Earlier in the year, I was keenly interested in a particular apartment development near Negombo. I was even in regular email correspondance but the location lost its luster. There are a ton of different places to choose from all over the island but basically we're urban folks. Being far away from Colombo wouldn't be very satisfying during a long-term stay. And although I thoroughly enjoy the mountains of the up-country, they could be visited while having a home-base by the beach.
So, I looked on Internet real estate sites first to find places near Dehiwala / Mt. Lavinia. Many luxury places are far out of reach of our budget. I don't know why prices are so expensive when compared to similar dwellings in other places in the world. However, something like this would be fine.
Then, in order to get a perspective of its location and distance to other places, I dropped into Google Earth. Zooming around the area and checking out nearby services in Google Maps makes pre-investigation easy.
We probably won't even look around or inquire when in Sri Lanka from mid-September to mid-October. Still, I can always enjoy wasting a little time thinking about such things.