Visit Mauritius: lagoons, budget and itineraries

Grand Baie holds most of the island's nightlife and restaurants, with an evening craft market open from 6pm. Twenty minutes away, the Pamplemousses botanical garden takes about ninety minutes to walk, giant water lilies included. Trou aux Biches and Mont Choisy beaches, free and patrolled, stay the busiest on weekends, when locals themselves come out to picnic with family. It's also the best-equipped area for renting a scooter or car to explore the rest of the island.

Flic en Flac stretches nearly 8km of public beach facing the sunset, one of the island's longest. Thirty minutes inland, Chamarel's ochre and purple dunes take about 45 minutes to see, before the Black River Gorges, open 6am to 6pm. Casela Nature Parc adds a zip-line over the western plains for thrill-seekers, plus a walk-through reserve where giant tortoises roam freely among the enclosures.

Less developed than the nearby Seychelles, the Bel Ombre coast is swept by trade winds and noticeably quieter than the touristy North. The Gris-Gris cliffs and Chamouny waterfall need no booking, well away from the big resort clusters along the coastline. Allow half a day for this detour, often skipped by organised tours that favour the West. The Bel Ombre nature park adds a guided hike through preserved native forest, across several kilometres of marked trails.

Belle Mare and Trou d'Eau Douce give access to Île aux Cerfs, a 20-minute boat ride best booked the day before in high season. The lagoon there stays shallow for several hundred metres, ideal for half a day even without prior snorkelling experience. It's the coast most sheltered from spray between June and September, when trade winds pick up on the western side. The natural blowhole near Bambous Virieux rounds out a full day spent along this stretch of coastline.

The capital takes half a day: the Central Market winds down after 11:30am, then Caudan Waterfront and the UNESCO-listed Aapravasi Ghat, commemorating indentured labourers who arrived from 1834. Grand Bassin (Ganga Talao), a sacred Hindu lake 45 minutes away, draws hundreds of thousands of pilgrims for Maha Shivaratri, usually held in February or March. The giant Shiva and Durga statues lining the lake stay visible and accessible the rest of the year, in a calm that contrasts sharply with pilgrimage days.

A 90-minute flight from the mainland, Rodrigues runs at a different pace with far fewer facilities: a near-empty lagoon, the Saturday morning market in Port Mathurin and the François Leguat reserve, home to giant tortoises roaming semi-wild. Allow at least two nights, more rustic than Réunion yet just as volcanic inland. Daily flights remain limited in number, so it's worth booking several weeks ahead for July-August or Christmas, when seats grow scarce fast.