The Most Beautiful Places in the Seychelles
5 places · updated 13 October 2026
In short: By our ranking, the most beautiful places in the Seychelles are Aldabra, Anse Source d'Argent and Vallée de Mai. The list covers 5 places. Last updated 13 October 2026.
The Seychelles are unusual among oceanic islands. The main inner islands are not volcanic but granite, fragments of continental crust left stranded in the ocean as the old supercontinent Gondwana broke apart, which is why their shores are framed by huge, smoothly weathered boulders in shades of grey and pink. Around them lie low coral islands and atolls, and long isolation in the Indian Ocean has given the archipelago plants and animals found nowhere else.
Aldabra, far to the southwest, is one of the largest raised coral atolls in the world, a ring of limestone around a vast lagoon. It is home to a large population of giant tortoises, and its remoteness has kept it close to untouched. On Praslin, the Vallée de Mai preserves a palm forest of the coco de mer, the tree with the largest seed in the plant kingdom, and is home to the rare Seychelles black parrot.
The beaches show the granite at its most dramatic. Anse Source d'Argent on La Digue sets white sand and shallow turquoise water among sculpted boulders, and on Praslin, Anse Lazio and Anse Georgette curve between granite headlands and green hillsides. Together with Aldabra and the Vallée de Mai, both on the World Heritage List, they show the two faces of the Seychelles: ancient continental rock and young coral.
In this list
| # | Place | Type | UNESCO |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Aldabra | Coral reef | ✓ |
| 2 | Anse Source d'Argent | Beach | |
| 3 | Vallée de Mai | Nature reserve | ✓ |
| 4 | Anse Lazio | Beach | |
| 5 | Anse Georgette | Beach |
01 Aldabra
Seychelles9.416° S 46.416° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
- UNESCO natural beauty
Image by veverkolog from Pixabay Aldabra is one of the great natural wonders of the Indian Ocean: a ring of low coral islands around a vast, shallow lagoon, far out in the south-western corner of the Seychelles. It is the second-largest coral atoll on Earth after Kiritimati and the largest raised coral reef, about 34 km long and 13 km wide.
Did you know? Adwaita, an Aldabra giant tortoise kept at Kolkata's Alipore Zoo, died in 2006 at an estimated age of around 250 years.
02 Anse Source d'Argent
Anse Source d'argent
Seychelles4.372° S 55.827° E
Tobias Alt, Tobi 87 · CC BY-SA 4.0 Anse Source d'Argent is a two-kilometre ribbon of white sand on the south-west coast of La Digue, the fourth-largest of the granitic islands of the Seychelles. It is often called the most photographed beach in the world, and the reason is geological rather than tropical.
Did you know? The beach has served as a backdrop for films and for the Bacardi rum advertisements of the 1990s.
03 Vallée de Mai
Seychelles4.329° S 55.737° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
- UNESCO natural beauty
WL~commonswiki · CC BY-SA 3.0 In a valley in the middle of Praslin, the second-largest island of the Seychelles, a forest of giant palms grows much as it did before people reached the islands. 5 hectares, which makes it one of the smallest natural World Heritage Sites, but UNESCO listed it in 1983 on all four natural criteria.
Did you know? The palm's huge fan leaves act as a funnel, catching pollen and debris that rain then washes down to feed the base of the tree.
04 Anse Lazio
Seychelles4.294° S 55.702° E
Tobias Alt, Tobi 87 · CC BY-SA 4.0 Anse Lazio curves around a sheltered bay at the far north-western tip of Praslin, the second-largest island of the Seychelles.
Did you know? The island was named Isle de Palmes by the explorer Lazare Picault in 1744 and renamed Praslin in 1768 after the French minister the duc de Praslin.
05 Anse Georgette
Seychelles4.295° S 55.681° E
Didi0032 · CC BY-SA 3.0 Anse Georgette is a small bay on the northwestern coast of Praslin, the second-largest island of the granitic Seychelles.
Did you know? The beach is only about 260 metres long and some 12 metres wide, a narrow strip of sand between forest and sea.
How this list is ranked
Places are chosen for how they look, not for how famous they are: each one has its own description and a photograph credited to its author. The order is a single world ranking that weighs the beauty of the place in curated photography together with how widely it is documented — the number of language editions of its encyclopedia article and how often that article is read in a year. The list is rebuilt as places are added, so the order and the counts on this page are always current.
Questions people ask
- What are the most beautiful places in the Seychelles?
- On our list, Aldabra ranks first, followed by Anse Source d'Argent and Vallée de Mai.
- Why are the Seychelles made of granite?
- The inner islands are fragments of the ancient supercontinent Gondwana, left stranded in the Indian Ocean as India, Madagascar and Africa drifted apart. Their granite is hundreds of millions of years old, far older than most oceanic islands.
- What is the coco de mer?
- The coco de mer is a palm native only to Praslin and Curieuse in the Seychelles. Its double-lobed nut is the largest seed of any plant, and the Vallée de Mai protects its finest forest.
- Where do giant tortoises live in the Seychelles?
- The largest wild population lives on Aldabra Atoll, which holds tens of thousands of Aldabra giant tortoises. Smaller groups also live on other islands.
- What kinds of places are there to see in the Seychelles?
- In our collection, the places in the Seychelles are most often beaches (3), islands (1), nature sanctuaries (1) and nature reserves (1).
- How many places are on this list in the Seychelles?
- The list covers 5 places.