Everyone comes for the sand. It is the boat day they talk about after.
Which Curieuse trip actually stops long enough to snorkel. What the fast ferry to Praslin costs and how often it sails. Whether Vallée de Mai is worth a whole morning. Reviews of every tour you can book in the Seychelles.
Three days that decide a Seychelles week.
It usually comes down to one boat day out of Praslin, one inside the marine park off Mahé, and one morning under the coco de mer palms. What each costs, and what the people who took it thought of it.
01The Praslin boat dayCurieuse & St. Pierre Full-Day Boat Trip with LunchCurieuse for the tortoises, St Pierre for the snorkel stop, barbecue on the sand in between. This one fills first.
02The marine park daySt. Anne Marine Park, Moyenne & Cerf Island Tour with LunchSix islands under national-park protection, twenty minutes out of Victoria. Glass bottom on the way, lunch on Moyenne.
03The day without a boatVallée de Mai and Anse Lazio Beach Full-day TourCoco de mer palms in the morning, Anse Lazio after lunch. The one Praslin day you can do on four wheels.
Curieuse, St Pierre, St Anne: three boat days and one week to fit them in.
The islands you actually want to see have no roads, no hotels and no way on except somebody else’s hull. Each run leaves once in the morning and comes back once in the afternoon. Here is what boarding each one costs.
Mahé, Praslin, Victoria: three bases, and what each one is for.
Almost everything bookable in the country leaves from one of three places, or lands on one of three islands you cannot sleep on. The mountainous one with the airport, the granite one with the palm forest, the only town, and the three protected spots the boats aim at.
Mahé has the mountains. Praslin has the palms. Victoria has the ferry berth.
Everything on Mahé →
Nearly half of everything bookable in the country happens on Mahé, and most of that is a driver taking you over the Sans Souci road to the south coast and back. These three carry more travellers than anything else on the island.
Praslin, and whether one day is enough
Vallée de Mai before the heat, Anse Lazio after lunch, back on the fast ferry by evening. It fits in a day. It is a better trip as two nights.
Victoria, in one morning
A clock tower copied from London, a Hindu temple, and a covered market that runs out of fish long before it runs out of visitors. This is a small capital and a short walk.
Which beach is worth the drive
Beau Vallon is the easy one and the busy one. Anse Intendance and Anse Takamaka sit on the far side of the mountain, and the road over is half the reason to go.
The forest in the middle of Praslin grows a nut nowhere else does.
Vallée de Mai is eighteen hectares of coco de mer, the heaviest seed on earth, fenced and counted and walked with a guide. Around it: the Morne Blanc trail up the spine of Mahé, the coast path to Anse Major, and a textile workshop in a Victoria back street.
Every day out on Praslin →
Four Seychelles bookings that answer to a timetable, not to your mood.
Most of a week here can be arranged over breakfast. These four cannot. They run on ferry schedules, park permits and boats that leave once a day and do not come back for you.
- 01Cat Cocos: Mahe to Praslin Island Fast FerryThe fast ferry between Mahé and Praslin runs a handful of sailings a day and sells out in high season. Book the crossing before the hotel.
- 02Cat Rose: Praslin Island / La Digue Island Fast FerryLa Digue has no airstrip. The only way on is the boat from Praslin, and the last one back leaves earlier in the afternoon than most people expect.
- 03Vallée de Mai and Anse Lazio Beach Full-day TourThe reserve shuts in the afternoon and the guided walks go at set times. Arrive late and you are looking at it through the gate.
- 04Curieuse & St. Pierre Full-Day Boat Trip with LunchOne departure a morning, one return, and the barbecue headcount goes in ahead of the day. Miss the jetty and there is no later boat.
What a day out in the Seychelles actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by price. This is not a cheap country and pretending otherwise helps nobody: the number that decides your week is what a boat day costs, not what the room does.
Ferry crossings, the semi-submarine, a morning in Victoria and the short hops off the beach.
The full-day standards: Curieuse and St Pierre, the marine park, Vallée de Mai paired with Anse Lazio.
Private boats, chartered days and a driver who waits at the top of the track while you swim.
The Seychelles days out more people book than any other.
Every Seychelles tour we have reviewed →The trips carrying the most travellers in the country, and what earns each of them the slot.
1
Curieuse & St. Pierre Full-Day Boat Trip with Lunch
Review of Praslin’s Curieuse and St. Pierre boat trip, with snorkeling, giant tortoises, mangrove hiking, BBQ lunch, and practical tips.
From · $93
Read our review →
2
Curieuse Guided Tour, St Pierre, BBQ & 2 Snorkel Stops
from $112
3
St. Anne Marine Park, Moyenne & Cerf Island Tour with Lunch
from $92
4
Customizable Private Tour of Island with Driver
5
Curieuse & St Pierre Island Day Trip with Barbecue
from $88
6
Curieuse and St. Pierre Islands Day Trip with BBQ Lunch
from $85
7
Saint-Anne Marine Park and Moyenne Island Cruise
from $166
8
Curieuse & St-Pierre Boat Adventure with Snorkeling
from $56
Three things the Seychelles has that nowhere else quite does.
Palm forest and turquoise water turn up across the tropics. A nut that weighs twenty kilos, a national park made entirely of sea, and a beach where the tortoises outnumber the people do not.
Vallée de Mai
The coco de mer grows wild on two islands in the world and Praslin is the big one. A single nut can pass twenty kilos and takes years on the tree to ripen, which is why the forest is fenced, numbered and walked with a guide rather than wandered. General Gordon came through in 1881 and decided he had found the Garden of Eden. The trees are old enough that you can see how he got there.
- 1Vallée de Mai and Anse Lazio Beach Full-day Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 315 reviews
- 2Vallee de Mai Tour (From Praslin)★★★★★★★★★★ 4.0 · 38 reviews
- 3Full Day Discovery Tour of Vallee de Mai and Anse Lazio on Praslin Island★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 10 reviews
St Anne Marine Park
The country made this its first national park in 1973 and every square metre of it is water: six islands, the reef strung between them and the seagrass the turtles come in to feed on. Boats work to a permit, so the same six islands see the same handful of operators, and what separates one trip from another is lunch and how long you actually get in the sea.
- 1St. Anne Marine Park, Moyenne & Cerf Island Tour with Lunch★★★★★★★★★★ 4.1 · 862 reviews
- 2Saint-Anne Marine Park and Moyenne Island Cruise★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 475 reviews
- 3St.Anne Marine National Park Reef Safari with Lunch★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 294 reviews
The tortoise island
Curieuse was a leper colony, then a breeding station, and now a few hundred Aldabra giant tortoises move around an open beach with no fences and nobody herding them. St Pierre, twenty minutes off, is a fist of granite with a coral shelf around it, and it is the snorkel stop every Praslin boat is aiming for when it leaves the jetty.
- 1Curieuse & St. Pierre Full-Day Boat Trip with Lunch★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 1,352 reviews
- 2Curieuse Guided Tour, St Pierre, BBQ & 2 Snorkel Stops★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 983 reviews
- 3Curieuse & St Pierre Island Day Trip with Barbecue★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 572 reviews
By island, and by the water around it
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