Most people who we speak to about our beloved Sri Lanka have never heard of the trail that winds through the hill country behind the tea estates… And we quite like that that's the case really. Talk to anyone who's walked even a single stage of the Pekoe Trail and they'll tell you to expect to be wowed: tea hills rolling off to the horizon, temple drums and church bells drifting up from the valley below, and a warmth from the people you meet that radiates through every smile and interaction. It's been building a reputation for a little while now, but this year it's finally starting to make the headlines it's worthy of. And we're here to tell you how to effortlessly weave it into your Sri Lanka holiday. As always with us, this advice is all based on real, first-hand experience. Rebecca, our Sri Lanka expert , and I hiked two sections of the trail together this spring, and it's still one of our favourite days of 'work' either of us has ever had. So here's what we learned: what the trail's actually like, how easy it is to walk just a taster section of it rather than the whole thing, and a proper look at the two stages we did ourselves. Your visual guide to all 22 stages of the Pekoe Trail, Sri Lanka The Pekoe Trail, at a glance Roughly 300km end to end, from Kandy to Nuwara Eliya 22 stages, each between 9km and 20km It would take around 16 to 22 days to walk the whole trail Every stage can be walked entirely on its own Difficulty ranges from easy valley paths to steep, full days out Best time of year to hike: December to April and July to September Two hundred years of tea, one trail The Pekoe Trail runs for around 300 kilometres through Sri Lanka's central highlands, starting in Kandy and finishing in Nuwara Eliya . It's split into 22 signposted stages, stitched together out of old railway paths, plantation roads and the footpaths tea estate workers have used to get between villages for generations. The name comes from pekoe, the grade of tea plucked from the youngest, most tender leaves on the bush. They chose well, considering the trail barely leaves tea country the whole way. That tea country, as beautiful as it is, all exists because of a disaster, really. In 1867, a Scotsman called James Taylor planted the island's first commercial tea garden on the Loolecondera estate near Kandy, just 19 acres to start (Stage 2 of the trail runs right past it!). Back then, Ceylon's whole economy ran on coffee. Then, through the 1870s, a fungal disease swept through the coffee plantations and wiped out most of them within a decade. Planters who'd lost everything turned to Taylor's tea bushes, more out of desperation than any grand plan. Within twenty years, tea covered more ground than coffee ever had, and by 1965 Sri Lanka had become the world's biggest tea exporter. We often talk about Sri Lanka's resilience – it really is stitched right into its history. Walk any stage of the trail today and you're not looking at a museum piece, you're walking through a working landscape. The tea's still hand-plucked, mostly by Tamil workers whose families were brought to the hill country generations ago to do exactly this job, and it's still processed in factories where the machinery hasn't changed all that much since Taylor's day. We always recommend squeezing in a factory visit during your time here, to take in the whole process as the tea goes from leaf to cup. Rebecca, our Sri Lanka expert, enjoying the views from Stage 7 of the Pekoe Trail One trail, many holidays: hiking it your way You don't need three weeks and a pair of proper hiking boots to get something out of the Pekoe Trail. That's half the reason we love recommending it. Every one of the 22 stages was designed to be walked on its own, so a lot of people just pick one or two rather than taking on the whole thing. You still get the tea terraces, the villages, that same feeling of the landscape slowly unfolding under your feet, without handing over your entire holiday to it. And that's how we build the Pekoe Trail into a trip: it's all done around you, not around the trail. Tell us how many days you fancy walking and how energetic you're feeling, and we'll match you to stages that suit. Maybe that's an easy half-day dropped into a wider Sri Lanka itinerary. Maybe it's two or three stages back to back, with a few nights in a tea country bungalow either side to recover. Or maybe you want the full end-to-end trek, for the people who like to properly earn their cup of tea at the finish line. Every stage comes with its own local guide, someone who knows the route, the history, and exactly where to stop for a cup grown a few hundred metres away. Rebecca adventuring ahead with our brilliant Pekoe Trail guide, Niro Tea hills and a street party: Stage 7 from Hatton Rebecca and I based ourselves in Hatton and walked Stage 7, the 16-kilometre stretch between Kotagala and Norwood. Honestly, it might be one of the best mornings of walking I've ever had. The tea terraces just go on and on, as far as you can see, and the patterns in them are something else: every bush pruned into itself, row after row, thousands of tiny trees clipped to perfection. You'll want to stop and take a photo round every corner; my phone camera roll was solid tea within an hour. Then you pass a tea factory that's been standing since the 1870s, its blue roof still bright against all that green, and you start to get some sense of just how much skill and generational know-how has gone into a landscape most people only ever glimpse from a car window. We passed tea pickers at work in their bright saris, hikers doing the trail properly with full packs, and plenty of people just like us out for a morning's taste of it. Everyone we met seemed to have a bigger smile than the last. At one point the trail took us through a village of maybe six houses, where a local man was playing music outside his front door. We stopped. Within a minute we were dancing in the street with him. Two more hikers rounded the corner mid-song and joined in too. You can't plan a moment like that, and you definitely can't book it. It's exactly why we love this kind of travel. It was a hot walk, so our guide, Niro, kept us at a steady pace, with plenty of shade breaks and water stops along the way. We finished at the home of a wonderful local woman, Sharmi, who invites walkers into her garden for the freshest mint and lemon juice you'll ever taste. We sat there for a good half hour before we could bring ourselves to leave. The beautiful views from Stage 7 of the Pekoe Trail Over the Nine Arches Bridge: Stage 16 from Ella For our second stage, we stayed at the gorgeous Nine Skies , a 1920s plantation manager's bungalow turned boutique hotel, tucked away on the Demodara Estate just outside Ella . It might be the most beautiful place I've ever stayed. There's an infinity pool and some of the comfiest loungers we've ever afternoon napped on, looking straight out across the Ella Gap, mongooses wandering through the garden in the early morning, and food from the kitchen we're still talking about (ask Rebecca about the roasted cashews and you won't get her off the phone). It felt completely private, tucked so far away from town, and I'll be honest, it was hard to drag ourselves away from that pool on our one full day there. Lucky for us though, the Pekoe Trail walk waiting outside more than made up for it. There's a nice bit of symmetry to staying there too: Nine Skies takes its name from the Nine Arches Bridge nearby, known locally as Ahas Namaya, which translates loosely as nine skies. So in a way, we were sleeping inside the story before we'd even walked it. The view from the beautiful Nine Skies boutique hotel Us, all smiles on the Nine Arches Bridge, Ella Rebecca grabbing that iconic snap on the Nine Arches Bridge We were picked up in the morning and driven out to meet our guide, Niro, at the start of the route in Ella, ready for the 9.5-kilometre walk down to Demodara. The centrepiece of this stage is Ella's iconic Nine Arches Bridge, and no photo really prepares you for walking over it. Nine soaring stone arches, 91 metres long, 24 metres high, curving through the tea hills on nothing but stone, brick and cement. It was finished in 1919, and the story goes that the steel meant for the bridge got diverted to the war effort instead, so it was built without a single steel beam, just stone and skill, to handle a brutally sharp curve in the line. Locally, a lot of the credit goes to a Sri Lankan builder called P.K. Appuhami, who local folklore says stepped in when the British engineers got stuck on the design. There's no paperwork to back it up, but the story's stuck around for a reason, and our guide told it to us with real pride. From left to right: Our medic, Asanka, Gabby, Rebecca, and our guide Niro Here's the honest bit, though: it's also one of the most photographed spots in the country now, and by mid-morning it gets properly busy, hordes of people all angling for the same shot. We were glad we'd walked in early, while it was still quiet enough to hear the birdsong and the odd distant train whistle instead of everyone else's camera shutters. If you want a clean photo, go at sunrise or late afternoon, not mid-morning, and build in a bit of patience. It's still worth the wait, no question. The trains run to something more like a suggestion than a timetable, so ask locally the evening before if you want any real hope of timing your visit to one crossing the bridge. We just missed one, but we caught a glimpse when we were climbing the hill up into the next part of the trail. Learning to make roti: Our favourite bit of the trail Further along the route, past the bridge, is where the part of the day we still talk about most happened: a small local house, where a lovely local lady, Ganga, dressed Rebecca and me in traditional aprons and taught us how to make roti from scratch in her very own outdoor kitchen. Sharing the loveliest breakfast with Ganga (second on the left) in her home We scraped fresh coconut with her family's traditional scraper (neither of us were any good at it, which made for a lot of laughing - she told us we wouldn't get a job!). Then we helped put together a full spread of traditional breakfast foods, working alongside her and her family in their kitchen surrounded by the family's beautiful farmyard. It was just the two of us, our guide, and her family, and it genuinely felt like being folded into someone's home rather than visiting it. This is one of both of our favourite memories from the whole trip… The kind of connection that makes a holiday mean so much more. Rebecca trying her hand at scraping the coconut Ganga, showing off her garden Ganga's family farmland, the perfect setting for breakfast The Demodara Loop Stage 16 finishes at Demodara itself, and it's worth giving it a few minutes once you arrive, because the little station there sits on top of one of the cleverest pieces of railway engineering in the country. Built in 1921, the Demodara Loop was the Ceylon Government Railway's solution to a hillside too steep for the line to climb without breaking its own rules on gradient: rather than fight the slope, the track spirals right round the hill and dives into a tunnel beneath itself, re-emerging just below the station platform sitting on top of it. It's thought to be the only railway loop in the world built quite like that, with a station positioned directly above the tunnel its own line loops through. Local legend has it the idea came from watching a tea estate supervisor untie his turban and wind it back round his head, there's no record to prove it, but it's told on that platform with just as much pride as the story about the bridge further back along the trail. A model showing the very clever Demodara Loop You're never walking alone Our medic, Priyantha, showing us the entire small hospital he was carrying on his back One thing worth knowing before you go: every day on the trail comes with more than just a guide. We had a dedicated medic with us on both hikes, and both were fully qualified doctors from the cities, now working across the hill country. They carry what amounts to a small hospital on their backs. Splints, bandages, medication, everything you'd hope never to need. Ours unpacked the whole kit for us at one point so we could see it for ourselves - it was like a tardis in there! It doesn't get in the way of the walk at all, but it means that if anything unexpected does happen, out in the hills, on tea estate paths, hours from the nearest town, you're in really capable hands. Rebecca and I with our guide Niro, and our medic for the day, Priyantha Pekoe Trail FAQs What should I pack to hike the Pekoe Trail? Pack for a bit of everything, weather-wise. The highland stages sit above 1,500 metres, so even after a warm, sunny morning, evenings can turn cool and misty fast. Bring light layers you can add or peel off as you go, plus a decent rain jacket for the odd shower. Comfortable, broken-in shoes matter more than heavy boots for most of the trail. Don't forget sun protection and a refillable water bottle, it's usually dehydration that catches people out here, not the terrain. What are the easiest sections of the Pekoe Trail? Stage 16, Ella to Demodara, is one of the easiest and most rewarding stretches on the whole trail, which is exactly why it's such a popular add-on to a wider Sri Lanka trip. Stage 1, near Kandy, and Stage 6, around Kotagala, are gentle too, if you'd rather start further north. What are the hardest sections of the Pekoe Trail? The toughest days tend to sit in the middle of the trail, stages like Bogawantalawa to Dayagama, or Haputale to St Catherine's, where both the distance and the climbing step up. Stage 19 is the longest, at 21 kilometres. None of it needs technical climbing experience, but a decent level of fitness helps. Do I need to be an experienced hiker to walk the Pekoe Trail? Not at all. Every stage is rated for difficulty, from easy valley paths to tougher full days, so we match the route to how you actually want to spend your time on your feet. Plenty of our travellers walk a single easy stage as one day among many on a wider Sri Lanka holiday. Can I walk just one stage of the Pekoe Trail? Yes, and most people do. Each of the 22 stages was built to be walked on its own, so you can get a proper taste of tea country without committing your whole trip to it. How long does it take to walk the whole Pekoe Trail? Walking all 22 stages end to end usually takes 16 to 22 days, depending on your pace and how long you linger in each place. Most of our travellers pick a shorter selection of stages instead, and build the rest of their Sri Lanka trip around it. When's the best time of year to hike the Pekoe Trail? December to April and July to September tend to bring the clearest, driest conditions. Outside those months, expect more mist in the highlands and a better chance of an afternoon shower, though the trail's walkable year-round. Do I need a guide to walk the Pekoe Trail? When you book with us, every stage comes with a local guide as standard, and, as we did on our own hikes, you'll have a dedicated medic alongside you too. That means the local knowledge, the stories and the safety net are all taken care of, and you can just focus on the walk. Views from Stage 7 of the Pekoe Trail The orange dot that tells you you're going the right way on the Pekoe Trail How to walk the Pekoe Trail with us You might choose to take on the full 300 kilometres, experience two or three stages as part of a wider Sri Lanka itinerary the way Rebecca and I did, or add a single day's walk onto a trip built around the coast, the ancient cities and the wildlife, it's your call. We'll build your holiday entirely around you: the right stages for your fitness, the right guides, and the right place to put your feet up at the end of each day. Get in touch with Rebecca , Lisa or Dawn , our brilliant Sri Lanka destination managers, to start planning your own Pekoe Trail adventure today. Meet your Sri Lanka experts Our Sri Lanka experts all know and love the country with a passion. They've spent countless weeks exploring, seeking out the very best experiences and places to stay to make your Sri Lanka holiday extra special. Dawn Smith Destination Manager Lisa Jankus-Scott Destination Manager Rebecca Dodds Destination Manager Sri Lanka holidays we love More Sri Lanka blogs Looking to explore the Pekoe Trail? ZEN_HOLIDAY_SPEAK_TO_SPECIALIST ZEN_HOLIDAY_GET_A_QUOTE ZEN_HOLIDAY_TEL ZEN_HOLIDAY_OPEN_HOURS