At Timetravel Ceylon, retreats are conceived as more than escapes; they are acts of renewal. Each programme is crafted to restore the three essential relationships that shape a meaningful life — with oneself, with others, and with the natural world.
Unlike conventional wellness retreats, our experiences are anchored in craft, story, and the quiet intelligence of place. We draw from Sri Lanka’s living traditions, its artisan lineages, its literary landscapes, and its intimate community knowledge to create retreats that reconnect you with what is elemental.
While you may indulge in the pampering and comforts of a luxury resort, our creative practices guide you toward a deeper form of restoration — one that moves beyond self-indulgence into presence, meaning, and connection.
Here, restoration emerges through creative practice and traditional knowledge: the slowness of handwork, the clarity of visual meditation, the grounding of oral history, the companionship of shared craft, the wisdom of ritual and Ayurveda, and the spaciousness offered by landscapes that have held centuries of spiritual significance.
Designed for the discerning traveller seeking depth rather than spectacle, each retreat is an invitation to un-hurry — to inhabit stillness, make with intention, and rediscover yourself through experiences shaped by culture, nature, and timeless human connection.
This page will soon reveal our upcoming series of immersive creative retreats. For now, we invite you to explore the philosophy that guides them — a way of returning to yourself through the beauty of this island’s stories, crafts, and communities.
Restorative. Creative.
Rooted in the Soul of Place.
Literary Landscapes
Writing from History, Land, and Community
Literary Landscapes is a 5-day retreat set in Koggala, Sri Lanka — designed around the idea of travel as renewal. The residency uses writing, oral history, craft, and landscape to restore our relationships with self, community, and the living world — grounded in the village that shaped Sri Lanka’s greatest modern writer. Await for further information soon.
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This retreat is designed for those who
Appreciate creative practice as a means of renewal — personal, relational, and ecological
Value depth, context, and ethical engagement over fast-paced or checklist-style tourism
Are drawn to history as lived experience — carried through memory, craft, language, and everyday practice
Seek meaningful encounters with communities, grounded in respect, reciprocity, and care
Are interested in South Asian histories, art and crafts, village cultures, and postcolonial literary traditions, without requiring prior specialist knowledge
Are writers, historians, editors, academics, cultural practitioners, or deeply engaged readers — or who approach travel with the same intellectual and creative curiosity
Seek digital detox experiences to enhance reconnection with self, others and place.
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This retreat may not be suitable for those who:
Expect formal teaching, accreditation, or outcomes-driven workshops with publishable deliverables
Prefer fast-paced itineraries, sightseeing checklists, or highly scheduled group tours
Are seeking a conventional luxury holiday focused on entertainment, nightlife, or resort-style indulgence
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We are currently working on this for Summer 2026 and Winter Season 26/27. Exact dates will be announced soon.
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Koggala holds a singular place in Sri Lanka’s literary imagination. It is the village landscape that shaped some of the island’s most influential modern writing — where lagoon, coast, temple, and household formed a living social and ecological world, observed with rare attentiveness. Here, literature emerged not from salons or cities, but from everyday life: from work, ritual, craft, and conversation. Today, that same setting remains remarkably intact. Just minutes away lie the surf breaks and beaches of the southern coast, offering an easy rhythm between reflective inland village life and the elemental pleasures of sea and sand — allowing participants to move fluidly between contemplation and recreation, depth and lightness.
