Udawalawe National Park is a favorite place among the tourists for guaranteed elephant sightings in Sri Lanka. It was declared as a national park on 30 June 1972 and became the third most visited National Park in Sri Lanka. It is a home for few hundreds of Asian Elephants, monkeys, spotted deer and more than 150 species of birds. It’s a semi-arid scrub forest with open grasslands which are suitable for game viewing. It was a chena cultivation land before being a protected area. Even it is a secondary forest, few of endemic flora also has been found in the National Park area.

The damming of the Walawe river created a reservoir and wetlands which attracted many aquatic birds and animals. It’s backed by the dramatic highlands to the north and made up of 119 square miles of open grassland, with wetlands and dense jungle. Udawalawe National Park lies about 160km southeast of Colombo and 120km northeast of Galle. It’s a relatively easy hop from the Sri Lankan coast if you’re staying on one of the many beautiful Sri Lanka beaches.