Colombo is one of Asia's cheapest capitals if you eat where the office crowd eats and travel by red CTB bus. Most temples ask only a donation, the National Museum grounds are free, and a coastal train to Mount Lavinia costs under 40 rupees.
The candy-striped red-and-white 1909 mosque on 2nd Cross Street is free to enter outside prayer times, roughly 09:00–12:00 and 14:00–16:00. Staff lend sarongs and headscarves at no charge; shoes off at the gate. Small donation box only.
Colombo's oldest Hindu temple sits in the goldsmiths' quarter and charges nothing. Midday puja brings drumming, bells and camphor flames. Cover shoulders and knees, remove shoes and leather belts; photography inside the inner shrine is not allowed.
The 1948 stone hall copies a Kandyan audience chamber, ringed by 60 carved lions. The lawns, colonnade and the small Independence Memorial Museum beneath the platform are all free, open dawn to around 22:00, with joggers and cricket games all afternoon.
The wooden walkway along Beira Lake's east bank costs nothing and looks straight at Geoffrey Bawa's Seema Malaka platforms floating on the water. Best light is the last hour before sunset, when cormorants and monitor lizards work the shallows.
The wholesale fish rows off Pettah's Negombo Street run hardest before 10:00 — seer, tuna and prawns weighed on hooks. Five minutes east the Floating Market's canal-side stalls sell cut mango with chilli-salt and king coconut for pocket change.
A 24-hour Colombo institution where the cheese kottu is chopped on the griddle to a metal-on-metal rhythm. Rice and curry with three vegetable sides runs about LKR 400–600, kottu LKR 500–900. Order at the counter, pay after, eat standing or at plastic tables.
Walk the free Fort circuit: the 17th-century Dutch Hospital courtyard, the 1857 Clock Tower lighthouse, Cargills Building's red-brick arcade and the Grand Oriental Hotel lobby. Window-shop the shaded colonnades; a plain tea in Fort costs about LKR 100.
At dusk the seafront carts fire up: isso wade (prawn fritters) at LKR 150–250, achcharu pickled fruit, grilled corn around LKR 200 and hoppers later on. Sit on the sea wall with a paper cone and the whole dinner comes in under LKR 700.
Sri Lanka's coastal railway hugs the surf the whole way south. Third class from Colombo Fort or Secretariat Halt to Mount Lavinia costs roughly LKR 20–40 and takes 25 minutes, with doorways open over the water the entire ride.
Colombo's swimmable stretch of sand below the colonial Mount Lavinia Hotel. Public access is free at several lanes off Hotel Road; the fishing beach north of the point is quieter. Shacks sell rice packets for around LKR 350 and beer for LKR 500.
Colombo's largest park, free and open daily from about 06:00, with a golden Buddha facing the museum, mara trees full of fruit bats and a lake circuit. The 1877 National Museum's lawns and facade cost nothing; entry inside is LKR 2,000 for foreigners.
The reclaimed land west of Galle Face has a wide free promenade and a new public beach, empty enough to feel like a private stretch. Open until roughly 21:00, it delivers the city's cleanest sunset line with the Lotus Tower lit up behind you.