Tips đź‘Ź
- There’s no car/scooter available to rent on the island, only bike for 100SCR/day.
- It’s a small island, but doing to tour by bike still take few hours.
- Shop closes around 8PM and there’s no nightlife.
- There’s ATM on the island, and plenty of restaurants nearby the jetty.
🏠Accommodation
We stayed at the Belle Amie Self Catering, but would not recommend. While the room was huge, and breakfast great, we had issue with hot water and the owner was not super reliable in general. While being kind, it was overall complicated to get stuff sorted (we did everything with a tour operator instead). There’s plenty of other hotel, but they all get sold-out super fast to book early!
🚲 Getting there
We arrived by boat from Praslin in 20 minutes, and took a taxi from the Jetty to the hotel for 200SCR.
⏱ Duration
We stayed 2.5 full days and felt 4 days would have been perfect to appreciate the island with calm.
❌ Miss
We hiked on the south east until Anse Coco, but turned back before reaching Anse Caiman which is the best snorkelling spot of the island according to the locals.
Anse Source d’Argent 🏝
After checking at our hotel and getting our bikes, we made ou way to Anse Source d’Argent. A quick 20 minutes bike ride from the center, stopping by the L’Union Estate entrance to pay the entry fee, and we were on the beach.
The spot was super-scenic, with massive granite formation clashing with the water. We went md-afternoon at low-tide so swimming was not really possible, but chilling with a better laying down in the water was 100% spot-on. It’s clearly a must-do and was for us the most beautiful beach of our trip.
The beach is fairly long and stretched, with bars every 200 meters and not super crowded. Make sure to walk until the end before deciding your chilling spot.
Note: The entrance is valid for 24h, so you might want to hold to your bracelet
Beach land tour 🚲
The following day, we started our bike trip in the island and headed to Granse Anse in around 30 minutes. The road was good and very up-and-down so allow extra time.
Upon arrival, we jumped straight into the agitated sea to relax and play with the waves. Note that the streams are usually quite strong on this beach (great surf spot!). Post-nap, we went to Loutier Coco (the only restaurant of the beach) and scored a really good traditional kreol buffet which was perfect.
We then started our walk-hike (not possible by bike) to Petite Anse and Anse Coco, including the natural swimming pool, in around 45 minutes. Both were great, and we took the time to do the bath in both, but our favourite was the middle-one (Petite Anse) since wide, with waves and covered-ish of the wind.
We then turned back and headed to our hotel. Make sure to start early since it’s not great to hike in the dark, and also moskito tends to be voracious at the sunset. Also make sure to not do like us and walk 20min more until Anse Caiman, as all the locals told us later on.
Beach boat tour 🚤
For our last day, we decided to re-iterate and book another boat day trip. We went to the jetty the day before, collected a bunch of WhatsApp numbers and sent some texts. Few attempts later, we managed to get the whole thing book, full day with food and drinks for 125eur/person. In case that’s useful, you can contact +2482559495 via Whatsapp since they sorted us out very fast!
After an early-ish wake up the next day, we headed to the jetty and started the trip. We started by doing a quick snorkelling session on Big Sister, then the same on Small Sister, to then come back on Big Sister for the lunch and chill time. Once on Big Sister, we enjoyed the view, petted the local turtles, enjoyed a great BBQ, and went to relax at the beach at the back of the island which is a true gem and you should 100% visit.
Post food-coma, we jumped back on the boat, did a quick snorkelling break on Coco Island and were back at the Jetty around 4PM.