Island Hopping in Paradise

For our honeymoon, we chose the Seychelles. We quickly settled on our ‘route’: the three popular tourist islands of Praslin, Mahé and La Digue. While planning, we repeatedly came across the SeyVillas.de website. We found some excellent honeymoon offers there, as well as plenty of information that helped us with the rest of our planning. The offline travel guide, which you can download to your phone, is also recommended.

We landed on Mahé, at a small, charming airport with a slightly Caribbean feel, and flew straight on to Praslin with Air Seychelles.

Air Seychelles aircraft From there, we took a taxi to our Coco de Mer & Black Parrot Suites. A beautiful hotel offering plenty of luxury, two very good but also expensive restaurants, and an infinity pool overlooking the sea.

Coco de Mer pool It really was heavenly. Unfortunately, it is quite isolated in the south-west, so you are always reliant on the public bus or a hire car. Only one bus route passes the hotel, and even that runs very irregularly. This means you are effectively obliged to eat at the hotel in the evenings, and the prices are steep. We spent six days here. We visited Fond Ferdinand, which is considerably cheaper and, in my opinion, just as good as Vallée de Mai. We also took the hotel shuttle to Anse Lazio and hiked from there to Anse Georgette.

Anse Lazio, Praslin These are by far the most beautiful beaches on Praslin. We also booked a boat trip through the hotel to Curieuse Marine National Park to see the giant tortoises. Including transport, we paid EUR 100 per person.

Giant tortoise We then continued by catamaran to La Digue, the highlight of our trip. This island is simply breathtakingly beautiful. Life moves at a slower pace here. There are hardly any cars, bicycles are the main form of transport, and everything is very relaxed.

From the harbour, we walked to our next accommodation, Le Repaire Boutique Hotel.

Hotel Le Repaire Boutique Here, we hired two bicycles for around EUR 6 per day. The hotel is recommended for pizza lovers, as it has a lovely Italian restaurant. However, La Digue also has plenty of good takeaways, such as MiMums or Gallery Bakery, right by the harbour. On La Digue, we recommend the southern circuit with Sunny Trails. It costs EUR 40 per person and takes around 6 hours. It is a highly adventurous and varied excursion to secluded beaches that are difficult to reach without a guided tour.

We also fell in love with Anse Cocos and Anse Source d'Argent.

Anse Source d'Argent We paddled to the latter in the hotel’s own kayak. Be sure to check the tides, as getting back by kayak at low tide was very difficult. A strenuous evening climb up to Snack Bellevue, which offers a beautiful view of the sunset, is an absolute must.

Sunset on La Digue A cocktail here costs the equivalent of EUR 10, but the view is worth it. After 5 days, we travelled by catamaran to Mahé, the last and largest island on our itinerary. Fortunately, the sea was almost completely calm that day, as we had heard plenty of stories about seasickness.

Victoria Market We hired a car here so that we could explore the island more easily and flexibly. We recommend Sir Selwyn Selwyn Clarke Market in Victoria, Anse Intendance, and the hike up Morne Blanc. There is a dedicated, signposted trail here. After tackling 800 metres of elevation gain, you are rewarded with beautiful views over several bays

. Overall, we can highly recommend the Seychelles for beach lovers and anyone seeking rest and relaxation. Be sure to allow plenty of time for La Digue.

Trail on Mahé