One Week in Seychelles: An Offbeat Itinerary
Seven days is the six-day loop plus one earned thing: a genuine buffer day back on Mahe before an international flight, since SEZ is the only gateway you have regardless of route. Tighter on time, the 6-day itinerary drops exactly that cushion and keeps the rest intact.
| Day | Island | Ferry/travel | Rough daily cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Day 1 | Mahe | Airport transfer only | SCR 700-1,600 (EUR 45-100) |
| Day 2 | Praslin | Cat Cocos, about 1 hour, roughly EUR 58 | SCR 1,300-2,600 (EUR 80-160) |
| Day 3 | Praslin (island day) | None | SCR 1,100-2,400 (EUR 70-150) |
| Day 4 | La Digue | Cat Rose, 15-20min, roughly EUR 15 | SCR 1,000-2,200 (EUR 60-135) |
| Day 5 | La Digue (island day) | None | SCR 700-1,600 (EUR 45-100) |
| Day 6 | La Digue then Mahe | Cat Rose+Cat Cocos, or direct Cat Cocos ~1h45, ~EUR 68 | SCR 900-2,000 (EUR 55-125) |
| Day 7 | Mahe (buffer day) | None | SCR 900-2,200 (EUR 55-135) |
Book these before you go
- Compare Mahe hotels and self-catering villas , you will need this one twice, arrival and departure
- Compare Praslin hotels and self-catering villas
- Compare La Digue guesthouses and self-catering villas , the fewest rooms of the three islands
- Book a Ste Anne Marine Park boat and snorkeling trip for the Day 7 buffer
Day 1: Mahe, and the beach with no road to it
Land at Seychelles International Airport (SEZ), the only way into the country by air and the reason Mahe is every itinerary’s first stop. Before you clear the terminal, know that “visa-free” is only half the story: Seychelles skips the visa but still requires a paid Travel Authorisation, applied for online through the Seychelles Electronic Border System up to 30 days ahead, roughly EUR10, with about 24 hours to process. Sort it before you fly, not from the arrivals hall.
A fixed-fare taxi into Victoria runs roughly SCR300 (about EUR19-21) for up to four people; carry rupees, since most drivers wave off cards. Victoria itself is a genuine oddity: by several counts it is one of the smallest capital cities on Earth, walkable end to end in an afternoon. The 1903 Clock Tower is a quarter-scale copy of the one on London’s Vauxhall Bridge, and the Sir Selwyn Selwyn-Clarke Market five minutes away sells fish, spice and handicrafts, loudest on a Saturday morning.
Skip Beau Vallon today, it earns its slot on the way back through Mahe, and spend the afternoon on the Anse Major trail instead: a coastal path on Mahe’s northwest tip that ends at a beach with no road access at all, reachable only on foot or by boat, and one of the few marquee-looking beaches in the country that never sees a tour bus. SPGA prices the trail at roughly SCR150, and there is no shortcut; that is the entire appeal.
Day 2: The ferry to Praslin, and a general who found Eden
The Cat Cocos fast ferry covers Mahe to Praslin in a little over an hour, economy fares running about EUR56 one way plus a EUR2 port fee, so budget roughly EUR58. Book the sailing before you land in Seychelles if you are traveling in July, August, or over Christmas and New Year, when seats do sell out. Check in for a real overnight stay.
Once ashore, head straight for Vallee de Mai, the UNESCO listed palm forest that a Victorian general named Charles Gordon stood inside in 1881 and declared the actual Garden of Eden, with the coco de mer as the forbidden fruit. Gordon was wrong about the theology but not entirely wrong about the strangeness: the coco de mer is the world’s largest seed, growing naturally nowhere else on the planet, and its pollination is still poorly understood, which is exactly why the local legend about the male palms uprooting themselves on full moon nights refuses to die. Entry runs about SCR450 (roughly EUR27-30, noticeably up from the EUR20 figure still floating around older blog posts), with a modest discount for tickets bought online in advance and free entry under 12.
Save the afternoon for Anse Lazio, free to enter, with parking the only real cost at roughly SCR100 for the day. Arrive before mid-morning; the small lot fills and the beach fills right along with it.
Day 3: Praslin’s second day, tortoises or a gated beach
A second day on Praslin splits two ways. The boat trip to Curieuse Marine National Park (boat access only, roughly SCR300) lands you among several hundred Aldabra giant tortoises introduced between 1978 and 1982, plus a working nursery that raises younger tortoises before releasing them back into the park, a genuinely different wildlife encounter than the resort-lawn tortoises most visitors photograph elsewhere.
The alternative is Anse Georgette, a beach that photographs like a public one but is not freely walkable: reaching it means crossing the Constance Lemuria resort’s grounds, which requires requesting authorisation three to five days ahead through the resort or your own hotel, with only about 30 non-guests allowed on the sand at once. Plan for this one; it punishes anyone who shows up expecting a walk-up beach.
Day 4: A different ferry entirely, and the island that runs on bicycles
Praslin to La Digue is not a shorter version of the Mahe to Praslin crossing; it is a separate operator altogether. Cat Rose, not Cat Cocos, covers the roughly 15-20 minute hop for about EUR15 one way, with up to five sailings a day, and conflating the two ferry brands is one of the most common planning mistakes for this trip.
La Digue has no airport and, functionally, no cars: rent a bicycle at the jetty for roughly SCR150-200 a day, the default way to get anywhere on the island. The one ox-cart still parked near the jetty for photos is run by essentially a single operator these days, a novelty, not a real transport option, whatever the postcards imply.
Bike straight to L’Union Estate, the gateway to Anse Source d’Argent, the granite-boulder beach that shows up on every “world’s most beautiful beach” list going. Entry runs roughly SCR150, valid all day with re-entry, and also covers the estate’s vanilla plantation and a giant-tortoise pen. Between about 10am and 5pm, the beach fills with day-trip boats from Praslin and Mahe; check in for the night instead of racing back, and let the crowd thin before dinner.
Day 5: La Digue by bike, properly this time
Spend a full day on the bicycle already rented: the loop out to Grand Anse and Petite Anse on the island’s quieter east side, plus the walk out to Anse Coco if your legs and footwear can take it. None of this requires a guide or a booking, just a rented bike and a willingness to get slightly lost on tracks that all look the same under the takamaka trees.
Circle back to Anse Source d’Argent in the very early morning or the last hour before sunset rather than midday. The tour boats crowd it hardest between about 11am and 3pm; outside that window, the same granite boulders that looked like a theme park at noon feel like the quiet island most visitors assume La Digue always is.
Day 6: Back to Mahe, and the beach you skipped on Day 1
Head back toward Mahe either the long way, Cat Rose to Praslin then Cat Cocos onward, or the direct La Digue to Mahe Cat Cocos sailing, about 1h45 and roughly EUR68, which trades a transfer for a higher fare. Either way, this is the crossing to lock in ahead of a flight, not the one to leave to a walk-up ticket.
Beau Vallon finally gets its turn: Mahe’s busiest, most developed beach strip, free to use, good for a proper swim. It is also one of the spots locally flagged for opportunistic bag theft, precisely because it is the busiest stretch of sand on the island, so keep valuables in sight rather than under a towel. Round out the day back at the Sir Selwyn Selwyn-Clarke Market for anything skipped on Day 1, though pass on any loose coco de mer offered without a CITES export certificate; a legal one comes hollowed, certified, and from a licensed vendor, not a beach seller.
Day 7: A buffer day Mahe earns honestly
Seven days is long enough to add a genuine cushion before an international flight, and Mahe is the only place to spend it, since SEZ is the country’s sole gateway regardless of which islands came before. A boat trip to Ste Anne Marine National Park (roughly SCR200, card payment only at the SPGA gate, no cash accepted on site) pairs snorkeling with a look at Moyenne Island’s free-roaming giant tortoises; skip the boat and the National Botanical Garden in Victoria covers tortoises and coco de mer specimens on dry land instead, for anyone who never made it to Praslin’s forest.
Treat this day as insurance, not filler. Cat Cocos and Cat Rose both run to a real timetable, but neither is immune to a weather delay, and a missed sailing two days out from a flight is a very different problem than one that is a week out. Check Seychelles’ official tourism site for any seasonal notices before locking in the return crossing.
What does the extra buffer day actually protect against?
A missed connection, mainly. Cat Cocos and Cat Rose both run reliably most weeks, but a weather delay or a full sailing during peak season can push a return crossing back a day. Without the buffer, that delay threatens the international flight home; with it, it is just a longer last morning on Mahe.
Is Seychelles really as expensive as people say?
Resort rates push the reputation, but the gap between a resort-centric trip and a self-catering, public-bus, guesthouse trip is large. A local Creole fish curry runs roughly SCR40-60 versus SCR150-300 or more at a resort restaurant, and the flat SCR10-12 SPTC bus fare beats a taxi on both Mahe and Praslin.
Seven days is the version of this trip with slack built in on purpose. Book La Digue’s guesthouse first, it sells out before Mahe’s or Praslin’s, and let the Day 7 buffer absorb whatever the ferry schedule throws at the rest of the week.