The question every Indian planner asks first
Seychelles or Maldives
Two island countries in the same ocean that are almost nothing alike. One is granite, forest and public roads. The other is coral, water and one resort per island.
They are in the same ocean and they are nothing alike.
The Maldives is coral. Twelve hundred low sandy islands sitting on atolls, none of them more than a couple of metres above the sea, most of them holding exactly one resort. You fly to Malé, you transfer by speedboat or seaplane, you arrive at your island, and for the rest of the week that island is your holiday.
Seychelles is granite. The inner islands are the tops of a submerged continental fragment, which is a geological sentence that means mountains, rainforest, rivers, roads, towns, buses and public beaches. You fly to Mahé, you hire a car or take the ferry, and the country is open to you. Neither of these is better. They are answers to different questions, and most people asking the question have only been told about the first one.
The landscape, which is the real difference
Stand on a Maldivian island and the highest thing in sight is a palm tree. Stand at Beau Vallon and there is a nine-hundred-metre mountain behind you with cloud on it. Mahé has a national park covering most of its spine, hiking trails through it, waterfalls, and a road system you can drive end to end in ninety minutes.
That difference decides what a day looks like. In the Maldives a day is water and the resort. In Seychelles a day can be a forest walk, a market, a drive down the west coast, a boat out to a marine park, and a beach in the evening. If you are somebody who gets restless on the third day, that is the whole argument.
Beaches: gated against public
Almost every beach in the Maldives belongs to the resort behind it. Almost every beach in Seychelles is public, including the ones in front of the five-star hotels, because the law here says so. Anse Lazio, Anse Intendance, Beau Vallon, Anse Source d'Argent: you can walk onto all of them.
The practical effect is that in Seychelles your hotel does not have to be expensive for your beaches to be good. A guesthouse at eighty euros a night on Praslin has the same Anse Lazio as the resort. That single fact is why a Seychelles trip can be built at a price a Maldives trip cannot.
The water, and what you actually see in it
The Maldives wins on visibility and on sheer quantity of reef. Its atolls are coral gardens with the fish life that goes with them, and for a diver chasing manta and whale shark it is a better country.
Seychelles is granite underwater as well as above it. Boulders, drop-offs, and shoals of fish around them, rather than a coral shelf. The 1997 and 2016 bleaching events hit the shallow coral here hard and some of it has come back and some of it has not. What has not changed is the fish, the granite and the marine parks at Sainte Anne, Port Launay and Curieuse.
What it costs, which is not what you expect
The Maldives has a wider floor and a higher ceiling. There are guesthouses on local islands at genuinely low prices and there are resorts that cost more per night than anything in Seychelles. What it does not have is a middle you can move around in, because every move is a paid boat or a paid seaplane.
Seychelles has fewer bargains at the very bottom and a much cheaper middle. A hire car is forty-five euros a day and goes everywhere. The ferry between the main islands is a scheduled boat you buy a ticket for. Food from a Creole takeaway costs what food costs. The trip we build for an Indian family of four for ten nights usually lands under what the same family would spend on a week at a mid-range Maldivian resort, and they see three islands instead of one.
A car, delivered
Ten cars, no deposit, handed over at the airport, the jetty or your hotel. The small ones do the whole of Mahé and the Jimny does the hill roads.
See the fleetGetting there from India
The Maldives is closer and there are far more flights. Malé is under four hours from most Indian metros with several carriers a day, and the fare reflects it.
Seychelles is four and a half hours nonstop from Mumbai and further from everywhere else in India, with fewer flights. That is a genuine cost of choosing it. The compensation is that there is no visa to apply for on either, and that the airport at Mahé is fifteen minutes from a hotel rather than a seaplane transfer away.
Which one suits which trip
Choose the Maldives if the point of the trip is water, quiet and not moving. A honeymoon where neither of you wants to see another human being. A diving week. Five nights where the aim is to lie still.
Choose Seychelles if you want a country rather than a resort. Travelling with parents who will want a temple, a market and a town. Travelling with children who need something other than a beach by Wednesday. Any trip longer than about seven nights, where the sameness of one island starts to work against you.
The thing people regret
The regret we hear most often about the Maldives is boredom on a long trip. The regret we hear most often about Seychelles is having booked five nights, which is enough for one island and not enough for the country.
Both of those are planning mistakes rather than country mistakes, and both are fixable before you pay for anything.
Seychelles or Maldives, in six frames.
Six things a coral atoll does not have.
Photographs, under Creative Commons: A.Savin, FAL A.Savin, FAL A.Savin, FAL dronepicr, CC BY 2.0 A.Savin, FAL dronepicr, CC BY 2.0
What people ask.
Is Seychelles more expensive than the Maldives?
Per night at the top end, no. The most expensive Maldivian resorts cost more than anything in Seychelles. Per trip in the middle, Seychelles is usually cheaper, because the beaches are public, the ferry is a scheduled boat and a hire car is forty-five euros a day, so you are not paying for every movement.
Which is better for a honeymoon?
The Maldives if you want to see nobody and not move. Seychelles if you want the week to have shape: an island each for the first and second halves, a boat day, a town, and beaches you are not sharing with only one hotel.
Which is better with children?
Seychelles, in almost every case. There is a country to explore, giant tortoises children can walk up to, public beaches with shallow water on the calm coast, and a bus network they will enjoy more than you do.
Do Indian passport holders need a visa for either?
Neither issues a tourist visa to Indian passport holders. Both grant entry on arrival subject to conditions. Our page on entry on an Indian passport sets out what Seychelles asks for.
Is the snorkelling better in the Maldives?
For coral and for sheer quantity of reef, yes. For granite drop-offs, marine parks you can reach without a resort boat, and the chance of seeing a giant tortoise on the same day, Seychelles.
Can we do both in one trip?
Not sensibly. There is no direct connection between them and the routing goes back through the Gulf or through Colombo. Two island countries in one holiday is one island country too many.
Still deciding between the two
Tell us how many nights you have, who is travelling and what would make it a bad holiday. Meera will tell you honestly which of the two fits, including when the answer is the other one.