8-Day Seychelles Island-Hopping Tour with Coco de Mer and La Digue

Arrive at Seychelles International on Mahé, where the runway ends at the water and the mountains rise immediately behind. After settling in, spend the afternoon in Victoria, one of the world's smallest capitals and easily explored on foot in an hour. See the little silver clock tower modelled on the one at Vauxhall, the Sir Selwyn Selwyn-Clarke Market with its tuna, fruit bats, and vanilla stalls, the Hindu temple, and the botanical gardens above town with their coco de mer stand and the first giant tortoises you will meet. Dinner on the coast.

Head early into Morne Seychellois National Park for the Copolia trail, a steady climb of about an hour through boulder forest to a bare granite dome at 500 metres. Carnivorous pitcher plants grow in the cracks, and the whole east coast and reef are laid out beneath you. Return for a late breakfast, then cross the mountain road to the west side for Port Launay and Baie Ternay in the marine park for snorkelling, Anse Major on foot for those who want it, and Beau Vallon at sunset.

The Cat Cocos catamaran crosses to Praslin in an hour, and the second island announces itself immediately: lower, greener, and quieter. Go straight to the Vallée de Mai while the morning is still cool, walking through the UNESCO-listed forest that is the last wild stand of coco de mer on Earth, beneath a canopy General Gordon took for the Garden of Eden, with black parrots calling overhead. The afternoon is for Anse Lazio, routinely called the finest beach in the Indian Ocean, seen in the light it deserves rather than at midday.

A boat day. First comes the short crossing to Curieuse, a national marine park where several hundred Aldabra giant tortoises range free across the island. Walk the mangrove boardwalk, visit the old leper-colony doctor's house, continue over to Anse José, and enjoy a barbecue lunch on the beach with tortoises for company. On the way back, snorkel at St Pierre, a cluster of granite boulders rising out of clear water and ringed with reef fish, with turtles often seen here as well. Evening back on Praslin.

Make an early wardened landing on Cousin Island Special Reserve, a bought-back island that was a coconut plantation until 1968. It was replanted to save the last twenty-six Seychelles warblers alive and is now a seabird colony of several hundred thousand birds, with hawksbill turtles nesting on its beaches. Visits are strictly timed and run by the wardens. Return to Praslin, then take the fifteen-minute ferry to La Digue, where you collect bicycles at the jetty and there is essentially nothing else to collect.

The day is built around the tide table. Visit L'Union Estate first, with its copra mill, vanilla plantation, and colonial plantation house, then continue to Anse Source d'Argent at low water, when the sand bars open up between granite boulders the size of houses and the shallow water becomes completely still. It is the most photographed beach on Earth, and it earns it. The afternoon is free to enjoy the island - perhaps the Veuve Reserve for the paradise flycatchers, or simply the bicycle and the coast road.

Explore the other side of the island, the one most day-trippers never reach. Cycle to the end of the road, then walk over the hill to Grand Anse, big and wild with real surf, and continue along the shore path to Petite Anse and finally Anse Cocos, where a natural rock pool at the north end is safe for swimming when the sea outside is not. The walk takes about two hours in total, with a swim at the end, and you may well have the last beach to yourselves. Farewell dinner on La Digue.

The ferries return to Mahé through Praslin in the morning, and the crossing is timed to your flight with plenty of margin. Long-haul departures from Seychelles are mostly in the evening, which usually leaves a free afternoon. If it does, use it for Anse Intendance and Petite Anse on Mahé's wild south coast, or the Takamaka distillery, before the transfer to the airport. We are glad to pair this expedition with our Madagascar, Comoros, or Mauritius trips, all a short flight away.