Taxi from Anuradhapura to Colombo Airport, fixed price private transfer

South on the A28 through Thalawa and Padeniya to Kurunegala, then the A6 and the E03 to the terminal. One hundred and seventy-five kilometres, three and three quarter hours. For a 01:30 flight the pickup falls around 18:15; for an 11:00 departure, around 03:30. After Kurunegala the road is busier but still straightforward, and the expressway section at the end never queues.

The A28 between Anuradhapura and Padeniya passes close to Kala Wewa and a string of ancient tanks, and elephants move between them at dusk and again before dawn. The road is quiet enough that speed is a temptation and that is exactly where it should not be taken; drivers who work this route slow at first and last light. In the sacred city itself, vehicle access is restricted around the main monuments, so an early pickup from a hotel inside the precinct will be from a permitted point rather than the door. The town is also spread out, with hotels along the Mihintale road and near the tank as well as in the centre, so the property name is the address that matters.

Flat, quiet roads for nearly four hours, so choose on heat and space rather than capability. This is among the hottest parts of the island and air conditioning matters, particularly on a daytime departure. The economy sedan is fine for two people; four with luggage fit the comfort sedan, and five or six need the comfort van. Anuradhapura is also where a good many visitors buy something breakable — lacquerware, pottery, a stone carving from one of the workshops near the site — and a boot packed to the roof is not where that survives four hours of road. Say so on WhatsApp once you have booked and the driver leaves space in the cabin instead. If you have kept a car for the sacred city itself, which most visitors do because the site is far too large to walk, extending that booking through to the airport is cheaper than arranging a separate transfer and saves the last-morning shuffle of bags.

Anuradhapura is on the northern railway and the intercity trains to Colombo Fort are genuinely decent, around four hours in reasonable comfort. If your flight were leaving from Fort, it would be a fair choice. It leaves from Katunayake, thirty-five kilometres further on, which turns one booking into two and adds a city transfer at whatever hour the train arrives. Buses are frequent, cheap and slow with the same gap. For a departure the car remains the only version with a single moving part. The one case where we would genuinely suggest the train is a flight late enough to allow a full day of slack — an afternoon on the northern line is a pleasant way to end a trip, provided the connection at Fort is booked in advance rather than improvised on arrival.

Daylight is easier, for the elephants on the A28 and because the roads around the sacred city are unlit. Night departures are quicker and attract a surcharge between 22:00 and 05:00. The dry season from May to September is the best time to be here, and it contains the one date to plan around: Poson Poya in June, when several hundred thousand pilgrims come to Anuradhapura and nearby Mihintale, and the roads around the sacred city are genuinely congested. If your departure falls in that week, add an hour and leave from outside the precinct.