Sri Lanka is one of the top destinations to travel in 2013 according to Lonely Planet and Trip Advisor. I think it depends pretty much in which conditions you do it: it is indeed an amazing place for a vacation of 2 or 3 weeks within your daily working life in Western countries. In a relative small area, you can see so much diversity! But as part as a year trip, I would recommend many other destinations first, though I met a couple putting SL in the top 3 of their 8 months trip. Sri Lanka offer many beautiful places, but really nothing so exceptional. This is also much affected by the partially bad weather conditions I had. It could be so much nicer under a blue sky! I indeed much appreciated the last days in the North under sunny conditions!