Routes & itineraries
Knowing what to see here is easy. Knowing what fits into one day, in what order, is the part that decides whether you spend a holiday sightseeing or a holiday in a car. These are the six routes we actually drive, with the timings.
Most guides to Mauritius tour places give you a list and leave you to work out the logistics. The logistics are the hard part. This island is 65 kilometres across and takes two hours to cross, because the roads run through the towns rather than around them, and the single most common mistake visitors make is building a day that crosses it twice.
So this page is organised by route rather than by attraction. Each of the six is a day we drive regularly: the stops in the order that works, the driving time between them, where the coach parties will be and when, and what to cut if you are running late.
If you want the attractions themselves described one by one, with what each is and why it is worth seeing, that is our what to visit in Mauritius guide. This page assumes you already know what you want to see and are trying to work out how to fit it in.
Four rules for stringing Mauritius tour places into a day. Follow them and any of the six routes below works. Break the first one and none of them do.
1. One region per day. Not two. The Mauritius tour places worth seeing cluster into four or five geographic groups, and each group is a comfortable day. Chamarel in the morning and Cap Malheureux in the afternoon is four hours of driving for two hours of sightseeing.
2. Start at seven. Every attraction on this island is better before ten and busier after eleven. The coach parties leave the northern hotels between eight and nine and reach the south west around eleven. Be leaving as they arrive.
3. Put the furthest stop first. Drive out, then work your way back. Nobody enjoys the longest leg at five in the afternoon.
4. Build in the rain. From December to March the afternoon showers slow the coast roads noticeably. Do the outdoor stops in the morning and leave the indoor or under cover one for after lunch. Most Mauritius tour places have one of each on the route.
Port Louis at the wrong hour. The capital sits on the only road that connects the north to everywhere else, and between roughly seven and nine in the morning and four and six in the evening it adds twenty to thirty minutes in each direction. Every route below is built to cross it outside those windows.
The busiest and the best. If you do one day of Mauritius tour places, do this one. Everything is within forty minutes of everything else, and none of it is reachable by bus.
These are the four Mauritius tour places everyone wants, and the order matters more than you would think. Grand Bassin first, before the coaches. Then Black River Gorges viewpoint. Then Chamarel Seven Coloured Earths and the waterfall, which share a ticket. Then Le Morne and the public beach, finishing with the light on the mountain.
Reverse it and you arrive at Chamarel at eleven with four coaches, which is the difference between a good day and a queue.
If you are running late, cut Grand Bassin rather than Chamarel. Grand Bassin is a thirty minute stop that rewards an unhurried one; Chamarel is the reason you came, and it outranks every other entry on the Mauritius tour places list for a first visit.
The closest Mauritius tour places to the airport, which makes this the smartest route for an arrival day or the morning before an evening flight. Wilder and much less visited than the coasts most people stay on.
The order that works: Ile aux Aigrettes first, because it is guided and booked to a time slot. Then Mahebourg and the waterfront, with the National History Museum. Then La Vanille Nature Park. Then Gris Gris and the south coast cliffs, finishing at Rochester Falls if there has been rain.
This is the route to take if the forecast is poor. La Vanille and the museum are both under cover, and the coast is dramatic in bad weather rather than ruined by it.
A half day rather than a full one, and the only one of these Mauritius tour places routes that is comfortable by bus. It is also the one most visitors skip, which is a mistake: a morning in the capital tells you more about the country than a week in a resort.
The order that works: Central Market first, early, while it is a working market rather than a tourist one. Then Caudan Waterfront, fifteen minutes walk away, for the Blue Penny Museum and lunch. Then either Pamplemousses Botanical Garden to the north or Trou aux Cerfs and Curepipe to the south, depending on which direction you are heading afterwards.
Do not attempt this and a coastal route on the same day. Port Louis traffic will eat the difference, and these are the two Mauritius tour places routes that overlap least well.
The easiest Mauritius tour places to reach independently, because almost all of it is on a bus line, and the right choice if you are staying in the north and do not want to spend the day in a car.
The order that works: Pamplemousses Botanical Garden first, with a guide at the gate. Then Cap Malheureux and the red roofed church at the northern tip. Then down through Grand Baie for lunch, and finish at Trou aux Biches or Mont Choisy for the afternoon and the sunset.
If you are staying in the north this is barely a tour at all. If you are staying anywhere else it is an hour and a quarter each way, and worth doing as a full day of Mauritius tour places.
A boat day rather than a driving day, and the only entry here where the Mauritius tour places come to you. The departure time is fixed and everything else works around it.
The order that works: Get to Trou d’Eau Douce for the first catamaran departure. The trip usually includes the Grande Riviere Sud Est waterfall, a snorkel stop, lunch on board or on the island, and several hours on Ile aux Cerfs. You are back on the mainland by four.
Go on a weekday. At weekends local families fill the main beach by eleven and the whole thing is a different experience.
From June to September the east coast is windy and trips are cancelled more often. If this is the day you have come for, put it early in your trip so there is room to move it. It is the least reschedulable of all the Mauritius tour places here.
The earliest start of any route here, and the one people are most glad they did. It is also the only entry where the Mauritius tour places have a deadline set by animals rather than opening hours.
The order that works: Leave at five thirty for a six o’clock departure from Tamarin. The resident spinner dolphin pods rest inshore at first light and move out as the boats arrive, so the first departure is the only one worth taking. Most trips continue to Ile aux Benitiers for snorkelling and a beach barbecue, and you are back by early afternoon.
That leaves the afternoon free. Tamarin and Flic en Flac are twenty minutes apart, and Chamarel is thirty five minutes inland, which makes this the one route that can reasonably be combined with part of Route 1 if you still have energy, giving you two sets of Mauritius tour places in a day without crossing the island.
All six routes through the Mauritius tour places side by side. Pick by where you are staying and how much of the day you want to give up.
| Route | Length | Total driving | Best start | By bus | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. South west classic | Full day | About 2 hr 15 | 7:00am | No | First time visitors |
| 2. South and south east | Full day | About 1 hr 30 | 8:00am | Partly | Arrival days and poor weather |
| 3. Port Louis and centre | Half day | About 1 hr 15 | 8:00am | Yes | Culture, markets, rain |
| 4. Northern loop | Full day | About 1 hr | 8:00am | Yes | Staying in the north |
| 5. East and Ile aux Cerfs | Full day | About 1 hr 30 | 7:30am | Difficult | A boat and beach day |
| 6. West and the dolphins | Morning | About 1 hr | 5:30am | No | Wildlife and early risers |
Swipe to see the full table
The pattern in that table is worth reading twice. Route 1 has the most driving and the most to see. Route 4 has the least driving because it stays in one corner. Routes 5 and 6 are dictated by a boat, not by you. And Route 3 is the only one of the Mauritius tour places routes where a bus is genuinely as good as a car.
Every list of Mauritius tour places is additive. Nobody tells you what to leave out, which is the more useful half of the advice when you have five days and a list of twenty things.
Skip anything that needs crossing the island. If a stop sits outside the region you are doing that day, it is not worth it, however good it is. It will be there next trip.
Skip the second waterfall. Chamarel, Rochester and Tamarind are all worth seeing and nobody needs three in a week. Pick the one on the route you are already driving.
Skip the shopping stops. Model ship factories, spice shops and the like get built into coach itineraries because they pay commission, not because anyone asks for them. On a private tour you can simply say no.
Skip Gris Gris if it is calm. The whole point of that stop is the ocean hitting the cliffs. On a flat day it is a car park with a view.
Skip the second boat trip unless they are genuinely different. Ile aux Cerfs in the east and Ile aux Benitiers in the west are different days. Two northern island catamarans in one week are the same day twice.
Do not skip Port Louis. It is the stop most visitors cut and the one they most often say afterwards they wished they had kept. Of all the Mauritius tour places on this page it is the one with the widest gap between reputation and reality.
How the six routes through the Mauritius tour places combine, assuming you also want beach days, which you will.
Route 1 the south west, Route 3 Port Louis as a half day, and Route 5 or 6 for a boat day. That is the island’s greatest hits and it is a genuinely good trip.
Add Route 2 the south east, and Route 4 if you are in the north, or a walking day at Tamarind Falls if you are not. Five is where you stop rushing.
All six routes, spread out, with beach days between them rather than back to back. Do not do two consecutive full days of Mauritius tour places: the second one blurs into the first and you will not remember either.
Route 1. Not close.
Where you are staying changes this. From Flic en Flac on the west coast, Routes 1, 3 and 6 are all within about forty five minutes, which makes it the best base for sightseeing. From Grand Baie in the far north, Route 1 is an hour and forty each way, so it becomes a long day. From Belle Mare on the east, Routes 5 and 3 are easy and the south west is an hour and twenty. Our guide to where to stay has the drive times from every resort area to the main Mauritius tour places.
The south west route: Grand Bassin, Black River Gorges, Chamarel and Le Morne. Everything sits within forty minutes of everything else, none of it is reachable by bus, and it holds the highest concentration of Mauritius tour places on the island.
Three days covers the main Mauritius tour places, five is comfortable and seven lets you add beach days without cutting anything. The limit is driving time rather than the number of things to see.
Partly. Of the Mauritius tour places on this page, Port Louis, Pamplemousses, the north coast, Mahebourg and the main beaches are all on bus routes. Chamarel, Black River Gorges, Grand Bassin, Le Morne and Tamarind Falls are not realistically reachable without a car or a driver.
A hire car is cheaper over a week and gives you freedom. A driver costs more and means nobody in the group has to concentrate on narrow unfamiliar roads, and you can change the plan at eleven o’clock. For one or two sightseeing days a driver usually works out better; for a fortnight, a car does.
Earlier than most people expect. Seven in the morning for the south west Mauritius tour places, five thirty for the west coast dolphin trip, and eight for everything else. Every attraction here is better before ten, and the coach parties reach the south west from the northern hotels around eleven.
No, and attempting it is the most common planning mistake visitors make. Crossing the island twice in a day costs about four hours of driving. Group the Mauritius tour places by region and do one region per day.
The south and south east route holds the Mauritius tour places that work in rain. La Vanille Nature Park and the Mahebourg museum are both under cover, and the unreefed south coast at Gris Gris is more dramatic in rough weather than in calm. Port Louis also works, since the market and Caudan are largely indoors.
Yes, and more so on the east coast. Ile aux Cerfs catamarans and the northern island trips are cancelled in strong wind, which is most common from June to September. Put a boat day early in your trip so there is room to move it.
Every route here is one we run as a private day tour, with hotel pickup, a fixed price agreed before you book, and a driver who knows which stop to do first to miss the coaches. You can change the plan halfway through, which is the one thing a coach tour will never let you do.
See private day toursAbout these figures
Driving times are our own, measured on these routes in normal traffic, and are totals for the route rather than one way. Add 20 to 30 minutes for the Port Louis rush hour and more in heavy rain between January and March. Coach party timings reflect what we see on the road rather than published schedules. Boat departure times and opening hours change, so confirm with each operator before you travel. Cyclone and wind cancellations follow the Mauritius Meteorological Services warnings.
EXPLORE EVERY REGION
North, south, east, west — our tours cover every region in this guide. Hotel pickup included, English-speaking driver, fixed rates from €70.
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