Seychelles

The Seychelles sits outside the cyclone belt, so there is no closed season, but there are two trade winds and they matter. The south-east trades blow from May to September: cooler, windier, with seaweed on the south and east coasts. The north-west monsoon runs November to March: hotter and wetter, with calmer water. April and May, and October and November, are the changeover months and the calmest of the year.

Mahe takes large-cabin aircraft. From there the inner islands are fifteen to thirty minutes by helicopter, or a short domestic flight to Praslin. Helicopter is the transfer to insist on here; it turns most of a day into an hour.

Among our preferred hotel partners, Six Senses Zil Pasyon has the whole of Felicite island to itself, Four Seasons Resort Seychelles is built into the hillside above Petite Anse on Mahe, and Anantara Maia Seychelles Villas sits on its own bay on the west coast. All three are villa properties rather than hotels in the conventional sense.

Ask your advisor about Aldabra and the outer islands, which need a live-aboard rather than a resort, turtle nesting season between October and February, and how to put the Seychelles and an East African safari on one routing.