Seychelles

Mahé (the main island, 27km long, 8km wide) — Victoria (the smallest capital city in the world by population, 27,000) with the Seychelles Natural History Museum, the Mahé markets (fresh tuna, breadfruit, cinnamon bark, vanilla pods) and Beau Vallon beach for the first evening — a safe, sheltered bay on the northwest coast.

💡 The Seychelles was uninhabited when French explorers arrived in 1742 — one of the last habitable places on earth with no indigenous human population. The current Seylhellois Creole population (96,000) is almost entirely the result of French colonisation, African slave importation and Indian and Chinese indentured labour arriving in waves from the 18th to the 20th century.

30-min flight or 1h fast ferry. Praslin — the second island, home to the Vallée de Mai (UNESCO World Heritage Site, a 19.5-hectare primary palm forest where the coco de mer (Lodoicea maldivica) — the largest seed in the plant kingdom, resembling a human pelvis, weighing up to 25kg — grows in its last wild habitat). Gordon believed the Vallée de Mai was the original Garden of Eden.

💡 The coco de mer (Lodoicea maldivica) is endemic to Praslin and Curieuse islands in the Seychelles — the largest seed in the plant kingdom, taking 7 years to germinate and 25 years to produce its first seed. The palm can live 800 years and reaches 30m. Before the island was discovered, the coconuts washed up on Indian and Maldivian beaches as “sea coconuts” — believed to grow on the ocean floor; hence the name.

Anse Lazio (the finest beach in the Seychelles — a sheltered bay of pink-tinged granite boulders and crystal water, consistently ranked in the top 5 world beaches) and the Praslin National Park (the only habitat of the Seychelles black parrot (Coracopsis barklyi), endemic to Praslin, with fewer than 1,000 individuals — the rarest parrot in Africa and one of the most restricted bird ranges on earth).

💡 The Seychelles black parrot is endemic only to Praslin island — an area of 37km². It feeds on native palm fruits and is entirely dependent on the Vallée de Mai ecosystem. The population was estimated at 580–920 individuals in 2015; habitat loss and nest site competition are the primary threats.

15-min boat from Praslin. La Digue (the third island, 10km², population 3,000, no cars — transport by bicycle and ox cart) — Anse Source d’Argent (the most photographed beach in the world — the giant pink granite boulders, smooth and sculpted by millennia of wave action, above turquoise water and white sand) and the vanilla plantations in the island interior.

💡 Anse Source d’Argent appears in more advertising photographs, Instagram posts and travel magazine features than any other beach in the world. The giant granite boulders (precambrian granite, 750 million years old — the Seychelles are the only mid-ocean island group consisting of continental granite rather than volcanic basalt) are the result of millennia of differential weathering.

A full day by bicycle — La Digue is 9km long and entirely rideable in half a day — the Grand Anse (rougher, often empty), the Nid d’Aigle viewpoint (the highest point on the island, 333m, with views across the island chain), and the L’Union Estate (a restored vanilla and copra plantation with a population of Aldabra giant tortoises roaming the grounds).

💡 The Aldabra giant tortoise (Aldabrachelys gigantea) is the only surviving giant tortoise species in the Indian Ocean (the Galapagos giant tortoise is a separate species). The Aldabra Atoll holds the world’s largest wild population (100,000+). Tortoises on La Digue and Mahé are introduced populations; the Aldabra wild population is the authentic source.

Denis Island (a flat coral island with 25 villas, the finest sport fishing in the Seychelles, green turtle nesting on the beach and a resident colony of 2,000 sooty terns) or North Island (9 exclusive villas, the most expensive hotel in the world by some measures, at US$5,000–15,000/night, where William and Kate honeymooned in 2011) for a day of complete isolation.

💡 North Island was purchased in 1997 and converted into a 9-villa conservation resort — the team cleared invasive species, restored native vegetation and reintroduced Seychelles white-eye, Seychelles magpie-robin and giant tortoises that had been extinct on the island. It combines the world’s most exclusive resort with one of its most ambitious island restoration projects.

Alphonse Island (45-min charter flight, a coral atoll in the outer Seychelles with the finest bonefishing flats in the world, pristine reef and no other development) or St. François Atoll (UNESCO-listed, accessible by liveaboard, 400km of untouched reef). Fly from Mahé (SEZ).

💡 Alphonse’s bonefishing (Albula vulpes — the bonefish, a shallow-water flats fish that is the pinnacle of saltwater fly fishing, for its speed, intelligence and the aesthetic challenge of sight-fishing on clear flats) is considered the finest on earth — the flats are undisturbed, the fish large and plentiful, and the setting a remote coral atoll 400km from the nearest town.