Deputy Minister of Tourism Ruwan Ranasinghe has invited the public and international visitors to experience the scenic beauty of Uva Paranagama through the Pekoe Trail stages 20 and 21, highlighting horseback travel and organic produce as unique attractions.

“I call visitors around the globe to visit Pekoe Trail stages 20 and 21 in Uva Paranagama. While you travel on horseback, you can also pick fresh, organic pears and taste them. It is an experience, a feeling. You can experience Ceylon tea and organic pears,” Ranasinghe said.

The Deputy Minister made the remarks during a promotional visit to the Lucky Land Estate in Uva Paranagama, where he rode on horseback as part of a tourism promotion activity.  

The event was held under the Ceylon Tea Villages program of 500 tea villages, with Uva Province’s main program taking place yesterday. Riding along the roads of the area, Ranasinghe emphasized the natural beauty and scenic value of the region, positioning it as a destination for sustainable tourism.

Badulla District MP Ravinda Bandara also joined the promotional activity, riding on horseback alongside the Deputy Minister. (Newswire)

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Sri Lanka has been recognised for its ‘Pekoe Trail’ in the Central Highlands in TIME Magazine’s list of the world’s 100 greatest places to visit in 2025.

Writing for Time Magazine, Audrey Phoon has described the Pekoe Trail as offering hikers an intimate look at Sri Lanka’s diverse landscape and tea-entwined history.

“Up in the Sri Lankan highlands, a 19th-century transport network for tea is now conveying adventurers to remote communities and businesses. The 186-mile Pekoe Trail—completed last March and named for the high-grade black tea produced on many Sri Lankan estates—is the country’s first long-distance walking path, linking thousands of colonial-era dirt roads and railway tracks built by the British for exporting tea. 

Though local companies have led trekking tours along parts of the route for years, this is the first time all 22 sections have been connected as a single trail, an initiative led by Sri Lanka-based sustainability consultant Miguel Cunat and funded by the European Union and the U.S. Agency for International Development.

For hikers, the path offers an intimate look at Sri Lanka’s diverse landscape and tea-entwined history: it unfurls from the mist-cloaked Hanthana mountains near Kandy, through tea plantations, eucalyptus forests, tiny villages and the holy peak of Sri Pada, to Nuwara Eliya, the country’s tea capital. 

A new app highlights nearby landmarks, segment details, emergency information, and more. Each stage takes about three to six hours to hike, depending on its difficulty, and traversing the entire route can take weeks. 

Charming stays—including Teardrop Hotels’ contemporary-chic bungalows and Uga Escapes’ newly launched Halloowella, a six-suite estate formerly owned by a British army major that has been redesigned by celebrated Sri Lankan architect Channa Daswatte—ensure that hikers are well-fed and rested along the way,” says Audrey Phoon, describing Sri Lanka’s Pekoe Trail. (Newswire)

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Sri Lanka’s Pekoe Trail, a new hiking trail that leads to the heart of the hill country, has been featured in National Geographic’s Top 20 Travel Experiences for 2024.

Titled ‘Wander tea trails in Sri Lanka’, the Pekoe Trail has been ranked by National Geographic as one of the “BEST OF THE WORLD 2024” Travel Experiences.

Sri Lanka’s Pekoe Trail is described by Nat Geo as follows;

“Sri Lanka is virtually synonymous with tea. The island nation is one of the world’s top producers of tea leaves. British colonists introduced the first bushes about 200 years ago. Now visitors can trace the footsteps of historic planters on the new, nearly 200-mile Pekoe Trail, the country’s first long-distance walking route. 

Starting just outside Kandy, the trail follows the 19th-century tracks upon which workers and horse-drawn carts transported freshly plucked leaves. Hikers pass through hill towns and tea estates and can stop to take a cooking class or savour a cup of aromatic Ceylon tea”.

The Pekoe Trail is funded by the European Union with additional support from the USAID and implemented by the US not-for-profit organization, Improving Economies for Stronger Communities (IESC).

Nat Geo’s list of Top 20 Travel Experiences for 2024: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/best-of-the-world-20-experiences-for-2024 (NewsWire)

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