One hundred and fifteen islands
The islands of Seychelles
One hundred and fifteen islands, three you can plan a holiday around, and about twenty more worth knowing by name. Which is which, and which of them you can actually stand on.
Not one place, three countries.
Seychelles is not one place. It is a granite archipelago the size of a small county sitting on a shallow bank, and then, hundreds of kilometres further out, a scatter of coral atolls with airstrips and almost nobody on them. A trip from India lands on one island and is planned around two or three. Everything else on this page is either a boat day, a different holiday altogether, or a place nobody is allowed to go.
The three main islands hold almost the whole population and every hotel a normal booking will reach. Mahé has the airport, the capital and the mountains. Praslin has the palm forest and the two beaches that end up on lists. La Digue has no traffic to speak of and the granite everybody has already seen without knowing where it was.
Around them sit islands you visit for a day: a tortoise sanctuary, a marine park five minutes from the capital, a granite islet with a tuft of palms on it that half the postcards in the country are photographs of. Those are the pages below with a boat trip attached.
Then there are the private islands, which are a resort and its island and nothing else, and the outer atolls, which are a flight and a week and, in several cases, a scientific permit. They are on this site because people ask about them, not because we can send anybody to them.
The three you actually choose between
Almost every trip from India is one of these islands, or two of them, or all three. This is the honest short version. Each page goes further.
Mahé
The airport, the capital, the mountains and over sixty beaches, on an island you can drive around in an afternoon.
Praslin
An hour from Mahé by fast ferry, and the reason half the photographs of Seychelles exist.
La Digue
Fifteen minutes from Praslin, ten square kilometres, and the rocks everybody has already seen.
In the Sainte Anne park, off Victoria
Five minutes from the capital by boat, inside the Indian Ocean's first marine national park. These are the islands you can see from a hotel balcony on Mahé and stand on the same morning.
Around Praslin
The islands a boat day from Praslin reaches: a tortoise sanctuary, a granite islet that is on half the postcards, and two seabird reserves that guard what the rest of the archipelago lost.
East of La Digue
Two private islands in the granite group, one four kilometres off La Digue and one fifty-five kilometres out on its own.
Around Mahé
The islands within sight of the main island, from a rainforest peak that gave the country its most photographed horizon to a hundred-hectare islet beside the airport runway.
The coral islands of the north
Where the shallow Seychelles bank ends and the ocean floor drops away. Flat, sandy, and loud with seabirds.
The outer atolls
Between two hundred and eleven hundred kilometres from Victoria. Fly-fishing, diving and science, reached by scheduled light aircraft or not at all.
Desroches
Thirteen kilometres of beach
Alphonse
Saltwater fly-fishing, and a limit on rods
Astove
A wall that falls into the dark
Cosmoledo
Named for a pilot on the India run
Assumption
Guano, dunes, and Aldabra next door
Aldabra
A hundred thousand tortoises, and almost nobody
Photographs, under Creative Commons: A.Savin, FAL dronepicr, CC BY 2.0 dronepicr, CC BY 2.0 A.Savin, FAL A.Savin, FAL Kusafiri, CC BY-SA 3.0 NorbertNagel, CC BY-SA 4.0 A.Savin, FAL Bjørn Christian Tørrissen, CC BY-SA 4.0 Colin J Taylor, CC BY-SA 3.0 WL, CC BY-SA 3.0 dronepicr, CC BY 2.0 Jlexa, CC BY 3.0 A.Savin, FAL A.Savin, FAL Remi Jouan, CC BY-SA 3.0 Photography by Dino Sassi - Marcel Fayon, Photo Eden LTD, Public domain Adrian Scottow, CC BY-SA 2.0 David Jones, CC BY 2.0 NASA, Public domain NASA, Public domain NASA, Public domain unknown astronaut, Public domain NASA Earth Observatory image by Wanmei Liang, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey, Public domain
Which island for which trip
The same four questions come in every week. These are the answers we give.
A first trip, ten to twelve days
Which islandsMahé and Praslin, or all three. Land on Mahé, give it three or four nights while the flight wears off, take the fast ferry to Praslin, and spend a day or two of that on La Digue. You will have seen the country rather than a hotel.
A honeymoon
Which islandsPraslin and La Digue. Praslin has the quieter beaches and the shorter distances, La Digue has the granite, and the fifteen-minute crossing between them is the least stressful travel day in the archipelago. Mahé only if you want a city evening.
With parents or with small children
Which islandsMahé, and stay put. It has the hospital, the pharmacies, the widest choice of food, and the shortest transfer from the aircraft door to a bed. The Sainte Anne park boat day gives the island experience without an internal flight.
A wedding
Which islandsMahé for the paperwork and the choice of venue, Praslin or La Digue for the ceremony if the photographs matter more than the logistics. Our wedding pages set out what each island costs and what changes between them.
What people ask.
How many islands does Seychelles have?
How many islands should we visit on one trip?
Can we island-hop by ferry?
Which islands can we visit for the day?
Are the outer islands worth it?
Which island has the best beach?
Which islands are right for your trip?
Tell us how long you have, who is travelling and what you want it to feel like. Meera replies with an itinerary that fits the dates rather than the brochure.