Luxury Travel to Seychelles

Seychelles International Airport is on Mahé (the main island, 27km long and 8km wide). Most flights arrive overnight from Europe — transfer directly to your resort or take a domestic flight onward to Praslin or La Digue. If staying on Mahé, Beau Vallon in the northwest is the largest beach — a long curve of white sand facing the sunset, with the silhouette of the granite hills behind. Victoria, the capital of the Seychelles and one of the smallest capitals in the world, has a colorful market (Sir Selwyn Clarke Market) with local spices, fish, and tropical fruits. The Victoria Botanical Gardens has giant Aldabra tortoises living freely in the grounds — the Aldabra tortoise can live to 200 years and is the world's largest land tortoise. The beach at Anse Intendance on Mahé's south coast — a dramatic, surf-exposed bay surrounded by forest — is the most beautiful on the main island.

• ✦ Beau Vallon beach sunset — Mahé's most popular beach
• ✦ Victoria market and the smallest capital in the world
• ✦ Aldabra giant tortoises in the Botanical Gardens
• ✦ Anse Intendance — Mahé's most dramatic and beautiful south beach

Take the 15-minute domestic flight or the 1-hour ferry from Mahé to Praslin — the second-largest Seychellois island and home to the Vallée de Mai Nature Reserve, a UNESCO World Heritage Site that preserves the last wild grove of the extraordinary coco de mer palm. The coco de mer produces the world's largest seed (25kg) whose shape inspired legends and whose rarity made it once more valuable than gold in the courts of European royalty. The forest of coco de mer, latanier, and Seychellois palm species creates a prehistoric atmosphere entirely different from any tropical forest elsewhere. The endemic Seychelles black parrot lives only in Praslin's Vallée de Mai and the adjacent forest. Anse Lazio in the north of Praslin is consistently voted one of the world's top five beaches: powdery white sand, calm turquoise water, and the granite boulders that make Seychellois beaches unique framing the view.

• ✦ Vallée de Mai UNESCO — the prehistoric coco de mer palm grove
• ✦ Coco de mer — the world's largest seed, once worth its weight in gold
• ✦ Seychelles black parrot — endemic to Praslin's forest
• ✦ Anse Lazio — consistently voted one of the world's five finest beaches

Take the 15-minute ferry from Praslin to La Digue — a small island of 3,000 people where the main transportation is bicycle and ox-cart, the pace of life is the slowest in the Seychelles, and the beaches are the most dramatic and most photographed in the world. Anse Source d'Argent, accessible through the L'Union Estate (small entrance fee), is the most photographed beach on earth: smooth granite boulders the size of houses arranged by nature in compositions of such perfection that they appear carved by an artist, with the shallow turquoise lagoon between the boulders protected by a reef. The light here in the morning — the sun rising behind the mountains and casting long shadows across the boulders and the pink-tinged sand — is extraordinary. Grand Anse on the east side is wilder, more exposed, and has excellent snorkeling off the rocks. Rent bicycles and explore the island's forest tracks.

• ✦ Anse Source d'Argent — the world's most photographed beach
• ✦ Granite boulders at dawn — natural sculptures of extraordinary beauty
• ✦ La Digue by bicycle — ox-carts, no cars on the interior tracks
• ✦ Grand Anse snorkeling on the wild eastern shore

The Seychelles's underwater world is as extraordinary as its surface. The Ste Anne Marine National Park, just 3km from Victoria on Mahé, has excellent coral gardens accessible by glass-bottom boat or snorkeling — hawksbill turtles, parrotfish, surgeon fish, and occasional whale sharks (in season) in clear visibility of 20-30 meters. The waters around La Digue's southern tip have exceptional snorkeling with sea turtles and large parrotfish at Anse Cocos, accessible only by a 45-minute coastal hike through coconut palm forest. Cousin Island (a Special Reserve near Praslin) is one of the Indian Ocean's most important seabird nesting sites — 75,000 sooty terns nest here, and the walking tours through the colony are extraordinary. The endemic Seychelles warbler and Wright's skink are found only on Cousin. Private catamaran day charters for snorkeling are easily arranged from any resort.

• ✦ Snorkeling with hawksbill turtles in the Ste Anne Marine Park
• ✦ Anse Cocos snorkeling by coastal hike on La Digue's southern tip
• ✦ Cousin Island seabird reserve — 75,000 sooty terns
• ✦ Private catamaran charter with Indian Ocean sunset

Morne Seychellois National Park covers 20% of Mahé — the forested granite interior of the island, protected since 1979. The hike to Morne Seychellois (the highest peak at 905 meters) takes 3.5 hours and passes through cloud forest, mist, and extraordinary biodiversity. The trail starts above the Beau Vallon beach road and ascends through cinnamon forest (wild cinnamon grows everywhere in the Seychelles, an introduced species that has naturalized throughout the national park), tree ferns, and pitcher plants. The summit view over Mahé's coastline — the granite peaks, the beaches, and the Indian Ocean extending to Praslin on the horizon — is one of the finest in the Seychelles. Shorter walks include the Tea Tavern trail and the Trois Frères trail above Victoria with views over the harbor. Return to the beach for the afternoon.

• ✦ Morne Seychellois summit hike — cloud forest and ocean panorama
• ✦ Wild cinnamon forest in the national park interior
• ✦ Pitcher plants and tree ferns in the upper forest
• ✦ Beach recovery afternoon after the hike

The penultimate day is for the beach at its most unhurried. Petite Anse (below the Four Seasons) is essentially private — the hotel's steep cliffside location means only guests access the beach. The Indian Ocean water in the Seychelles is among the clearest on earth — visibility of 30 meters is standard, the water temperature stays at 26-28°C year-round, and the combination of granite boulders, white sand, and turquoise water creates a swimming environment unlike any other. Book a sunset catamaran cruise from Mahé — a 2-3 hour sail among the inner islands as the sky turns pink, orange, and violet over the Indian Ocean, with champagne and Seychellois snacks on deck. The specific quality of the Seychelles sunset — a vast sky, no light pollution, and a horizon that appears to curve — is genuinely extraordinary.

• ✦ Private beach at Petite Anse — essentially guests-only and crystalline
• ✦ Snorkeling in Indian Ocean water of 30-meter visibility
• ✦ Sunset catamaran sail among the inner islands
• ✦ Champagne sunset as the sky turns orange over the ocean

Seychelles International Airport has good connections to the Middle East hubs (Emirates, Etihad, Qatar) and some European carriers. A final morning at the beach before transferring to the airport — Seychelles International is just 10 minutes from central Victoria. Take home a bottle of Seychelles rum or the local Takamaka Bay rum (the finest rum produced on the islands), a coco de mer nut (enormous, unique, and impossible to lose in luggage), and dried Seychellois spices. The Seychelles is one of the world's most expensive and most extraordinary destinations — and the specific combination of granitic island beauty, extraordinary ocean, and near-total seclusion from the outside world is available nowhere else.

• ✦ Final beach swim in the crystalline Indian Ocean
• ✦ Takamaka Bay rum and Seychellois spices to take home
• ✦ Transfer to Seychelles International Airport