Seychelles East Africa

The Seychelles: 115 Islands and Surprisingly Few Easy Choices

The Seychelles archipelago sits about 1,800 kilometres off the coast of East Africa, which means it takes real effort to reach. That effort is worth making, but only if you know which islands deserve your time and which ones you can skip.

Mahé: Gateway, Not Destination

Most visitors arrive at Mahé, stay one or two nights, and move on. That’s roughly the right approach. The capital, Victoria, is smaller than you expect. The Sir Selwyn Clarke Market on Palm Street is a 20-minute stop: dried fish, cinnamon, vanilla pods, and local gossip. The rest of the city is mainly useful for ATMs and buying insect repellent.

Morne Seychellois National Park covers the interior of the island. The trail to Morne Blanc (the viewpoint, not the summit) is steep but only about three kilometres round trip. Start before 8am before the cloud rolls in. The forest is genuinely dense: takamaka trees, pitcher plants, and, if you’re paying attention, Seychelles blue pigeons overhead.

The beach at Anse Intendance on Mahé’s south coast is better than most visitors expect from the main island, with decent surf in the southern hemisphere winter months (June to September). Swim with caution then.

Praslin: The Coco de Mer Island

Praslin is a 15-minute flight or 60-minute ferry from Mahé (the ferry is cheaper; the ferry also vomits people out seasick in any wind above 20 knots, so choose accordingly). The main draw is the Vallée de Mai, a UNESCO-listed palm forest where the coco de mer grows. The seed of the coco de mer is the largest in the plant kingdom and the forest produces a genuinely eerie atmosphere that photographs cannot capture. Arrive when it opens at 8am. By 10am tourist groups clog the main path.

Anse Georgette beach, at the north-west tip of Praslin, requires a walk of about 40 minutes through the grounds of Lemuria Resort or a short boat transfer. The resort is obliged by law to allow public access. The beach itself is worth the inconvenience: pale sand, clear turquoise water, almost no one there mid-week.

The Seychelles black parrot lives only in Praslin and you can hear them before you see them. Local guides at the Vallée de Mai entrance know where they’re perching on any given morning.

La Digue: Go Slow or Don’t Go

La Digue is reached by a 15-minute ferry from Praslin. The island has no private car hire for tourists; you rent a bicycle or walk. This is annoying for about 20 minutes and then becomes the point.

Anse Source d’Argent is the beach that appears on half the Seychelles stock images in existence. The granite boulders worn into smooth rounded forms by millennia of surf are genuinely extraordinary. Arrive before 9am to beat the day-trippers from Praslin. The beach is inside the L’Union Estate reserve; admission is around 100 Seychellois rupees. The estate itself has a working copra plantation, a colonial-era plantation house, and a small cemetery dating to the early 1800s.

Anse Cocos and Grand Anse are further south on La Digue and require about 90 minutes of cycling through red laterite paths. Grand Anse is exposed and occasionally dangerous for swimming; Anse Cocos is calmer and almost deserted. Bring water and food because there is nothing there.

Where to Eat: Honest Assessment

Creole cooking at its best is simple and good: red snapper with a ginger and chilli sauce, grilled octopus with green papaya salad, ladob (banana and cassava in coconut milk) as dessert. At its worst it is overpriced and watery.

On La Digue, Lanbousir Restaurant at the Zerof guesthouse does a Creole fish curry that’s among the best on the island and costs a fraction of what the resort restaurants charge. On Praslin, Café Britannia at Grand Anse has been reliably good for years. On Mahé, avoid the hotel restaurants along the Beau Vallon waterfront unless you want to pay European prices for mediocre grilled fish.

Practical Notes

The Seychelles uses the Seychellois rupee. Most restaurants and hotels take cards, but guesthouses and small shops often don’t. Carry cash after the airport.

Ferries between islands run on a schedule that makes day trips from Mahé to La Digue genuinely exhausting. Two nights minimum on Praslin and La Digue each gives you a far better experience.

Mosquitoes are not a major malaria concern (the Seychelles is malaria-free), but dengue outbreaks do occur. Repellent with DEET is worth packing.

The main tourist season runs from April to May and October to November when trade winds are light and seas are calm. The northwest monsoon season (November to March) brings rougher water on the eastern coasts; the southeast trade wind season (May to September) affects western coasts. There is no genuinely bad time to visit, but if you’re planning to dive, May and October give the best visibility.

Honestly, skip the over-water bungalows unless someone else is paying. They exist in the Seychelles but they are far less impressive than equivalent options in the Maldives. The granite-boulder landscape and the palm forests are what make the Seychelles distinctive; spending your stay on a pontoon misses the point.

Book the Vallée de Mai entry ticket online in advance during peak season; they limit numbers and it sells out.