You’re dreaming at…

98 ACRES

Sri Lanka

Cliffside calm meets tea country cool with a wild edge

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WILDLY PLACED: Ella. Nestled between emerald peaks, waterfalls, and tea trails, just a heartbeat above the clouds.

EDITORIAL VIBE: It-Girl gone hiking in natural linen, sun-kissed skin, slow mornings on the deck with birdsong and black tea.

CORE PILLARS: Eco-architecture, reforestation roots, locally embedded hospitality, barefoot wellness.

MUSE MOOD: Wakes with sun salutations over Little Adam’s Peak, sketches jungle silhouettes, sips lemongrass tea with muddy boots still on.

BEST TIME TO GO: January to May (clear skies, golden hikes, cool air).

THE LOOK: Reclaimed timber chalets, alang-alang thatched roofs, stone paths, panoramic decks.

WHO’S IT FOR: Mindful trekkers, tea country romantics, nature-loving families, and seekers of stillness with a bit of soul.

INDULGENCE SPECTRUM: From USD$175 per night.

There are resorts with views, and then there’s 98 Acres. A mountain-fringed dreamscape where time slows, mist rises like memory, and you breathe a little deeper just stepping out of bed. Built on a century-old tea estate, this sanctuary is where the wild elegance of Sri Lanka’s hill country meets the kind of simplicity that heals.

Here, luxury doesn’t mean excess. It means intention. Each chalet is carved into the hillside using reclaimed wood and stone, their thatched roofs feathering into the forest. They don’t impose, they belong. From your bed, you’ll watch fog unfurl across the valley. From your terrace, you’ll trace the flight of eagles on the thermals. And from the outdoor shower, you’ll listen to the wind converse with the trees.

It’s the kind of place where mornings begin with birdsong and a pot of black tea strong enough to stir your soul. You might wander barefoot to the yoga deck, or hike up Little Adam’s Peak before most have stirred. The trails aren’t just scenic, they’re sacred. Each step a meditation, each view a pause.

Wellness here is woven, not imposed. The spa is nestled into nature, not removed from it. Treatments are infused with herbs foraged nearby. Everything smells like lemongrass, eucalyptus, or something warmer you can’t quite name. You’ll feel it before you define it.

The food is memory-laced and garden-grown. Curries that taste like someone’s grandmother made them. Fresh gotukola, turmeric broth, house-made sambol. What you eat comes from just beyond your door – nothing imported, nothing wasted.

But perhaps the real magic is in the way the land has been restored. What was once extractive, a plantation, has been rewilded, regenerated. The paths wind through reforested hills, the vegetables grow where tea once dominated, and the staff, many of whom come from the very communities impacted by colonial farming, now lead with knowledge, pride, and care.

At night, the world goes quiet. Lanterns flicker. Crickets sing. And sleep comes easily in a room that holds no harshness, only texture and temperature and just enough beauty to remind you that less really is more.

This is not a resort for the rushed. It’s a place for those who understand that richness lives in ritual, the morning stretch, the shared laugh, the tea poured slowly. You’ll come here thinking it’s a retreat. You’ll leave knowing it’s a return.

98 Acres isn’t a detour, it’s a remembering. Of slowness, of stillness, of what a landscape can teach you when you stop long enough to listen.

98 ACRE’S BEATING HEART

Where the wind meets the hillside and the mornings roll in slow, 98 Acres hums with the rhythm of land loved back to life. It’s the kind of place that gives more than it takes; to the earth, to the eye, to the soul.

The SLOJOURN spark

FIRST. Eco by design – chalets made from recycled railway sleepers, reforested pathways, and gravity-fed water systems.

SECOND. Soulful adventure – from Little Adam’s Peak to the Nine Arch Bridge, hikes begin at your doorstep and end with mountain-silhouette stillness.

THIRD. Tea estate legacy – built into the bones of an old plantation, 98 Acres celebrates Sri Lankan tea culture without romanticising the past – it reinvents it.

Where you dwell

LOVED UP COUPLES or LONE RANGERS
Honeymoon Deluxe

Your chalet is a carved-out poem; timber walls, crisp linen, wild views. The bed is your observatory, the bathtub your sanctuary, the balcony your altar. You’ll sleep with the windows open and wake to wind in the trees and the first sip of warm tea in your hands.

DON’T SLEEP ON THESE ROOMS (BUT DO SLEEP IN THEM)

GROUPS OF FRIENDS
Grand Executive Suite

LA FAMILIA
Royal Deluxe

The art of living

Wake with the sun. Practice yoga on a sandbank. Bathe in a jungle-framed stone tub while sipping a cold-pressed elixir.
The dining? Part ritual, part rebellion. Japanese-inspired raw bars, overwater plant-based kitchens, and candlelit treetop feasts.
The spa? A whisper of Ayurvedic wisdom, sound healing, and barefoot transcendence.
Every hour here is built to restore your nervous system to its original rhythm: wild.

The forever lens

WATER: Desalinated, mineralised, and delivered in hand-blown glass bottles.
WASTE: 90% repurposed. Nothing is wasted, everything is reborn.
ARCHITECTURE: Locally sourced wood, zero-concrete policy, built to breathe with the land.
ENERGY: Solar powered, carbon measured, planet-positive operations year-round.

The together lens

Soneva is stitched into the soul of the Maldives.
“We don’t just hire locally. We empower locally,” says Aisha, a sustainability lead and former intern turned changemaker.
They invest in women-led coral restoration, island schools, waste-to-wealth education, and clean energy infrastructure across the atolls. The heartbeat of Soneva is not just felt by guests—but by generations to come.

The take it with you

• Recycled-glass tumblers that hold the memory of light.
• Door Knobs and trinkets made from melted down aluminium cans.
• An illustrated children's book written by a local Soneva scholar.
• A slow heartbeat and salt-crusted skin you won’t want to rinse off.

WE SLOJOURNED HERE

“98 Acres felt like landing on the set of a slow-travel action film… if the lead character wore linen, journaled at dawn, and had a thing for ginger tea. We hiked before breakfast, boots still muddy when we returned to a bathtub framed by tea fields. There were monkeys on the railing, lemongrass oil on our pillows, and stars that didn’t need filters.”

The ways you can move

SLOJOURN is a members-only platform for the new vanguard of conscious travellers. That’s you.

In that vain, we support a multitude of ways to book your travel.

Book directly with SLOJOURN’S travel team (we just don’t book flights, friend).
Book via our preferred travel partners that we can connect you with.
Use this as your guide and DIY your way through the world (love that for you, just take note of the destinations that prohibit this such as Bhutan, Socotra… etc.)