“Where do you want to go on our honeymoon?” I ask. “What do you mean? That’s a secret. The groom gifts a surprise honeymoon to the bride I thought. Isn’t that a thing?” Jake responds. “No, that’s definitely not a thing haha. But let’s go with it since you thought so,” I say.

Jake proposed in October 2024 and for an entire year he had me going on a storyline about how we were going to East Texas for our honeymoon. He had even researched activities for us to do like helicopter hog hunting and armadillo bowling. The former, I later learned, is a real thing. His story became so elaborate at one point that it dawned on him that if we weren’t to actually go to East Texas for our honeymoon that I might in fact be sad because he had talked it up so much (my spirits are easily crushed when I build up excitement). I went all in on the surprise and let him keep the destination from me until the last leg of our flight. Lucky, packing was easy as the temperature was the same as Texas! The humidity, we later found out, was not.

It truly wasn’t until the last leg of our flight that I found out we were going to The Seychelles! From our wedding in Utah, our first leg was to Seattle, then over to Doha. At that point the options of where we could go were limited. The Seychelles were definitely on my list but Jake kept trying to confuse me with each of my guesses. Finally, after a very long travel day, Victoria (the capital) appeared on the reader board and I couldn’t be happier.

The Seychelles is one of those “random” places in the world that I imagine very few people would ever come across. We would come to find out that this place is only random to Americans as it’s quite common for Europeans (primarily Germans, British, French and Russian) to visit. We were told from each local we interacted with that they could count on two hands how many Americans they’d run into each year, compared to the hundreds of each European nation represented.

The Seychelles consists of 115 islands but of those, three are visited most frequently (Mahé, Praslin and La Digue). Those three are accessible by ferry and offer wonderful diversity between them, plus all the amenities that could be expected on an island getaway. A plethora of other islands are accessible from those three main islands through snorkeling/scuba diving tours or even private yacht charters.

Upon landing in Victoria, we took one last flight to the island of Praslin. It was a 15 minute flight at 3,000 ft. elevation with a plane that looked straight out of WW2. It could barely fit 12 people but we had ample space as our flight carried just 7 people that day. We had finally arrived after 29 hours of total travel time.

It took another 15 minutes or so to get our car rental and we were off to our first Airbnb-type home. Most accommodations in The Seychelles are either extremely nice resorts, including a few exclusive ones that require a private helicopter to get to, or normal homes that can be rented through Booking.com. We chose the latter.

We took a short 2 hour nap midday and then went to our first beach, in hopes of keeping awake and beating the jet lag. We laid down to sunbathe and relax in the overly comfortable tropical environment, only for me to promptly fall asleep again. Luckily Jake woke me up not long after so I didn’t sunburn on our first day!

After our first dinner we finally got to go to sleep for real and slept for 11 hours! Jet lag = gone. From there we were off to the races! We had 3 wonderful days on Praslin visiting various beaches. “Anse” means cove or bay in French so The Seychelles is covered in “anses”. Grand Anse, Anse Lazio, Anse Georgette, Anse Volbert, and Anse Boudin were the ones we visited with Anse Georgette being the prettiest of all. There’s a hike from Anse Lazio to Anse Georgette that takes about 1.5 hours so maybe it was the entire experience that made Anse Georgette so rewarding as it’s slightly secluded and a welcomed surprise after such a hike.

We also walked through Vallée de Mai, a forest preserve with Coco de Mer palm trees which produce the world’s heaviest and largest seeds. The locals said they look like a woman’s bottom, which all tourists get a kick out of.

Right next to Vallée de Mai is the Glacis Noire Nature Trail, which leads to a lookout with views over the island. It’s a wonderful way to get that bird’s eye view if you don’t have a drone.

We did most of our exploring on our own, but we did pay for a snorkeling tour that included a stop to the island of Curieuse, which is home to a giant tortoise sanctuary with hundreds of tortoises. This was one of the best experiences from our entire trip! I could have stayed here all day playing with my dinosaur-esk friends. The tortoises are fun to interact with and feed leaves. Some might even follow you around. The snorkeling portion of the tour included two stops with plenty of ocean creatures and coral to explore.

The final day on Praslin we took a little dinghy to a tiny private island that is held by a hotel called Chauve Souris Relais. Chauve Souris means bat and there were a few fruit bats that could easily be seen flying above. They’re “cute” as far as bats go because they have a golden fur and fly more majestically than other bats but they stay far above the hotel in the canopy of trees so they are nothing more than a source of entertainment.

The hotel was entertaining, with convenient snorkeling right outside your door, as well as an on-island restaurant. The buildings were built sparing no expense with ornate ceilings and room layouts. It truly felt like a getaway and it was a place that I was sad to leave.

After three days on Praslin it was time for us to head to our next major island, La Digue!

*To enjoy a video recap of Praslin, be sure to read this from the blog page itself as it doesn’t load through email.