Surf N Yoga Arugam Bay

The camp

Surf N Yoga sits at the quiet end of Arugam Bay, five minutes on foot from the beach and the town, and what you look at from the house is the paddy fields. The pool looks out over them, so do the room terraces, and yoga happens under the neem trees. Ten rooms, sixteen guests at most, nobody under sixteen.

For the surf: five levels that never mix, ISA coaches, five students to a coach at most, and a tuk-tuk both ways to more than thirteen spots, most of them under ten minutes away. Surf Intense gives you two sessions a day, Surf & Chill one, Surf & Yoga one session and one yoga class. Two mornings a week the training moves into the pool.

The house says plainly it is not a party hostel, and the week bears it out: night volleyball on Monday, sunset ping-pong on Thursday, a beach clean-up on Wednesday, beer pong on Saturday. Everything is vegetarian, from the breakfast menu to dinner at the long table, which is Sri Lankan two nights a week. The Loose Keys café and a 5G coworking space are on site.

You can arrive any day, for three nights or more. The east coast surfs from May to September, with April and October at the edges, and the house warns that tailor-made stays get scarce from June to September, so book early for summer. For a solo trip with company at dinner and early nights, this is the right house.