Best of Seychelles itinerary 5 days

Looking for the ultimate Best of Seychelles itinerary 5 days with kids? Look no further, as this post covers how to reach, what to see & where to eat for a memorable stay.

Seychelles is an archipelago in the Indian ocean, consisting of 115 islands and this itinerary for 5 days in Seychelles covers 3 of the major islands. Of the 115, 74 islands are low lying coral islands and 41 are granitic islands. This post covers Mahe, Praslin and LaDigue. In case you have more time at hand, you could also visit Curieuse Island, known for its giant tortoises.

Best time to visit: April – May, Oct – Nov.

Seychelles has a tropical climate all year round and thus is warm and humid almost all the time. Since Seychelles lies in the Southern hemisphere, May to October are the winter months characterized by slight drop in temperature and higher levels of humidity and precipitation. A lot of activities close down due to rains and ferry ride from one island to the other becomes a nightmare with rough and choppy seas. The summer months between December and March have slightly higher temperatures along with high levels of humidity. Thus to see the best of Seychelles, shoulder season is the best time to visit ensuring more sunshine time at the beach.

Commuting within and from-to Islands:

In 5 days in Seychelles, you can either stay put and relax only in Mahe or you can go around some other islands like Praslin and La Digue too. I recommend going and seeing other islands as well as different beaches have their own different things to see.

There is no local transport within the islands and hence a lot of self drive options exist. Right outside the airport, you will find about 7 – 8 car rental options including Hertz, Avis, Sixt and many a local providers too. Negotiation will help. If you don’t have kids or are comfortable with kids seats on the bicycles, you can opt for bicycle rental instead of a car too.

For commuting between islands, there are ferries that ply between different islands and that is the only option for island hopping. We used CatCocos and their ferries were well maintained with excellent service. There are not a multitude of ferries to choose from and from what I understood, CatCocos is more or less the only option.

Stay and Food:

Mahe has some of the best resorts (Raffles and Four Seasons) along with some self catering options, while Praslin basically has a lot of self catering options with limited resorts to choose from. To get the best of Seychelles, I recommend trying out both. There is a grocery store at every nook and cranny to make life easier. This post on managing vegetarian food in Seychelles might help in case you’re curious.

Seychelles Itinerary 5 Days:

If you have 5 days in Seychelles 2 Days in Mahe, 2 Days in Praslin and 1 day in traveling.

Reach Mahe on day 0 afternoon and hire a car from the airport itself for 2 days.

We were staying at Avani Seychelles Barbaron Resort and Spa which is located at Grand Anse beach. After checking in, head to the beach. Its a partly rocky beach which makes it good for snorkelling. The initial part of the beach is largely sandy though.

I highly recommend having water shoes like this one or these, at all times when visiting some of these beaches. Since some parts are rocky, it ensures protection against injuries especially with kids. For my 2yr old, we just picked up basic water shoes from our local carrefour store, and that has served us well over the last 6months.

Day 1: Petit Anse Beach and Victoria 

Next day morning, we headed to the Four Seasons beach Petit Anse. One of the most beautiful beaches and if you plan ahead and can book, its one of the most beautiful properties I have seen. The beach is perfect for swimming for all ages including toddlers. The water is calm with few waves and very clear water, probably the best in Mahe. There are snorkeling spots near the granite rocks side of the beach. Overall if you had time to go to only one beach in your 5 days in Seychelles, this would be my recommendation.

The only challenge is in reaching the beach as its quite a long and steep walk to the beach (if you’re not staying with the hotel). Although on our way up, they assisted us with a cart as we had ordered some snacks and drinks. Its nevertheless all worthwhile when looking at the magnificent beach.

We then headed out to Victoria to visit the market, look around one of the world’s smallest capital cities. We picked up some memorabilia, fridge magnets, some small knick knacks and snacks from the market.

Day 2: Mission lodge lookout and Jardin du Roi

Right after a sumptuous breakfast, head to Mission Lodge Lookout. Its a small hike (almost a nano hike) to a lookout point. You can see a large part of Seychelles from there and is very beautiful indeed. Along the hike, there are many a spice trees and shrubs that gives an idea of the bio-diversity of the place.

Jardin Du Roi in Anse Royale is a Spice Garden which boasts of vanilla vines, citronelle(lemongrass- wonderful tea), cinnamon, nutmeg, pepper and other spices. Seychelles is home to a large variety of spices that naturally grow in this region, although the country is not an exporter for any of these. In their natural form, gardens like Jardin Du Roi and Vallee De Mai (Praslin) are just preserving them.

Day 3: Reach Praslin and visit Vallee de Mai

On Day 3, take a Catcocos ferry from Mahe to Praslin. You can leave the rented car at the port in Mahe and can arrange for a new one in Praslin. Driving around in Seychelles is extremely relaxing with pristine and untouched nature all around.

Weather being on your side, Vallee de Mai is a forest park you must visit. It is a world heritage site forest and one of the few places to see coco de mer (apart from Seychelles National Botanical Park). In the right season it is also a birding hot spot.

With the heavy downpour that welcomed us the day we reached Praslin, we enjoyed our evening by just staying indoors enjoying a quite monsoon vacation with self catering of fritters and Tea.

Day 4: Day trip to La Digue:

Heavy rains continued well into the next day morning too, when we were scheduled to go to La DigueDue. Due to rough seas, we finally got the afternoon ferry to LaDigue, and by the time we reached there (by 2:30pm), everything had almost shut down. The time for snorkelling was up and there were no tourists or service providers to be seen due to bad weather.

Saving Grace: we found giant turtles walking on the road in La Digue without having to even find them out. The kids had a fantastic time touching them, feeling their shells and walking along side them.

We then headed to Anse Source d’argent on foot. Anse Source d’argent has gently sloping sands on shallow waters and beautiful granite structures around the beach. From a bird’s eye view the beach looks much more beautiful than when at the beach itself. Also till the longest distance, the water is extremely shallow and in fact gives a feeling of stagnant water, which i did not quite like.

Reaching this beach is a nightmare if your co-travelers cannot ride a bicycle or none is available. It is a very long walk and very difficult to do on foot with young kids. We couldn’t find any other source of transportation and eventually we hitch-hiked our way to Anse Source d’Argent. Similarly, we hitchhiked half of our way back.

We were carrying our own food (sandwiches, water, juice and milk for kids) which helped, otherwise we would have starved with no vegetarian options around.

Day 5: Ferry back from Praslin to Mahe and directly to the airport

In case you have an extra day, you can plan a day trip to Curieuse Island from Praslin. You will get to see Giant tortoises as a part of a conservation program. Its also a good beach for snorkelling.

On our way from Mahe port jetty to Airport, we stopped at Maharajas for lunch. One of the best places to get Indian food in Seychelles. You can read this post to know more about it.

For this Seychelles itinerary 5 days was perfectly sufficient for us and I hope it will be for you too!