An experimental investigation of film cooling on rough surfaces has been accomplished at a Reynolds number and dimensionless boundary layer momentum thickness found in current high performance first stage turbine vanes. A transient experimental method using thermochromic liquid crystals is employed to determine both local heat transfer coefficients and film cooling effectiveness values on planar rough surfaces. Two surface roughness configurations are investigated with a single row of cooling holes spaced three diameters apart and inclined 30° to the mainstream flow. The mainstream turbulence level at the point of film injection is 8.5% and the density ratio considered is approximately 1.0. The influence of roughness on the centerline film cooling effectiveness, laterally averaged film cooling effectiveness, laterally averaged heat transfer coefficients, as well as area averaged values are presented. It is found that the presence of roughness causes a decrease in the film cooling effectiveness over that of the smooth surface for the range of experimental parameters considered in this study. In addition, significant lateral smoothing in film cooling effectiveness distribution is observed for the rougher surfaces. Measured heat transfer coefficients on rough surfaces show a trend of monotonic increase with blowing ratio. However, such increase is not as great as that for the case of smooth surface.