Often called ‘Little England’ for its Tudor-style buildings, rose gardens, and improbable thoroughbred racecourse – Nuwara Eliya sits at nearly 2,000 metres and carries a peculiarly colonial highland atmosphere that makes it feel unlike anywhere else in Sri Lanka or South Asia. The surrounding tea estates are extraordinarily beautiful, Gregory Lake provides a pleasant afternoon of outdoor activity, and the working tea factories nearby produce some of the finest high-grown Orange Pekoe on the island. It’s worth a night here at minimum – and worth a second to visit Horton Plains in the early morning.