Arugam Bay

Why Visit

The most consistent, well-known wave in Sri Lanka, with a laid-back town built entirely around the surf season.

A crescent bay on the southeast coast built around a right-hand point break, and the centre of Sri Lanka's surf culture.

History

Arugam Bay was a small, little-known fishing village until international surfers began arriving in the 1970s, drawn by word-of-mouth accounts of its long right-hand point break — one of the earliest surf spots on the island to gain a global following among the small international surf-travel community of the era. Its remote east-coast location meant it grew slowly and stayed low-key for decades, further limited by the civil war's effect on access to the region and by serious tsunami damage in 2004. Nearby, the ruins of Muhudu Maha Vihara, an ancient coastal temple believed to date back over a thousand years, are a reminder that this stretch of coast had settled communities long before surfing gave it a new identity. Since the war ended in 2009, Arugam Bay has grown steadily into Sri Lanka's best-known surf town without losing much of its small-town character.