Kumana, the park everyone drives past

Yala block one is the most photographed scrub in Sri Lanka, and on a bad morning you will queue behind forty jeeps for a leopard that has long since walked off.

Kumana sits on the same coastline, an hour and a half further east, and almost nobody goes. It is a bird park first — 255 species, and a mangrove swamp that fills with painted storks and spoonbills between May and June — but the leopards are there too, and so are the elephants.

Getting there

The approach is from Panama, not from Yala. The last twenty kilometres are dirt and you want a high vehicle. Go in on the first drive of the day and take your own water; there is nothing inside.

When

May to July for the nesting. The park closes through the drought months, so check before you commit to dates.