Sri Lanka is a beautiful country. Filled with kind and helpful people, diversity for days, family values that run deep, and a penchant for spice, you’d be hard pressed to find a more well-rounded, friendly nation than Sri Lanka. However, up until fairly recently, it was a far away place I knew next to nothing about.

So, how did I end up visiting this little island paradise?

A little back story…

Over six months ago I got an email from a friend of mine, Aurelia D’Andrea, of Vegan Epicure Travel, asking if I wanted to be her co-host for a vegan women’s retreat in Sri Lanka. I was over the moon excited. “Yes!” was my exuberant reply, and the planning began.

Sadly, as most of you know, there were some terrible attacks that happened in Colombo, Sri Lanka, in April of this year… which resulted in a tough decision: the retreat had to be cancelled. Understandably so, people were reticent. (But just to assuage any fears you may have, the U.S. government calls  Sri Lanka a “Level Two Travel Advisory,” which says tourists should “exercise caution” but keep in mind that France, Mexico, and the United Kingdom, are also “Level Two Travel Advisory.”)

Anyway, Aurelia and I decided to still meet up in Sri Lanka as planned, retreat or not, and do some location scouting and visiting! Aurelia is an ol’ pro when it comes to Sri Lanka (and travel in general) and she showed Arnold and me the ropes, introduced us to lovely people, and took us on adventures! Aurelia may be one of the most travel-savvy people I know, and we were so lucky to have her insight and ideas for our future travel destination as well.

Fortunately, not only is Sri Lankan food easily veganized, but also the people are so kind and accommodating that we had no problems getting a good vegan meal. In all of my travels, I’ve found that the telltale sign that you’re going to successfully get vegan food is a willing waiter. (Because, let’s be honest, vegan food is everywhere… just hold the animal products.)

You’ll get a glimpse into the yummy dishes that we had in today’s video below. You’ll notice that we ate traditional Sri Lankan food, but also found more westerns delights like smoothie bowls and other exotic dishes like pad thai.

One of the wonderful parts of Sri Lanka is the wildlife. We saw a host of animals in their natural habitats, from chipmunks to peacocks, elephants and even a crocodile!

So let’s get into the video! This one is a bit long because we packed in so many adventures. I hope you enjoy. If you do, it always means the world to me when you leave a comment telling me so. 🙂

Thanks for frolicking through Sri Lanka with us today. I’ve love to hear from you! Are you enjoying these travel videos? Or would you like a bit more holistic health oriented videos? A lil’ bit of both? I should be a bit more stable in a couple weeks or so and able to vary the content a bit more. Vagabonding may be exciting, but it’s a challenge to film all the things that I think of!

Wishing you a lovely weekend, friends,