Taxi from Colombo to Puttalam

The Colombo to Puttalam journey at a glance

The road distance from Colombo to Puttalam is about 133.9 kilometres, and a private car covers it in around 3 hours 11 minutes. That works out at roughly 42 kilometres an hour end to end, which is the number worth holding on to: it is well below what the distance alone suggests, and it is the reason journeys here are planned in hours rather than in kilometres.

North on the A3 past Negombo and Chilaw, flat and straight rather than fast — there is no expressway on this stretch.

What the drive from Colombo to Puttalam is actually like

Leaving Colombo

Almost every long journey on the island starts or ends here, and the first and last half hour is usually the slowest part of it. The Southern and Katunayake expressways both begin on the edge of the city, so once you are on one the distance stops mattering much — it is reaching the entrance that costs the time. Galle Road carries most of the southbound traffic and Marine Drive runs beside it as a release valve, though it rejoins the same congestion further down.

Arriving in Puttalam

The coast road running north out of Negombo stays flat and mostly straight through Chilaw before opening out along the edge of Puttalam's own lagoon — an ordinary two-lane road rather than an expressway, so the distance on a map does not shrink the way it would further south. The lagoon pushes the road inland in places, and salt pans line long stretches of the final approach. This is also where the roads split: one way out to the peninsula, the other inland toward the dry-zone parks and the old cities.

Where the driver meets you in Colombo

Give a hotel name and a road, not a landmark: several of the main roads change name every kilometre or two and the numbered ones are used more in speech than the names. Colombo traffic is heaviest either side of the school run and again in the early evening, so a journey booked for the middle of the day will move considerably faster than the same journey at half past four.

Arriving in Puttalam

The town centres on the harbour and the older lagoon-side streets rather than one high street, so a hotel or landmark name carries more than a street address would. Most journeys through here are a stop on the way somewhere else rather than an end in themselves, and drivers treat it that way by default.

Worth stopping for on the way

• Kitulgala — White water on the Kelani river, and the valley where The Bridge on the River Kwai was filmed. Grade 2 and 3 rapids that run all year. Allow a morning, 3–4 hours. The river is highest just after the south-west monsoon. Bring a change of clothes — you will not stay dry, and the drive back is long in wet shorts.

Where people go next from Puttalam

The journeys most often booked onward from Puttalam:

• Puttalam to Bandaranaike International Airport (CMB) — about 106.2 km, around 2 hours 47 minutes.
• Puttalam to Negombo — about 98.9 km, around 2 hours 32 minutes.
• Puttalam to Anuradhapura — about 75.4 km, around 1 hour 28 minutes.

See every fare, distance and route in and out of Puttalam on its own page.