7 Days in Reunion: The First-Timer Itinerary
Seven days is the full version of this trip: the lagoon, both drivable cirques, the active volcano, and the Piton des Neiges summit, then one more day for the single most electric thing on the island, a helicopter flight over the roadless Cirque de Mafate. Nobody drives into Mafate. Nobody ever will; there’s no road, and there never will be one. Seeing it from the air, or on the multi-day hike a whole separate trip deserves, is genuinely the only way in.
Getting around Reunion in 7 days
One rental car from Roland Garros covers the coast, Cilaos, the volcano, and Salazie; Piton des Neiges is on foot from Cilaos, and Mafate is the one zone a car can never reach. Book through Discover Cars before you fly, rates roughly double between June’s low season and October’s peak, driven partly by the mid-October Grand Raid ultramarathon.
Route summary: Saint-Denis to Saint-Gilles (35-40 min), Cilaos (1h15-2h), the volcano at Pas de Bellecombe (2-2.5h), Salazie and Hell-Bourg, two days climbing Piton des Neiges, then a helicopter day. Only have 6 days? Drop the flight with the 6-day itinerary . First time on the island and pressed for time? Start smaller with the 2-day plan . The places page ranks every sight this loop touches and a few it doesn’t.
Book these before you go:
- Lagoon-side rooms: Saint-Gilles-les-Bains hotels
- The volcano hike, guided: Piton de la Fournaise day tour
- The Mafate helicopter flight: book the full island circuit
- Your rental car: Discover Cars at Roland Garros
Day 1: Saint-Denis and the Saint-Gilles lagoon
Land at Roland Garros, named for the aviator, not the tennis stadium, collect the car, and spend an hour at Le Barachois and the Rue de Paris Creole mansions, both on the official tourism site . Drive 35-40 minutes to Saint-Gilles-les-Bains for the lagoon, the one stretch of west coast the 2013 shark-attack ban never reached.
Day 2: Cilaos, up the 400 bends
More than 400 numbered hairpins climb into a genuine spa town, 19th-century thermal baths, Reunion’s only wine, and the small pale lentils of Ilet a Cordes, sitting inside the Parc national de La Réunion . Book a room here for tonight and again before the mountain climb later this week.
Day 3: Piton de la Fournaise, the active volcano
Drive 2-2.5 hours to Pas de Bellecombe (2,311m). One of the most active volcanoes on Earth, it erupted into 12 April 2026 and was back to the baseline “Vigilance” level by the OVPF’s latest bulletin ; verify current access before you drive out. Hike the Enclos Fouqué toward the crater rim (about 4 hours one way), or the Cité du Volcan museum if the trail’s shut.
Day 4: Salazie and Hell-Bourg
North to Hell-Bourg, one of France’s “Plus Beaux Villages,” carved Creole lambrequins on every house, and the Voile de la Mariée waterfall a short walk from the village. Loop back toward Cilaos by evening.
Day 5: Piton des Neiges, the climb up
From Cilaos, hike roughly 8h41 one way with 1,736m of gain to the Gîte de la Caverne Dufour at 2,478m, a real mountain refuge: cash only, about EUR 20 for the bunk, EUR 27 dinner, EUR 7 breakfast, meals booked 48 hours ahead. Bring warm, waterproof layers no matter how tropical the coast felt that morning.
Day 6: Sunrise over three cirques
Pre-dawn wake for the push to 3,070m, the highest point in the Indian Ocean and a separate, extinct massif from the still-active Fournaise. Clear mornings lay all three cirques out below you, Fournaise included. Descend the same route to Cilaos, then a short drive back toward the coast for the night.
Day 7: The Mafate helicopter and departure
There is no road into the Cirque de Mafate, none, ever, so this is genuinely the only realistic way to see it whole in a week-long trip. Corail Hélicoptères and Hélilagon both fly 45-55 minute circuits over Mafate, the volcano, and the Trou de Fer waterfall for roughly EUR 300-380pp, book it for first light, when the light and the air are both at their calmest. Spend what’s left of the day back at the Saint-Gilles lagoon before your flight home.
| Day | Focus | Drive/hike time |
|---|---|---|
| Day 1 | Saint-Denis + Saint-Gilles lagoon | ~35-40 min drive |
| Day 2 | Cilaos cirque, overnight | ~1h15-2h drive |
| Day 3 | Piton de la Fournaise volcano | ~2-2.5h drive, 4h+ hike |
| Day 4 | Salazie + Hell-Bourg | ~2-3h drive |
| Day 5 | Piton des Neiges, hike to the gite | ~8h41 hike |
| Day 6 | Summit sunrise + descend to Cilaos | ~8h41 hike down |
| Day 7 | Helicopter over Mafate + departure | ~45-55 min flight |
Why is the helicopter worth roughly EUR 300 instead of just hiking to a viewpoint?
Because it’s the only way to see Mafate’s full shape in one frame, roughly 800 residents scattered across hamlets with no road ever reaching them, plus the volcano and the Trou de Fer waterfall in the same 45-55 minutes. The free alternative, the Maido viewpoint, shows one angle into the cirque; the helicopter shows the whole system at once.
Can you drive into Mafate at all if you have 7 days?
No, not with any vehicle, ever; it’s the one cirque with zero road access, reachable only on foot between gites over 2-4 days or by air. If a full ground trek into Mafate is the actual point of your trip, that’s a separate, dedicated itinerary, not a day bolted onto this 7-day loop.
Book the Mafate helicopter flight and the mountain refuge the moment your dates are firm; both are the two genuine sell-out risks on this itinerary, especially across the July-August, December-January, and mid-October Grand Raid peaks.