Sixteen beaches, three islands
The best beaches in Seychelles
Sixteen beaches across three islands, sorted by the one thing that decides if you can swim on the day you turn up: which coast they are on.
No bad month. A wrong coast.
There is no bad month in Seychelles. There is a wrong coast for the month, which is a completely different problem and a solvable one. From December to March the north-west monsoon blows and the calm water is on the south and east coasts. From May to September the south-east trades blow and the calm water is on the north and west. April and October are the two slack windows when every coast behaves.
Nobody tells you this at the hotel, and it is the reason people come home from a fortnight in August saying the sea was full of seaweed. It was, on the beach they were standing on. Twenty minutes across the island it was glass.
So the pages below lead with the coast. Every one of them says which months it is calm in, whether there is a rip, whether there is shade, and how you reach it without a car. Where the honest answer is that a beach is not safe to swim in your month, it says that instead of a sentence about powder-soft sand.
Three beaches on the east coast of La Digue are named here and have no page of their own. Grand Anse, Petite Anse and Anse Cocos are worth the ride and worth the walk over the headland, and there is no photograph of any of the three in the public record whose own title says which beach it is. We would rather name them here than put a photograph of somewhere else at the top of a page about them.
Which coast, which month
Three windows, and what each one does to the water.
December to March
The north-west monsoonThe wind is out of the north west, so the south and east coasts are the calm ones. Anse Royale and Anse Forbans on Mahé, the sheltered corners of Baie Lazare, and Anse Fourmis on La Digue. The north-west beaches, Beau Vallon and Anse Lazio among them, take the weather. This is also the warmer, wetter half of the year.
May to September
The south-east tradesThe wind swings to the south east and everything reverses. The north and west coasts go flat: Beau Vallon, Port Launay, Anse Major, Anse Lazio, Anse Georgette, Anse Sévère. The south and east coasts get the swell and, in the worst weeks, the seaweed. This is the drier, cooler, breezier half of the year.
April and October
The two slack windowsBetween the two monsoons the wind drops and the sea settles almost everywhere. These are the best two months in the year for anybody who wants to swim on whichever beach they happen to be near, and they are the two months our diving and snorkelling customers ask for by name.
Mahé
Eight beaches on the island everybody lands on, spread across three coasts, which is why Mahé has a calm beach in every month of the year if you are willing to drive twenty minutes for it.
Beau Vallon
The one everybody starts with
Anse Intendance
Open ocean, and no lifeguard
Anse Takamaka
The one with the trees
Anse Royale
The east coast swimming beach
Port Launay
Marine park water
Baie Lazare
Granite and space
Anse Major
An hour on foot, and no road
Anse Forbans
The quiet south east
Praslin
Four beaches on the second island, two of which turn up on lists of the best in the world with a regularity that is slightly tiresome and entirely deserved.
La Digue
Four beaches on the island with no traffic. The granite at Anse Source d'Argent is the reason most people have already seen this island without knowing where it was.
Photographs, under Creative Commons: A.Savin, FAL prilfish, CC BY 2.0 dronepicr, CC BY 2.0 dronepicr, CC BY 2.0 dronepicr, CC BY 2.0 So Seychelles, CC BY 2.0 rachel_thecat, CC BY-SA 2.0 dronepicr, CC BY 2.0 Yulia Kolosova, CC BY 4.0 Tobias Alt, Tobi 87, CC BY-SA 4.0 dronepicr, CC BY 2.0 NorbertNagel, CC BY-SA 4.0 dronepicr, CC BY 2.0 A.Savin, FAL dronepicr, CC BY 2.0 A.Savin, FAL Entdecker.reisen, CC BY-SA 4.0
What people ask.
Which is the best beach in Seychelles?
Do we have to pay to get onto any beach?
Are the beaches safe to swim?
Is there shade?
Can we get to the beaches without a car?
Which beach for a first day with jet lag?
Which coast, for your month?
Tell us when you are coming and we will tell you which side of which island is calm, and put the week together around it.