Privé
Seychelles Privé
Space and silence are what is expensive on these islands. Not gold, not marble. A beach with nobody's footprints on it and a house with no neighbours.
What luxury actually means here
Seychelles does not do loud money. What the islands sell at the top end is the thing they have most of and the rest of the world has run out of, which is room. A stretch of sand with nobody on it. A house on a headland where the nearest other house is on a different island. A boat that leaves when you decide to leave.
That quiet has survived because there is so little of it and because it is difficult to build here, not because anybody is keeping it back for effect. There are only a handful of these houses in the entire country, which is also why the good weeks go early and why the conversation usually starts with the calendar rather than with the house.
Our part is small and specific. We open the doors, we carry the logistics, and one person holds the whole trip from the first letter to the last flight so that you never have to explain it twice. We are not paid to advise and we do not charge for a proposal, which is what lets us tell you when something is not worth what it costs.
- Islands
- North, Frégate, Six Senses Zil Pasyon, Silhouette
- Villas
- The whole house, with staff, a chef and a car
- Between islands
- Yacht or helicopter, on your clock
- Shape
- Built to order. Never a package
A house on the rock, and nobody else in it
A whole villa with its own staff and its own pool on Frégate, on Silhouette, or at Six Senses Zil Pasyon on Félicité. Not a suite in a resort. A house on the cliff with a chef in the kitchen and a car at the door.
Which house depends on who is travelling and why, and that is a conversation rather than a menu. A family of nine wants something a couple on a tenth anniversary would find absurd, and the reverse is just as true.
If a private island is more than the trip needs, the hotel guides cover the top of the ordinary market honestly, including which suites are actually worth the jump.
The inner islands from the water
A day out or a week aboard, with a captain and crew. Snorkelling in coves that have no road to them, lunch on deck, and an anchorage off Curieuse or Saint Pierre in the late afternoon when the day boats have gone home.
It runs from a crewed catamaran to a superyacht charter out of the marina at Eden Island. The boat is chosen for the group and the sea state of the month, which matters more here than anywhere: the same passage that is glass in April is a washing machine in July.
If a full charter is more than you want, the excursion pages have private boat days on the same water at a fraction of it.
Island to island in minutes
Zil Air flies from Mahé to the private islands and puts you at the villa rather than at a jetty. Ten minutes of air instead of a ferry, a transfer and an hour of somebody else's timetable.
The same aircraft does the scenic flight over the lagoons, which is the one thing on this page that everybody who does it talks about afterwards. From the air you can finally see what the map has been trying to tell you, which is that these are mountain tops.
The ordinary version of this is a fifteen-minute fixed-wing hop, and the domestic flights page covers it with the fares and the baggage rule.
From the aircraft door to the villa, without a queue
Someone meets you at the aircraft, walks you through the airport and hands you to the driver. A premium car with the air already on, and your bags following rather than waiting.
It is a small thing that decides the tone of the whole first day. An eleven-hour flight with a change in the Gulf, then forty minutes of forms and a taxi rank, is a different arrival from the one where somebody has your name and your car is already outside.
The same service without the Privé wrapping is on the airport transfers page, at a fixed price agreed before you fly.
The month decides more than the money
This is the one piece of advice on this page that costs nothing and changes the most, and it is the piece almost nobody selling a luxury week will give you.
There is no bad month in Seychelles. There is a wrong coast for the month. From December to March the north-west monsoon blows and the calm water sits on the south and east coasts. From May to September the south-east trades blow and it moves to the north and the west. April and October sit between the two systems and every coast on every island goes quiet at once.
A villa on the wrong side in the wrong month is a very expensive house with a wind in it, and no amount of service fixes that. So the island gets chosen after the dates, or the dates get chosen after the island. The calm calendar sets it out month by month with the Indian holiday windows marked against it.
The other half of the timing is availability. There are only a few of these houses in the whole country, and the Diwali fortnight and the Christmas to New Year window go first. Six months is comfortable. Three is tight. Six weeks is a conversation about what is left.
What does not fit in a brochure
The list below is not a menu with prices under it. It is the set of things people actually ask for once they have the house, and the answer to each of them is yes.
A chef in the house
१Dinner cooked in the villa rather than booked in a restaurant. Vegetarian and Jain kitchens are ordinary here and are arranged in advance, without onion and garlic where that is what is wanted.
A ceremony, or a question asked
२A wedding or a proposal on a beach with nobody else on it, with a photographer who has shot fifty of them and knows where the light goes at six.
The spa comes to you
३Treatments in the villa rather than in a room down a corridor, at the hour that suits the day rather than the hour the spa has free.
Discretion
४Closed ground, no signage, and nobody told who is staying. At this level privacy is not a perk, it is the product.
Children, properly handled
५A trusted nanny, a menu children will actually eat, and a plan for their day that is not the same as the plan for yours.
One person, start to finish
६The same name on every letter from the first enquiry to the last flight. Nothing to repeat and nobody to be handed to.
A look behind it
The boats, the aircraft and the cars this actually runs on. Photographs supplied by the operator for its Privé service.
Photographs supplied by the operator for its Privé service. Two carried a supplier's caption bar burnt into the frame, which was cropped off rather than painted over.
What people ask.
What does a luxury trip to Seychelles cost?
There is no fixed rate, and a page that printed one would be inventing it. It moves with the dates, the island, the house and what you want to do from it. Write with what you have in mind and you get a proposal back with real numbers on it, at no charge and with nothing attached.
Can you book the private islands?
We work at the top of the archipelago and can reach the private-island properties, including North, Frégate and Six Senses Zil Pasyon. Availability at that level goes early, so the sooner the dates are on the table the more of it there is to choose from.
Is it a fixed package?
No, and we would rather not build one. It starts from what you actually want and is assembled around that. A rigid package at this price is somebody else's itinerary with your name on it.
Do you handle vegetarian and Jain cooking?
Yes, and it is ordinary rather than a favour. A private chef in a villa cooks to your kitchen, including without onion and garlic, when it is agreed in advance. Say it in the first letter rather than on the first evening. The food page covers how this works across the islands.
How private is private?
On a private island, completely. The ground is closed, there is no through road and no day traffic. On Mahé and Praslin it depends on the house and we will tell you plainly which ones are genuinely screened and which ones only look it in the photographs.
How do we reach you at this level?
Through the form below, like everything else on this site. It carries a Privé marker, so it goes to the right desk and is answered by one person rather than a rota. There is no telephone queue to sit in.
How far ahead should we book?
Six months is comfortable for a private island in a good month. Three is tight. For Diwali or the week between Christmas and New Year, earlier again, because those two windows are the ones the whole of India is looking at.
Tell us what the week should feel like
Not a booking form. A letter, answered by one person, with a proposal and real numbers in it and no obligation attached to any of it.
Space, silence, and one person who answers
Write with the dates and the shape of the group. What comes back is a proposal with real numbers in it and no obligation attached.