Galle rewards travellers who skip the boutique hotels. Fort temples, mosques and the harbour fish auction cost nothing, a rice and curry plate runs LKR 400-700, and the coastal train down to Koggala is LKR 60 in third class.
The wholesale auction on the harbour road starts around 06:00 and winds down by 10:00. Skipjack, seer and yellowfin get laid out on wet concrete and sold by shouted bid. Watching, photographing and chatting costs nothing at all.
A private collector's Dutch-era townhouse packed with VOC bottles, typewriters, lace-making tools and gem-cutting demonstrations. Entry is free and unticketed; the owners make their money from the jewellery counter at the back.
Two free places of worship five minutes apart inside the fort walls. The white 1904 mosque faces the lighthouse; Sudharmalaya is a small Buddhist temple with a reclining Buddha built on a former Portuguese Catholic church site.
A 2,000-year-old rock temple 8km inland from the fort with a 9m reclining Buddha and Kandyan-period wall paintings under a granite overhang. No entry fee, just a donation box and a rack for your shoes at the steps.
The covered municipal produce market outside the fort walls, where locals buy king coconut, rambutan, jackfruit and curry powder ground while you wait. Prices are a fraction of the fort's boutique grocers if you ask in rupees.
A long-running rooftop kitchen off Pedlar Street serving an all-you-can-eat rice and curry spread of around a dozen dishes: dhal, jackfruit, beetroot, coconut sambol and papadam, with fish or chicken as the paid add-on.
The air-conditioned supermarket by the bus stand is where budget travellers restock: bottled water, Munchee biscuits, Ceylon tea packets and ready-made short eats at fixed shelf prices instead of tourist negotiation.
A tiny walk-up counter in the fort selling buffalo-curd ice cream, wood-apple and king-coconut scoops for well under a dollar. It is the cheapest thing you can eat inside the walls after the day-trip crowds thin out.
The Colombo-Matara track runs metres from the surf. Third class to Koggala or Ahangama costs about the same as a bottle of water, with open doorways, no reservations and sea views the whole 40-minute run east.
The stilt poles between Koggala and Kathaluwa are the classic southern-coast image. Watching from the sand or the roadside is free; only climbing a pole or a posed photo carries the fishermen's fee, which is negotiable.
The Virgin White Tea plantation runs free walk-in tours of the withering lofts and rolling machines, ending with complimentary cups and cake on the colonial verandah. You only pay if you take a packet of tea home.
A free forest path over Rumassala hill drops to a sheltered cove with calm snorkelling water, then climbs to the white Peace Pagoda for a headland view back across the bay towards the fort. No entry fee at either end.