We Did this trip in July with a driver for 2 weeks, we also had two families
We loved having the driver he organized us, sorted out problems and truly made our holiday . He was also streetwise and saved us money i believe in the long run. The majority of time he stayed at our motel free of charge.His name was Jally
Some days we only used him for short periods of time other days it was a full day driving as the roads are not so good,but still very interesting.
Have fun

Thanks for the swift reply 'aussiedeb', we are also aussies. Good to hear the positives about having a reliable driver, now we need to find one. Did you book and select your accommodation or was that selected by your driver.

We have always travelled independently mostly using public transport where possible but the exception was Sri Lanka where we engaged a tour operator to provide hotels, car and driver for two of the four weeks we were there. After some considerable research we foun that the additional cost of using an operator was negligible. We had the driver for the first two weeks to cover the usual circuit and then got him to drop us on the south coast at Goyambokka where we stayed awhile before hopping back along the coast to Galle, mostly by tuk tuk. From Galle we got a taxi back to negombo. ( click on my screen name for a full trip report)

We had a number of problems with our particular operator and would not recommend them but where they did come into their own was when our car broke down and they sent out a new car and driver ( our first driver was about as good as our first car!). One problem with using a self employed driver is that this replacement car would not have been available. We spoke to others when travelling who had simply picked up a driver at each location for transport to the next and this seemed to work well for some but not for others.

One issue which you should take account of is that it is not always easy to get accommodation at certain times of the year. We wanted to go to the NP at Yala and even with our drivers assistance it proved impossible to find ANY accommodation whatsoever.

Have fun, it's a fascinating country with a huge amount to see. Do try to fit in some train rides in the hill country, they were a highlight for us! Adams Peak is also to be recommended if you are up for the challenge of walking up a small mountain in the middle of the night!

Useful info, thank you. I have heard that it is better to go with a company in case, as happened to you, the car breaks down. At least there is a chance of a back-up car available. Will read your trip report.

We booked our motels with agoda.Try jally tours we were impressed he can also book accomodation he knows the good ones.

hi lulu,

like others here [and on the recommendation of some of them] we used boutiquesrilanka.com and overall we were very happy with them. we had a look at their website [and others] to give us some ideas, and then tried a number of combinations until we were happy with the itinerary and the price. they do all the bookings, arrange payment of deposits, and organised our driver, Ajith, who was very good [he has a minivan which might be suitable for your party].

if you click on my screen name you can see our 2 week trip report from last sept/oct.

instead of having a car pick you up from the airport, you could fly to Trinco on the sea plane service - http://www.flysrilanka.lk/sea-planes.html. although it doesn't look that far, it'll be a very long day's drive or possibly two.

once you meet your driver I'd stick with him [and it will be a him, i think we saw one woman driver all the time we were there] unless there's a problem. He'll get to know your likes and dislikes, and he should be a huge source of information, and help. even while you're in one place, your driver will expect to take you out for trips, evening meals and excursions, city tours, shopping - there is usually a milage limit over and above your chosen itinerary, but if you don't abuse it, there's usually no problem.

as a guide to costs, our car, driver and all petrol cost about U$850 for the 2 weeks - a real bargain!

Thank you so much Annhig, now have a good idea of how to organise trip. Have found this trip planning more difficult than usual as we usually just hire a car and head off into the sunset, obviously we are not going to try that on the Sri Lankan roads.

as we usually just hire a car and head off into the sunset, obviously we are not going to try that on the Sri Lankan roads.>>

no you aren't.

generally you can think of a number and double it; treble it if you are in the hill country - it too us 3 hours to do the 85 kms from Kandy to Nuwara Eliya. even on good roads you can't make much speed because the speed limit is only 75 kph, and certainly our driver was very aware of the frequent speed traps. and there is absolutely no way you'd want to do the driving yourselves!