--- description: Find out why The Pekoe Trail is on TIME’s list of the World’s Greatest Places 2025. title: The Pekoe Trail: World's Greatest Places 2025 image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4048a94936ff92a1/6998c4c147fe512e5155b812/Worlds-Greatest-Places-2025-ThePekoeTrail.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- Mar 13, 2025 # The Pekoe Trail Central Highlands, Sri Lanka by [Audrey Phoon](/author/audrey-phoon/) ## Audrey Phoon Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close  Courtesy The Pekoe Trail Up in the Sri Lankan highlands, a 19th-century transport network for tea is now conveying adventurers to remote communities and businesses. The 186-mile [Pekoe Trail](https://www.thepekoetrailsrilanka.com/ "undefined")—completed last March and named for the high-grade black tea produced on many Sri Lankan estates—is the country’s first long-distance walking path, linking thousands of colonial-era dirt roads and railway tracks built by the British for exporting tea. Though local companies have led trekking tours along parts of the route for years, this is the first time all 22 sections have been connected as a single trail, an initiative led by Sri Lanka-based sustainability consultant Miguel Cunat and funded by the European Union and the U.S. Agency for International Development. For hikers, the path offers an intimate look at Sri Lanka’s diverse landscape and tea-entwined history: it unfurls from the mist-cloaked Hanthana mountains near Kandy, through tea plantations, eucalyptus forests, tiny villages and the holy peak of Sri Pada, to Nuwara Eliya, the country’s tea capital. A new app highlights nearby landmarks, segment details, emergency information, and more. Each stage takes about three to six hours to hike, depending on its difficulty, and traversing the entire route can take weeks. Charming stays—including [Teardrop Hotels](https://www.teardrop-hotels.com/ "undefined")’ contemporary-chic bungalows and Uga Escapes’ newly launched [Halloowella](https://www.ugaescapes.com/halloowella/ "undefined"), a six-suite estate formerly owned by a British army major that has been redesigned by celebrated Sri Lankan architect Channa Daswatte—ensure that hikers are well-fed and rested along the way. The Pekoe Trail: World’s Greatest Places 2025 ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collections/worlds-greatest-places-2025/7263135/the-pekoe-trail/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collections/worlds-greatest-places-2025/7263135/the-pekoe-trail/"},"headline":"The Pekoe Trail","datePublished":"2025-03-13T12:34:03.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-03T00:44:38.860Z","description":"","url":"https://time.com/collections/worlds-greatest-places-2025/7263135/the-pekoe-trail/","keywords":["World's Greatest Places","list","franchise","Magazine","sponsorshipblock","WGP2025"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4048a94936ff92a1/6998c4c147fe512e5155b812/Worlds-Greatest-Places-2025-ThePekoeTrail.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Audrey Phoon","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/audrey-phoon/"}],"creator":"Audrey Phoon","articleSection":"World","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4048a94936ff92a1/6998c4c147fe512e5155b812/Worlds-Greatest-Places-2025-ThePekoeTrail.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/world/","name":"World"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/worlds-greatest-places/","name":"World's Greatest Places"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/collections/worlds-greatest-places-2025/7263135/the-pekoe-trail/","name":"The Pekoe Trail"}}]}] ```