Tere

I am planning a trip to Sri Lanka and would like to hire the services of a tour company based there. Can anyone recommend a trusty company in Sri Lanka?

Thank you in advance

Kathie

We used Boutique Sri Lanka and thought they were excellent.

Craig

Yes, BSL was great for us also...

crellston

I can't recommend a tour company as our experiences were not great with the one we used. I would however urge you You to obtain as much information as possible on the actual guide that will be taking you around. We ended up using 2 different guide from the same company. The first was hopeless, his knowledge was limited and he just did seem to be able to make any effort at all, preferring to sit in his has whilst leaving us to wander the various sites on our own. The replacement guide could not have been more different, he was personable, knowledgable and could not do enough for us.

We spoke with a number of other tourists we met and their experiences varied tremendously from one guy who had done a lot of research on the guides used buy the same tour company as us and he could not say enough nice things about his guide. Others had experiences similar to our with our first guide.

we had a long chat with a very experienced guide we met along the way who confirmed our opinion that choosing the right guide is at least as important as choosing the right company. Have fun, it is a great country to visit!

Tere

Thank you very much for your helpful replies.
crellston , I know that the guide is extremely important , I have used the services of guides twice in India.
Can you tell me which company you used so that I don't use it if I come across it on my reserach?

Again thank you all.

Kathie

I believe crellston is referring to the driver assigned by the company, not a separate guide. Drivers and guides should be different people. You may want to hire a guide at specific places, and your driver should know the best ones. A driver can make or break a trip - a good reason to book through an agency, as the agency will trade out your driver or your car if one does not suit.

barrylando

Hi, We are just planning a trip now, and am going to try BSL..but any other suggestions? or warnings?

Kathie

Several people here used RedDot, but had some problems with them.

ZackeyAReyal

Why do you require a guide or a tour company?

crellston

We used Reddot for part of our 4 week trip and experienced more than a few problems. Click on my screen name and you will find my TR from 2011. For the remainder of our trip along the coast and back to Negombo we didn't use a guide and got along ok but a guide/driver, if you get a good one, can help a lot. We had one good and one bad and the bad one was a complete pita. Others we met using the same tour operator had good experiences, some not so good.

I almost never use TAs or TOs and this was an exception, mainly because hiring a driver guide or using a tour operator worked out not much more expensive than DIY.

Kathie

Zackey, we used BSL to arrange our car and driver and to make all of our hotel reservations. I do not recommend hiring a guide for the whole time. A good driver can recommend excellent guides in places where you would benefit from one, like Polonnaruwa.

As to why to hire a driver through an agency rather than hiring a free-lance driver, the agency will arrange for a different car or driver as needed. Read some of the reports here for why that might be needed.

Andrew_James

I went to Sri Lanka just a couple months ago and used Mai Globe. Connected me to the right people and tour groups.

When I contacted them through phone, I was able to get every bit of detail I needed to feel comfortable going to Sri Lanka. Try calling or emailing them if you have any questions I guess...

http://www.maiglobetravels.com/