Mahé is the largest island in the Seychelles, home to the diminutive capital, Victoria, and 90% of the country’s population. It’s the quintessential tropical paradise, a sun-drenched landscape of granite mountains, lush jungle and heavenly white sand beaches.

Little Cousin Island, just to the west of Praslin, is a protected nature reserve, providing a sanctuary for hawksbill turtles, giant tortoises and the highest concentration of lizards in the world. The island also hosts more than 300,000 nesting seabirds each year, including terns, noddies and shearwaters.

The island of Praslin is home to some of the Seychelles’ top attractions, including the Vallée de Mai, a protected forest where you’ll see the rare coco de mer, a tree that produces the world’s largest seed and palm flower. The grove is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and has been compared to the Garden of Eden.

Lovely little La Digue is every inch the desert island idyll, and with less tourist development than Mahé or Praslin to impinge on your Robinson Crusoe fantasies. This is a place where many locals still get around by ox cart, and the beaches are some of the most beautiful in the Seychelles.

The island of Curieuse, once a leper colony, is now part of the protected Curieuse Marine National Park. This is one of the few islands in the Seychelles where the famous coco de mer grows, and is also known for its red soil and giant tortoises, introduced here from Aldabra Island in the 1980s.

Situated just to the northwest of Praslin, the island of Aride is renowned for its amazing birdlife. Keep your eyes peeled for species including noddies, terns, shearwaters and frigatebirds, along with sea turtles, skinks and geckos. And all this against a backdrop of granite cliffs, sandy beaches and lush tropical flora, with many endemic plants.