Your mission, should you choose to except it, is to look for a tightly-knit smattering of islands in the northeastern Indian Ocean. They are one of the planet’s last great gardens.
For those of you without an oil well in your backyard, the Seychelles (“say-shells”) are where you go when you really, truly, honestly, and complete want to get away from it it. And considering the nearest neighbor is 932 miles away in eastern Africa, this isn’t hard to do. Because it was so remote, yet so inviting (tropical climate, grade-A hotels), this British territory quickly became the darling of the jet set seeking true privacy back in the 1970s. Amazingly, the country is still pretty private; the mass development that mowed over places like Puerto Vallarta and St. Tropez was deliberately kiboshed.
The ‘Seychellois’ are becoming more of a luxury destination. The Four Seasons? Check. Raffles Praslin? Check. Fregate Private Island? Check plus! After jumping from airport to airport, once you land in the capital of Victoria, it will all have been worth it. The Seychelles may be out of the way, but they are nowhere near a far corner of the Earth.
The Seychelles are rather odd for islands in that they are not volcanic. They are made of granite, the same stuff continents are. This means the wildlife and landscape is very different from what you’d find in Hawaii or Santorini; the rock here is so hard that life has had to adapt in pretty tenacious ways to get a foothold. Take a trek through Aride Island Reserve; it is practically untouched by human hands so you can see what nature is like when it’s not manicured to within an inch of its life and has to fight for every inch. It’s amazingly lush.
Or maybe you want to flip it all off and hit the beach, and you don’t have to go that far. On Mahé (the same island Victoria is on), the western beaches are…well, they’re damn perfect. The sand is WHITE, the water BLUE, the air CLEAR. There really isn’t that much else to say, lest I gush.
The one help tip, however, is that you may want to brush up on your (huh?) French. While a British holding now, the islands were for a long time under French control, and old habits, like a language, die hard. English is still spoken, of course, but if you want to get in good with the natives, le François goes a long way.
Curious about a trip to the other side of the planet? Go to seychelles.travel or contact Steele Luxury Travel to organize your Seychelles experience: www.SteeleTravel.com