raised Lake Suites and plunge-pool suites.
- The dining. Candlelit dinners under the stars, a jungle bar, tasting menus of Sri Lankan cooking and a hands-on curry class.
- The ethos. Local staff, suppliers and jeeps, leave-no-trace camps and a Junior Ranger programme that brings children into the conservation story.
Key Features
Book Your Stay at Leopard Trails
€404.70 for 1 Night
Location
Address
Yala National Park, Palatupana, 10116, 10116, Sri Lanka or Wilpattu Sanctuary Rd, Pahala Maragahawewa, Sri Lanka
Travel Info
Yala is roughly a five-hour drive from Colombo airport; the team meets guests nearby and transfers them by 4x4 to the camp, about 7km from the Katagamuwa entrance. The Wilpattu camp lies in the north-west, near Anuradhapura.
Nearby Places
It is a five hour drive from Bandaranaike International Airport to Yala. Guests will be met nearby by the Leopard Trails team, then transferred into a four-wheel vehicle and driven to the site, located approximately 7km from the Katagamuwa entrance to Yal
250m
Last Updated: 2026-06-30
Expert Review
Origins
Leopard Trails began around a campfire in Yala in February 2012, when a group of friends who had grown up exploring Sri Lanka's jungles, taken into the wild as children by their parents, decided to turn that lifelong passion into a safari business. Headed by Radheesh Sellamuttu, who today runs the operation, they started with three canvas tents on the bank of a river, a single vehicle and one young game ranger trained in South Africa.
From those beginnings it has grown into Sri Lanka's leading tented-safari operation, while keeping the founders' obsession with guiding at its core. The same ranger who led those first drives now heads the in-house training team, and Leopard Trails runs the first and only comprehensive ranger programme in the country, modelled on African courses, with guides travelling regularly to Africa on exchange. Two camps, at Yala in the south-east and Wilpattu in the north-west, carry the same idea: a small, mobile-spirited camp where the wildlife and the people reading it, rather than the thread count, are the point.
Top Secret
Ask about a private dinner in the bush, laid out under a 'bush chandelier' of antique kerosene lanterns strung above the table, the camp's quietly theatrical way of dining out under the dark dry-zone sky.
The Review
Sri Lanka does wildlife as well as anywhere in Asia, and Yala, in the dry south-east, is its headline park: one of the best places on earth to see a wild leopard, alongside elephants, sloth bears, crocodiles and a vast cast of birds. Leopard Trails camps on the edge of it, in the buffer zone about 7km from the Katagamuwa gate, and makes the case that how you see the park matters as much as where you sleep.
The camp is small, six air-conditioned en-suite tents in a Ceylon safari style, with private verandas, alfresco showers in the Deluxe tents, raised Lake Suites with water views and a secret-tunnel layout that families love, and Pool Suites with a plunge. It is glamping rather than roughing it: proper beds, full bathrooms, a jungle bar and candlelit dinners under the stars, with only the canvas between you and the night sounds. But the tents are not really the point.
The guiding is. Leopard Trails built the first proper ranger-training programme in Sri Lanka, modelled on African courses and topped up with guide exchanges to Africa, and the result is a team routinely described by returning guests as the best in the country. Two game drives a day go out in private jeeps, and the rangers double as hosts in camp, reading the bush and the guests with equal skill. Around it sit cooking classes, bush walks, a Junior Ranger programme and a genuine responsible-tourism ethos: local staff and suppliers, local jeeps, leave-no-trace camps.
For travellers who want a safari led by people who clearly love the work, in comfort but close to the wild, it is hard to better. A second camp at Wilpattu, also six tents, opens up Sri Lanka's largest and quietest park, its forest broken by the sand-rimmed lakes called villus and home to the island's densest leopard population. Paired or taken alone, the two camps are among the best wildlife stays in Sri Lanka.
