Reunion Off the Beaten Path: 5 Day Itinerary
Five days adds the third cirque to the loop: Saint-Denis, the lagoon, Cilaos, the volcano, then north into Salazie, the lushest and wettest of the three, where Hell-Bourg’s carved wooden houses sit a short walk from a waterfall most visitors only ever see from a moving car. This is the version that finally covers all three regions of the island without touching Mafate or the Piton des Neiges overnight, both of which need dedicated days of their own. Shorter? The 4 day plan stops at the volcano. Longer? The 7 day itinerary adds the Piton des Neiges summit push.
| Day | Focus | Drive time |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Saint-Denis arrival, the Barachois waterfront | 10-15 min from Roland Garros airport |
| 2 | Saint-Gilles/L’Ermitage lagoon, plus a Maido detour | 35-40 min each way |
| 3 | Cilaos: the spa town, the wine, the lentils | 1h15-2h from the west coast |
| 4 | Piton de la Fournaise, the caldera or the museum | 1.5-2.5h via Bourg-Murat |
| 5 | Salazie and Hell-Bourg, waterfalls and Creole houses | Roughly 1-1.5h from the volcano area |
Book these before you go
- Check Hell-Bourg guesthouse rates , a small village with limited rooms
- Compare Cilaos guesthouse options for night three
- Book a Mafate/Trou de Fer helicopter flight , the only way to see the full waterfall gorge, not just the rim
- Compare rental cars on Discover Cars , every cirque here has exactly one road in and no shortcut between them
Day 1: Saint-Denis, and an airport named for the wrong sport
Land at Roland Garros Airport (RUN), 10km from Saint-Denis, named for the aviator Roland Garros, born on Reunion in 1888, first to fly solo across the Mediterranean in 1913, killed in WWI in 1918; the Paris tennis venue borrowed his name a decade later, in 1928. Walk Le Barachois, the seafront promenade with cannons still facing the water, then Rue de Paris for the 19th-century Creole mansions. Currency is the euro: French, EU, eurozone, yet outside Schengen and the EU VAT area.
Day 2: The lagoon, and a village you can see but not drive to
Drive 35-40 minutes to Saint-Gilles-les-Bains and L’Ermitage, the one stretch of coast with unrestricted swimming, protected by a fringing coral reef inside the Réunion Marine Nature Reserve. Since July 2013, most of the open west-coast ocean has been closed to swimmers and surfers after a serious shark-attack cluster, a rule the Centre Sécurité Requin still actively enforces; the lagoon is the safe exception. Early risers should detour to Maido first, about an hour up, for a look into the roadless Cirque de Mafate before cloud arrives around 8am.
Day 3: Cilaos, 400 bends and a wine nobody expects
One paved road in, over 400 numbered hairpin bends, roughly 1h15-2h from the coast, drops into a thermal spa town growing its own pale lentils and Reunion’s only wine, a genuine Pinot Noir, Malbec, and Chenin from 1,200-meter vines. Order rhum arrangé, rum aged with local fruit, as the trip’s real souvenir.
Day 4: A caldera that was liquid rock months ago
Drive via Bourg-Murat toward Pas de Bellecombe, 1.5-2.5 hours depending on your start point, and check the alert level first: Piton de la Fournaise erupted three times between 13 February and 12 April 2026 alone, returning to baseline “vigilance” only on 7 May 2026. Open, the crossing of the Enclos Fouqué lava plain runs about 4 hours to the rim, roughly 10 hours round trip. Closed, the Cité du Volcan museum covers the same ground for €9 adult, €6 child.
Day 5: Hell-Bourg, and a waterfall you have already driven past twice
The road to Salazie ends at Hell-Bourg, officially one of France’s “Plus Beaux Villages,” known for wooden houses with carved lambrequin trim, a genuinely distinct architectural style from anything on the coast. Just outside town, the Voile de la Mariée waterfall drops several cascades down a cliff face, visible from the road, which is exactly the problem: most visitors glance at it through a windscreen and move on. Park and walk the short distance for the actual view. If Trou de Fer, the multi-tier waterfall system between Salazie and Bélouve, is on your list, know now that a full view of the gorge is effectively a helicopter-only sight; a hike from the Gîte de Bélouve reaches a partial viewpoint, but nothing on foot shows the whole chasm.
Can you see Trou de Fer without a helicopter?
Partially. A hiking approach from the Gîte de Bélouve reaches a viewpoint that shows part of the falls, and it is a genuinely worthwhile walk on its own, but it does not reveal the full multi-tier gorge the way an aerial pass does. The trail also turns muddy and can become impassable in rain, which is common on this, the island’s wettest side. Budget the helicopter if the whole gorge is actually the point.
Is Piton de la Fournaise open for hiking right now?
It depends on the current volcanic alert level, which shifts with each new unrest episode, so no blanket answer holds for long. Check reunion-parcnational.fr or reunion.gouv.fr the day before, since the drive up the volcano road stays open even during a caldera closure, only the trail itself gets restricted.
Book the Hell-Bourg room before the Cilaos one if you have to choose; Salazie’s guesthouses are fewer and smaller, and this is the night visitors most often assume they can wing.