Luxury holidays to the Indian Ocean

Our luxury holidays to the Indian Ocean are tailor-made and offer an outstanding choice of luxury hotels in the Maldives, the Seychelles and Mauritius, from island hideaways to sophisticated resorts. With Expressions Holidays to the Indian Ocean you benefit from over thirty-five years’ experience in constructing luxury, tailor-made holidays. Our holidays are luxurious, bespoke holidays and all about relaxation, comfort and good service, idyllic surroundings coupled with the opportunity to glimpse the flavour and colour of local life.

The Indian Ocean islands of the Maldives, the Seychelles and Mauritius are each the ultimate luxury holiday destination, combining natural beauty with hotels and resorts offering superb service, luxurious accommodation and wonderful leisure facilities from spas to tennis, diving to golf. Our tailor-made luxury holidays to the Indian Ocean will satisfy those who are looking for rest and relaxation as well as those seeking a more active break. Each of our holidays to the Indian Ocean is tailor-made according to your exact requirements. There is a choice to suit a range of budgets as well as special interests, from honeymooners to families, from sailing enthusiasts to spa treatment devotees. Single centre stays or multi-centre combinations are possible.

THE INDIAN OCEAN - FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

The Maldives, Mauritius and the Seychelles all sound similar from a distance. What actually distinguishes them, and how do you decide which is right for us?
They are meaningfully different, and the distinction matters more than most people realise before they go. The Maldives is the most singular: each resort occupies its own coral island or atoll, often reached by speedboat or seaplane from Malé, and the world below the water — the reefs, the marine life, the extraordinary clarity of the lagoon — is the primary reason to go. Life is beautifully contained within the island resort, and the overwater villa has become an icon of the Maldivian experience, but it is an immersive, inward-looking holiday rather than one with cultural layers or much opportunity to explore beyond the resort itself. Mauritius is quite different in character — a proper island with a rich and diverse culture, mountains, botanical gardens, sugar plantations, markets and villages, and a population that reflects its extraordinary mixed heritage of African, Indian, Chinese and European. The resort hotels in Mauritius are among the most accomplished in the Indian Ocean, with exceptional facilities, serious restaurants, golf and watersports, and a sense that the island rewards exploration as well as relaxation. The Seychelles sits between the two in some respects — the inner islands of Mahé and Praslin have a culture and a landscape of genuine beauty, with granite boulders and tropical forest, and the smaller outer islands and private island retreats offer seclusion to rival anything in the Maldives. Island-hopping between two or three Seychelles islands gives you contrast within a single trip. We ask what matters most — seclusion or culture, underwater world or landscape, privacy or the option to venture out — and match the destination accordingly.

The Maldives feels like it might be entirely about overwater villas and Instagram images. Is there more to it than that?
The overwater villa is real, and genuinely extraordinary when done well — waking above a lagoon of that colour, stepping off your deck into warm clear water, snorkelling straight from your own terrace is an experience with almost no equivalent anywhere else in the world. But you are right to sense that it needs to be more than an image. The quality of the resort matters enormously: the difference between a well-conceived, beautifully operated island hotel and one that is merely photogenic is something we care about deeply. The underwater world is genuinely the main event — the Maldives has some of the most biodiverse reefs anywhere on earth, and a resort with a serious PADI dive centre and marine biologist on staff offers a very different holiday from one where the reef is merely decorative. Snorkelling, diving, night dives, whale shark and manta ray encounters, sandbank picnics, dhoni boat excursions to local fishing islands — there is more activity available than people assume, even for non-divers. We also flag honestly that the Maldives suits some temperaments and not others: those who want to wander a town, eat at local restaurants or have a hire car for the afternoon will find it limiting. For those who want complete immersion in a genuinely extraordinary natural environment, with a luxury resort as their base, it is incomparable.

We're interested in Mauritius but want more than just a beach resort. How much is there to see and do beyond the hotel?
Considerably more than most visitors give it credit for, and this is one of the things that distinguishes Mauritius from its Indian Ocean neighbours. The island's interior is a landscape of volcanic peaks, tea estates, sugar cane fields and waterfalls, most famously the multi-coloured earth of Chamarel — a geological curiosity that rewards the short drive from the coast. The Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam Botanical Gardens at Pamplemousse are among the finest in the southern hemisphere, with giant Victoria amazonica water lilies and a history stretching back to the 18th century. Mauritius has a vivid cultural mosaic — Hindu temples, colonial churches, Chinese pagodas, colourful markets — that reflects its extraordinary heritage, and the food, when you venture beyond the hotel, is an excellent expression of it: the Creole cuisine, the roti, the fresh seafood. Golf is available at a high level — several of our hotels have their own courses or access to championship layouts. Watersports are excellent, particularly on the west and east coasts, and deep-sea fishing off the south coast is some of the best in the Indian Ocean. Mauritius also has the most coherent transport infrastructure of the three destinations, making independent exploration genuinely practical. For those who want a proper luxury resort holiday with the option to genuinely engage with where they are, it is the most rounded of our Indian Ocean destinations.

How does the Seychelles work in practice — is it one island or several, and how do you structure a visit?
The Seychelles is an archipelago of over 100 islands, though the main ones most visitors stay on are Mahé — the largest, where the international airport is — and Praslin, reached by a short domestic flight or ferry. La Digue, a quieter, largely car-free island of extraordinary granite scenery, is a short boat ride from Praslin and works very well as a day trip or a night or two. Further out, private island retreats such as Denis Island and the Six Senses Zil Pasyon on Félicité offer a degree of seclusion and intimacy that is quite unlike the larger island hotels. A well-structured Seychelles holiday often combines Mahé or Praslin — where the hotel options are wider and the snorkelling, diving and walking are excellent — with one of the smaller, more remote islands for the final few nights. The logistics of getting between islands are straightforward and we arrange them entirely: domestic flights, helicopters and ferries depending on the destination. What makes the Seychelles particularly compelling is the landscape above water as well as below it — the granite boulders and tropical forest of Praslin's Vallée de Mai, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the only place on earth where the extraordinary coco de mer palm grows wild, is unlike anything in the Maldives or Mauritius. For those who want both beauty and a sense of genuine place, the Seychelles rewards thoughtful planning.

We're considering splitting our stay between two hotels rather than one. Does that work well in the Indian Ocean, and how do you approach it?
It works very well, and for many clients it is the more satisfying option — particularly on a longer trip where the change of scene and hotel character adds to the experience rather than disrupting it. In Mauritius, the island's different coastlines have quite distinct characters: the west coast tends to have the calmest seas and the most glamorous hotel strip, while the east coast is wilder, slightly less developed and often more dramatic in landscape. Combining a few nights on each — staying in contrasting hotels that reflect the different faces of the island — gives a rounder sense of Mauritius than a single base allows. Transfers between hotels are straightforward and we arrange them as part of the holiday. In the Seychelles, a two-island combination is the natural structure for most visits. Staying on Mahé and then moving to Praslin — or adding a night or two on La Digue — gives you the capital island's beaches and walking alongside the quieter, more remote character of the outer islands and Praslin's extraordinary Vallée de Mai. The domestic flight between Mahé and Praslin takes around fifteen minutes and is an effortless connection. For those drawn to even greater seclusion, ending on one of the smaller private island properties adds a final chapter of complete quiet. We discuss the right balance — how many nights in each place, what type of hotel at each stage — as part of putting the itinerary together.