Turquoise beaches, lagoons, reefs and green mountains: Mauritius is the Indian Ocean paradise for relaxing and diving.
Mauritius is a volcanic island in the middle of the Indian Ocean, nine hundred kilometres east of Madagascar, almost entirely surrounded by a coral reef that creates an inner lagoon of calm, turquoise water. That barrier explains much of its appeal: you can swim in warm, wave-free water along practically the whole coast. But the island isn't just beaches: the interior is mountainous and green, with basalt peaks rising abruptly out of the sugar cane fields.
The most interesting thing about Mauritius, beyond the scenery, is its people. It had no native population: everyone who lives there descends from people who arrived over the last four centuries — French and Dutch settlers, enslaved Africans, indentured labourers from India, Chinese merchants — and that mix produced a country where Hindu temples, mosques, churches and pagodas stand a few blocks apart, where people speak Mauritian Creole, French and English, and where you can eat Indian, Chinese, Creole and French food in the same day.
It's also where the dodo lived, the flightless bird that went extinct less than a century after Europeans arrived, and which became the world's symbol of human-caused extinction. Mark Twain wrote that God made Mauritius first and then heaven, copying it. Every brochure repeats the line, but it gets the idea across pretty well.
The local currency is the Mauritian rupee (MUR). It's a good idea to carry some cash, let your bank know before you travel and check the day's exchange rate.
Full converter for MUR →SSR Airport (MRU) is in the southeast of the island, a good hour from the northern beaches. Flights arrive mostly via Paris, Dubai, Istanbul and Johannesburg, so from Latin America there are always two stopovers. The island is small — about sixty kilometres from end to end — and you can get around by car, driving on the left, or on the public buses, which cover everywhere but are slow and don't run at night. The Metro Express, a modern tram, links Port Louis with Curepipe, passing through the towns in the centre. There are short flights from Mauritius to Rodrigues. It's best to arrange airport transfers through your accommodation.
May to December is the best window, with the dry season of the southern winter between June and September: pleasant temperatures of twenty to twenty-five degrees, low humidity, little rain and no risk of cyclones. It's also the season for kitesurfing and windsurfing thanks to the steady wind, and from July to October humpback whales pass along the coast. September, October and November tend to be the most balanced months: warm water, good weather and fewer people than at the peak around the end of the year.
November to April is the southern summer: it's hotter and more humid, and it's cyclone season, which is the factor that most affects your trip. That doesn't mean it rains every day — cyclones are one-off events and the island is very well prepared, with a class-based warning system — but you do need to keep an eye on the forecast and get insurance that covers cancellations. January and February are the riskiest months. A useful geographical detail: the west and north are noticeably drier than the east and south, so in the rainy season it's best to stay on that side.
Mauritian cuisine is the best expression of the country's mix: in a single day you can eat an Indian curry, Chinese noodles, a Creole tomato rougaille and a French tart. The dishes you absolutely have to try are on the street: dholl puri, a flatbread made with split lentils and filled with bean curry and chutney, which is the national street food and costs next to nothing; gâteaux piments, spicy lentil fritters; and mine frit, stir-fried noodles of Chinese heritage.
In restaurants, try fish or sausage rougaille, vindaye — a fish pickle with mustard and turmeric, an Indian legacy with a Creole twist — and seafood from the lagoon. The heat comes in a separate chilli sauce, so you can adjust it. To drink, there's agricultural rum from the local distilleries, which is very good and little known abroad, Phoenix beer and alouda, a sweet drink made with milk, basil seeds and agar. A tip: eat at food trucks and village spots, not just at the resort — that's where the real food is, and it costs a fraction.
Mauritius is a calm, stable country, one of the safest in Africa and with good social indicators. The problems are minor: opportunistic theft on busy beaches — don't leave things unattended while you go in the water — the occasional break-in at rental cars and inflated prices in tourist areas. You can walk and get around without trouble. Emergencies: 999 police, 114 ambulance.
On health, the good news: Mauritius is not a malaria zone, which sets it apart from almost all of mainland Africa, so no prophylaxis is needed. A yellow fever certificate is required if you arrive from a country with risk of transmission, and several in South America are, so check this well in advance. There can be seasonal outbreaks of dengue or chikungunya transmitted by mosquitoes, especially in summer, so repellent is still recommended. Tap water is drinkable in most of the island. The real risks are at sea: there are strong currents at the gaps in the reef, where water flows out of the lagoon, so respect the flags and ask at your accommodation; coral and sea urchins make water shoes very useful; and the tropical sun burns very quickly.
Mauritius has a reputation as an expensive destination, and that's only true if you do it one way: the island is marketed mainly as an all-inclusive luxury resort package, and there prices are high. But there's a much more affordable Mauritius that hardly gets promoted: guesthouses and family-run apartments in coastal villages, excellent street food for next to nothing, public buses that cover the whole island for very little, and beaches that are public by law, including those in front of five-star hotels.
That last point is key and worth knowing: in Mauritius all beaches are publicly accessible, so no resort can stop you from walking onto the sand. Renting a car is the best investment of the trip — the island is small and that way you can reach everything — bearing in mind that you drive on the left. Catamaran trips and diving outings are the biggest variable expense. And it's worth comparing prices between the north, which is pricier and livelier, and the east or southeast, which are quite a bit cheaper and quieter.
Mauritius is probably the best example of multicultural coexistence in Africa. The population descends from Indian indentured labourers — who are the majority — enslaved Africans, French, British and Chinese, and the four main religions coexist as a matter of course, with Hindu, Muslim, Christian and Chinese holidays on the same calendar. Mauritian Creole is spoken in daily life, French in the media and social settings, and English in official matters and at school: with French or English you can handle the whole trip.
People are relaxed and friendly, with a pace closer to the Caribbean than to mainland Africa. When visiting Hindu temples you need to take off your shoes and dress modestly, and at Grand Bassin you should be especially respectful because it's an active place of worship, not an attraction. Sega is the traditional music and dance, born among the slaves, with ravanne drums and a dance in which the feet never leave the ground, something explained by the chains: today it's played at parties and on the beach, and it's Intangible Cultural Heritage. Away from the beaches and resorts, in towns and cities, it's best to dress discreetly.
Few places on the planet have a history as short and as intense as Mauritius. When the rest of the world was already densely populated, this Indian Ocean island was still untouched territory, without a single human being: a natural laboratory where a clumsy, trusting bird, the dodo, had lost the ability to fly because nothing threatened it. In barely four centuries, Mauritius went from that uninhabited paradise to an Arab and Portuguese stopover, a Dutch colony, a French island, a British possession and, finally, an independent multicultural republic. Its entire population descends from people who came from somewhere else: European settlers, African and Malagasy slaves, Indian indentured labourers, Chinese traders. There is no indigenous people. Mauritius is, in the most literal sense, a nation built entirely by migration.
That history left marks you can still visit today: the island's name, which honours a Dutch prince; the French language and the Creole spoken on the street despite almost two centuries of British rule; the imposing Le Morne, refuge of the slaves who fled the plantations; the Aapravasi Ghat in Port Louis, through which half a million Indian workers arrived and which is now a World Heritage Site. To understand this island is to understand how a volcanic rock lost in the Indian Ocean ended up bringing together half the world in less than 400 square kilometres.
Read the full history of Mauritius →Pick a region and open each destination to see what to do, prices and how to get there.
These are the sources we cite most across this country's guides, with how many times each appears. Hard data —tickets, opening hours, requirements, transport— comes from the official source and carries the date we checked it. Restaurant and hotel picks come from guides and reviews, and we say so on each page.
