Off-Grid Stay in Sri Lanka

How a dream in London became The Cliff Lodge, an off-grid glamping lodge in the hills of Haputale, Sri Lanka — a story of wild camping, storms and living with less.

It began with a dream in London, a three-and-a-half-hour telephone conversation, five nights in the wilderness, and a cup of tea that took 45 minutes to make.

We didn’t come to Sri Lanka and suddenly decide to build an off-grid glamping site. The idea had been with us for some time. In fact, it began in London, long before we knew what The Cliff Lodge would become.

Naveen and I had spent around ten years living there. Our working lives had taken us into the world of high-end hospitality, looking after people accustomed to a certain level of service and comfort. We knew that world well: the beautiful settings, the attention to detail, the expectations, the constant activity. But we had also begun to feel that something was missing from our own lives.

We had started going on glamping trips in the UK. A few days away from the noise and stimulation of the city, surrounded by nature, without the usual distractions, left us feeling refreshed and revitalised. We began to imagine what it might be like to create a place where other people could experience that feeling, too.

Not just a weekend away, but somewhere we could build a different kind of life.

We wanted to return to Sri Lanka, live remotely, and create an off-grid glamping site. At the time, we had no idea how much that decision would change us.

A three-and-a-half-hour conversation

At some point in 2016, Naveen called his father.

For three and a half hours, he tried to explain why a son who had moved from the so-called Third World to the First World now wanted to return, live remotely in Sri Lanka and build an off-grid glamping place. I can imagine how unusual that must have sounded.

He had left Sri Lanka to build his life in London. Now the both of us wanted to leave London behind and return to a place where we could live with less, surrounded by nature. In the end, Naveen’s father suggested that we speak to an old friend of his.

They had started their careers as planters together and had remained friends over the years. His friend, whom we call Ghana uncle, owned land in the Sri Lankan hill country. At the time, Ghana uncle was in London for his daughter’s graduation. We invited them both out for lunch and explained our idea and the philosophy behind it.
He listened and told us that we should come and see him when we were next in Sri Lanka.

A few months later, in January 2017, we did exactly that. And that was when he took us up to the viewing point on top of the Cliff. The place that felt like home instantly.

I remember standing there,

looking out across the mountains.

There was a breeze, a black eagle circling above us, the sound of streams running through the valleys on either side, and the crickets building into a kind of natural crescendo. Everything around us was alive, but there was no need for us to do anything.

We felt calm. Free. And very small.

There is something about standing in a landscape like this that puts things into perspective. The importance we attach to ourselves, our plans and our everyday concerns suddenly feels a little less absolute.
The mountains were there long before us. The streams continued to flow. The eagle circled without giving us a second thought.
This was the only place we visited and we immediately felt we had arrived somewhere that belonged to us.

We knew we wanted to create something here. And we knew that we wanted it to be off-grid.

Back in London, we got to work on a business plan.

Project Seahorse

We called it Project Seahorse.

The plan was for five luxury tents, each with its own private butler, and a clubhouse. We imagined something closer to the kind of high-end glamping experience we knew from our hospitality careers — a little like the luxury tented setup at Wild Coast Tented Lodge in Yala.

It was what we understood at the time. We had spent years working in the world of lords, ladies, bankers, lawyers and other guests accustomed to expansive surroundings and attentive service. Naturally, that experience shaped what we thought we should create.

The investment required was around US$350,000.

On paper, it was a clear plan. We knew the kind of hospitality we wanted to offer, and we had a place that we believed could become something special.

But life in London was becoming increasingly difficult for me. By spring 2017, I was struggling with depression, anxiety and panic attacks. I stopped working in March. Two months later, we made a decision that had been building for some time: we would pack up our lives in London, go to Sri Lanka for half a year and try to find investors.

We thought we would raise the money, get the project moving, and begin building the place we had imagined. That was not how things turned out.

We travelled, spoke to people and looked for investors, but
nothing came together. Our money was running out, and the future we had planned in London no longer felt like something we wanted to return to.

We had the land. We had the idea. But we did not have the investment. What we did have was a choice.

Five nights in the wilderness

In December 2017, before making our final decision, we went up to the Cliff to spend five nights wild camping.

There was very little there. The old tea plantation line houses were still standing, although much of what remained was broken and exposed to the elements. We had a water pipe running into half a barrel, which we used for washing ourselves and doing the dishes.

We brought a tent.

On our first night, a storm arrived.

Quickly we moved our belongings underneath the wobbly roof of one of the old line-house compartments. That roof is still there today, above what is now the main lodge area. We made noodle soup with meatballs and settled into the tent.

Then the wind began.

It came in waves, lifting the roof a few inches before it dropped back onto the walls. Dust and sand fell onto the tent. We could hear branches breaking, perhaps even trees falling nearby, while the rain hammered against the roofing sheets like hail.

It was Naveen’s first proper night of camping. Our trips in the UK had been glamping, which is a rather different experience when the weather turns.

Every so often, he would wake me.

“This time the roof is gone! What are we going to do?”

I would tell him that there was nothing we could do in the dark. We were safe in the tent. We would see what had happened in the morning.

And then we would go back to sleep.

Looking back, I don’t remember that night as frightening. It was exciting, almost thrilling. There was something strangely welcoming about it, as if the mountains were letting us know what living here would really mean.

We were not in control of the weather, the trees or the wind. We were simply part of what was happening.

The next morning, we woke to one of the most beautiful sunrises I can remember.

The sky was filled with dark red, orange, pink and yellow. Birds began calling as the forest came to life. After the wildness of the storm throughout the night, everything seemed especially vivid.

We felt incredibly grateful to be there, with the opportunity to build a life in a place like this.

And then we made tea, at least we tried to.

It took us about 45 minutes because, of course, we didn’t bring in the firewood before the storm arrived.

It was the best cup of tea I have ever had.

Not because it was particularly special tea. It was because of everything that had come before it: the storm, the night, the sunrise, the effort of making a fire, and the simple pleasure of sitting down together with something warm in our hands.

I still think about that cup of tea.

During those five days, it was just the two of us. We spent our time looking, listening and photographing everything. We began to notice the sounds of the forest, the smells, the changing light and the way the wind moved through the trees. The animals seemed to put on a show of their own. We were in awe of the place and couldn’t quite believe our luck.

By the time those five nights were over, we knew we wanted to stay.

Starting with what we had

After our camping trip, we spoke to Wasantha, who was Ghana uncle’s personal driver at the time. He had supported us from the beginning and helped us build relationships with the surrounding villages.

We had been travelling around Sri Lanka, trying to find investors, and we were running out of money. We told him that we were considering returning to London for a couple of years to earn money and try again.

He could see that we weren’t particularly enthusiastic about going back.

His suggestion was simple: why not start with a few camping tents and build the place gradually?

It was such a different proposition from Project Seahorse. No five luxury tents, no private butlers, no clubhouse built around the expectations of the hospitality world we knew.

Just a few tents. A place in the mountains. And the chance to begin.

We returned to Naveen’s parents’ home and spent an entire day sitting on a garden bench, talking about what to do. It was a big decision. We were city people, and although we loved the idea of living and working in the wilderness, we had no experience of doing anything like it.

But eventually, we both knew.

This was our chance. We decided to go for it.

On 4 January 2018, we moved up to the Cliff. We had around Rs 100,000 left in our pockets, three tents,
three lanterns, and a little cutlery and crockery from Naveen’s parents’ kitchen cabinet.

That was it.

We had no grand opening, no finished lodge and no certainty about what the future would bring.

We simply began

Learning to live without electricity

In the beginning, there were moments when we wondered what on earth we had got ourselves into.
But those moments gradually became less frequent.

We learned by doing. We tried things, discovered what worked and what didn’t, and found solutions as we went along. There was no grand plan for every eventuality. We had to remain open-minded and learn something new almost every day.

Living without electricity was a challenge, of course. We had to think differently about how to organise our home and our work. We had to reconsider things that had always seemed straightforward.

But something else happened as we settled into life here.

We realised that living without electricity was only one part of what we had been looking for. What we really wanted was a simpler, slower and more grounded life.

We didn’t miss the convenience of switching on a light or plugging something in as much as we might once have expected. In fact, the longer we lived here, the more we understood how much of our everyday life had been shaped by convenience — and how many of those conveniences we could comfortably do without.

Our days began to follow the natural rhythm of the place.

We get up with the sun and wind down as it disappears. When the sun shines, we go outside. When it rains, we find shelter. The weather is not an inconvenience to be overcome; it is simply part of the day.

There is a freedom in that.

It doesn’t mean that every day is easy, or that living this way removes all the usual worries of life. We still have
responsibilities, things to organise and problems to solve. But there is a different rhythm to it. We are less concerned with fitting everything into a timetable and more attentive to what is happening around us.
Over the years, we have come to appreciate that feeling more and more.

What does off-grid luxury actually mean?

When people hear that The Cliff Lodge has no electricity, they sometimes struggle to believe it.

“What are the solar panels for? You’re still off-grid, right?”

It is an understandable question. Many luxury glamping destinations offer beautiful accommodation alongside
electricity, fridges, televisions and all the comforts people associate with a high-end stay.

At The Cliff Lodge, we made a different choice.

We wanted to create comfortable surroundings without recreating the expansive, amenity-filled environment that people might be trying to leave behind.

The old tea plantation line houses are still very much part of the place. There are ten identical compartments arranged in a row, once used as homes for tea-plucking families. Only a few sections have roofs today. We have kept much of the old structure as it is, with broken walls, open frames where doors and windows might once have been, and no mirrors.

Our tables, benches and seats are made from fallen wood collected in the forest.

Everything is simple and rustic. But simplicity does not mean that comfort has no place here.

There are pillows and blankets wherever you might want to settle down. The glass sleeping pods — our Connectors — offer a safe, comfortable place to sleep while remaining closely connected to the surrounding landscape. Whether the stars are out or a storm rolls through, you can experience the mountains from a sheltered space.

And yes, we have flushing toilets. We consider them a luxury and appreciate them every single day.
For us, luxury has gradually come to mean something quite different from having more.
It is the silence. The space. The freedom to spend time without being expected to fill every moment. It is being able to sit and watch the clouds move across the mountains without feeling that we should be doing something else.

Luxury, for us, is not excess. It is awareness.

When guests begin to slow down

We see the difference in our guests, too.

On arrival, people are usually excited. They take photographs and videos, explore the place, ask questions and want to see everything. Some ask about connectivity and plug points. For some, it is difficult to understand that there really is no electricity, no fridge and no television.

Others tell us immediately that their phones are on flight mode and that they will only use them to take pictures.

But something often changes on the second day. The pace becomes more relaxed. Timings become fluid.
Conversations grow deeper. People begin to settle into the place rather than trying to take everything in.

There is something else I have noticed, too.

When you spend time somewhere without mirrors, you gradually stop thinking so much about how you look. You become less concerned with presenting yourself in a particular way. You simply start being yourself.

It is a small thing, perhaps, but it says something about the distractions we have come to accept as normal.
We often hear guests say, “It really is so quiet, still and peaceful here.”

And when it is time to leave, many tell us that they don’t want to say goodbye to that feeling of peace and freedom.

Guests often arrive with high expectations. They have heard about the food, the Connectors, the views, the open-air loo and the river hike. They know what they are coming to see. What we hear when they leave is that the experience exceeded those expectations. They felt at home, safe and calm.

That means a great deal to us.

We created this place because we felt something here that we wanted to share. In the beginning, we didn’t know exactly how to do that. We only knew that the land had given us something important, and that we wanted to find the right way to invite others into it.

I often say that this place gets to people.

Everyone who stays here takes something away with them, even if they weren’t looking for anything in particular. We don’t know what that will be for each person. And we don’t think it is something we can manufacture or promise. We can only create the space and let people experience it in their own way.

Less is more

When we look back at those first five nights, we can see how much has changed.

We came here wanting to escape the noise and stimulation of city life. We wanted to live without electricity, and we were drawn to the challenge of building something in the wilderness.

But what we found was much more than a practical experiment in off-grid living.

We found a different relationship with time, with our surroundings and with the things we consider necessary.

We learned to appreciate the ordinary: a cup of tea, the first light of the morning, a meal cooked over fire, the sound of rain, the simple comfort of a bed after a long day. And we learned that there is a difference between having less and feeling that something is missing.

Sometimes, having less creates room for more.

More awareness. More gratitude. More time to notice the people around us and the place we are fortunate enough to call home.
We don’t believe everyone needs to live without electricity, or that our way of life is the right choice for everyone. We know that not everybody will understand the dream we have created here.

That is perfectly fine.

But we do believe there is value in stepping away from the familiar, even for a little while. In allowing ourselves to experience a different rhythm. In being reminded that we don’t always need to add something, improve something or fill a silence.

Nature doesn’t ask us to perform. It doesn’t ask us to achieve anything. It simply carries on, whether we are watching or not. Living here has taught us to be grateful for that — and to approach the land, the people around us and the life we have been given with a little more care and compassion.

The intention behind what we create matters. We wanted to build a place that belonged here, rather than a place that tried to change what was already here.

And perhaps that is what off-grid living has come to mean to us.

Not simply living without electricity.

But learning, day by day, that less is more — and that sometimes the most valuable thing we can do is make room for what is already there.