Nowhere epitomises desert-island escapism quite as magnificently as the Indian Ocean. This region has an obvious advantage — unbeatable screensaver scenery, with palm trees, turquoise seas and bleached blond beaches pretty much standard.
But those Crusoe landscapes are only part of the reason why I’ve been drawn back dozens of times over the years (largely for work, admittedly, but the best kind of work). It is also home to some of the best-designed resorts on the planet, so your Maldivian bedroom may come with a retractable roof letting you fall asleep looking at the stars; or have a massage 8m below the waves at an underwater spa.
Fortunately, chefs enjoy a week on the beach as much as the rest of us and many have Indian Ocean outposts, so I’ve dined at restaurants as good as any in the world’s leading capital cities. Better, arguably — for instance, the contemporary curries of Vineet Bhatia, the father of modern Indian cooking, are only improved by the sultry heat of Mauritius.
There’s top-notch pampering everywhere, but especially in Sri Lanka, where they’ve been practising ancient ayurvedic therapies for almost as long as they have in India. Meanwhile encounters with the giant tortoises in the Seychelles provide an unforgettable Disney-cute moment for children of all ages.
A holiday in paradise doesn’t have to cost a fortune either. Zanzibar has some excellent all-inclusive resorts with prices that shouldn’t prove too spicy, even for a committed bargain hunter.
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The region has been a honeymoon favourite for ever and although hotel and travel companies are starting to set their sights on families and other non-coupley visitors, something the region doesn’t have is fly-by-night fads or trends. It doesn’t need them — the Indian Ocean already has a winning formula.
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Maldives
1. Soneva Secret, Haa Dhaalu
The country’s latest gold standard
Soneva Fushi was the resort that first put the Maldives on the map, introducing the archipelago’s “no news, no shoes” castaway-chic trademark. Since then it has been joined by Soneva Jani, which cemented the brand’s reputation for barefoot brilliance. When it opens in January, Soneva Secret will take the concept two steps further — no neighbours and nothing on the horizon either. Squirrelled away in the super-remote Haa Dhaalu atoll, the 14 villas are so well spaced a brass band could be playing next door and you wouldn’t hear a thing. Each has driftwood decor with 007 touches, such as retractable roofs as well as its own entourage, from personal butlers and chefs to therapists, as well as yoga and dive instructors, all on hand to satisfy every peel-me-a-grape request. The top suite will be the country’s first floating villa, using technology developed during the construction of Hong Kong’s airport.
Details Seven nights’ full board from £15,960pp, including flights and transfers (originaltravel.co.uk)
2. Dhawa Ihuru, North Malé Atoll
Recent opening with easy eating
The beaches in the Maldives are so sizzlingly good it can be hard to leave your sunlounger, even when you’re starving. The team at the zingy new Dhawa Ihuru feels your pain and so has introduced the “Nectar” concept, allowing guests to order Japanese, Indian, Chinese, Maldivian and Mediterranean meals direct to their favourite palm tree. If you prefer conventions such as dining tables and chairs, there’s the beachside Riveli Restaurant. Alternatively, take a free shuttle boat to dine at nearby sister island Banyan Tree Vabbinfaru. To help you work up the requisite appetite, there’s a colourful house reef and a 24-hour gym.
Details Seven nights’ all-inclusive from £2,562pp, including flights and transfers (kenwoodtravel.co.uk)
3. Avani+ Fares, Baa Atoll
New family-friendly stay
The sight of half-eaten rusk ground into the floor can kill the mood for most holidaymakers. The new Avani+ Fares in the Baa Atoll, a Unesco biosphere reserve, appreciates that children don’t always have the best table manners so it has Petit Bistro, a dining club just for kids, as well as six more restaurants for those who can use a knife and fork. There are kids’ and teens’ clubs too, if parents fancy a break. The focus for the progeny-free is the fancy spa, and DJs and fire dancing at after-dark beach parties. All ages will love spotting dolphins in the lagoon and snorkelling with manta rays at Hanifaru Bay.
Details Seven nights’ all-inclusive from £3,487pp, including flights and transfers (destinology.co.uk)
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4. Ozen Life Maadhoo, South Malé Atoll
A truly comprehensive all-in
This is one of the Maldives’ best all-inclusives so you’ll be embedded in luxury without running the risk of a nervous breakdown at the cost of every glass of champagne poolside. There are more bubbles in the complimentary minibar, which is restocked daily (something that many other all-ins charge for). The 90 villas are spacious, with a zesty design and bikes parked outside for outings to the spa or dive centre (again — and even more unusually — included). There is a children’s club and family-friendly sittings in the underwater restaurant; or make friends with the fish during daily snorkelling excursions. And if you’re already frazzled by the school run and the maths homework, there are still some half-term bargains available.
Details Seven nights’ all-inclusive from £3,699pp, including flights and transfers (bestattravel.co.uk)
5. Huvafen Fushi, North Malé Atoll
A revamped old favourite
Huvafen Fushi has been one of the archipelago’s best-loved resorts since it opened in 2004. But popularity takes its toll on paintwork so it closed in May for a top-to-toe refurbishment. It relaunches on November 1 with a new look that, rather appropriately, is less “radical facelift”, more “refreshed after a good holiday”. Villas are minimalist havens but with a warmer palette of lagoon-green teals and Piz-Buin bronzes. Some things don’t need tinkering with. The main draw here will still be a massage in its underwater spa, watching the fish as your aches float away.
Details Seven nights’ B&B from £5,556pp, including flights and transfers (elegantresorts.com)
6. Baros, North Malé Atoll
The Maldives’ grande dame
Baros, the third oldest resort in the Maldives, celebrates its 50th anniversary in December. Those early pioneers had their pick of the prime locations so Baros is built on a former coconut plantation that is particularly lush, with one of the destination’s best house reefs a few fin splashes away, which means it’s ageing even better than Helen Mirren. Five decades’ work has allowed them to get that hospitality thing down to a fine art — slick enough to have gained fans such as Penélope Cruz. The villas are equally sleek, decorated in the shades of the deep blue sea, many with butler service and private pools. Dining is suitably red carpet.
Details Seven nights’ B&B from £3,260pp, including flights and transfers (scottdunn.com)
7. Bandos, North Malé Atoll
Great value spot with easy transfers
Sand and sea do not discriminate between four and five-star resorts, so the scenery on Bandos is as stellar as anywhere in the archipelago but the prices aren’t nearly so sky-high. It is only a ten-minute ferry ride from the capital, Malé, so you will see a fair bit of cargo traffic but that proximity also means a mercifully short transfer after an overnight flight. Rooms are traditional, with thatched ceilings, bare floorboards and simple wooden furniture; many have four-poster beds and outdoor bathrooms. The four restaurants include a Japanese teppanyaki table where a chef slices, dices and cooks in front of you, and one of the three bars is overwater and perfectly perched for the unbeatable sunset views.
Details Seven nights’ B&B from £1,379pp, including flights and transfers (virginholidays.co.uk)
8. Alila Kothaifaru, Raa Atoll
Romantic escape where you meet the locals
Most guests to the Maldives never get to hang out with someone who actually comes from the country. If you’re seeking somewhere that offers more of a cultural immersion, Alila Kothaifaru combines the laid-back luxe of pool villas and a treetop spa with the chance to visit the nearby community of Maduvvaree and have a home-cooked Maldivian lunch with a local family. The resort is good on romantic moments too. This year it has built the Shack on its private sand spit, a classy upgrade on the castaway prototype that’s just for two. Guests arrive by traditional dhoni boat, have a massage and drinks before dinner under the stars.
Details Seven nights’ B&B from £4,274pp, including flights and transfers (fandptravel.com)
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9. Anantara Veli, South Malé Atoll
Adults-only pampering
Anantara Veli has recently emerged from a nine-month renovation and has been reborn as a swanky, adults-only resort where the focus is on wellness. Guests can transform their stylish tropical villa into a private spa sanctuary for the night, with light, sound and scent therapy, ayurvedic spa amenities, in-room yoga and treatments and an “earthing mat” for meditation. The rest of the resort bolsters your emotional health, with first-rate Japanese, Mediterranean, Indian and Thai restaurants, a spa with a hammam, and activities such as cookery classes, beach games and surf lessons, as well as the chance to kick back and watch a film at its cinema under the stars.
Details Seven nights’ half-board from £2,629pp, including flights and transfers. Book by October 14 (ba.com)
Mauritius
10. Constance Prince Maurice, Poste de Flacq
Two holidays in one resort
One side of the resort has the stillness of the bird-filled lagoon; the other designer-clad people-watching at the beach. In between are vast tropical gardens and Constance Prince Maurice, many experts’ top pick for Mauritius. The resort works as well for honeymooners as families. The former will love last-night candlelit dinners on the floating decks of Le Barachois restaurant, overlooking the lagoon and mountains; youngsters will love the kids’ club, which offers everything from manicures to cookery classes. Add an excellent spa, a kitesurfing school, a TikTok-bossing beachfront infinity pool and access to two golf courses at the nearby sister resort Constance Belle Mare Plage and everyone else should be happy too.
Details Seven nights’ B&B from £2,129pp including flights and transfers (tui.co.uk)
11. LUX* Belle Mare
Grande dame gets a reglam
LUX* Belle Mare is the grandest of Mauritian grandes dames, on one of its best beaches, overlooking a glimmering lagoon and with a lush jungle backdrop. The old girl is back at centre stage after a makeover that has added a moodboard of pastels in coral, green and sandy white to its tropical architecture, as well as throwing in some billowing linen for your Insta reels. Thankfully, the trademark LUX* focus on dining and wellness remains intact. There is contemporary Indian cooking by Vineet Bhatia, in the signature restaurant Amari by Vineet, and innovative treatments such as aerial Thai yoga. As the resort is on the windier east coast there are plenty of kitesurfing spots nearby.
Details Seven nights’ B&B from £1,940pp, including flights, transfer and £300 spa and dining credit per room (cazloyd.com)
12. Long Beach, Belle Mare
Take it to the beach
After displaying admirable imagination on their “carefree piazza-style living” concept, the owners clearly ran out of steam when choosing their hotel’s name. Still, Long Beach is an accurate description of the half mile of killer white sand that fronts the resort. Clever design divides the 255 bright and zesty rooms between three hubs, four swimming pools and lush landscaping, giving the welcome impression of boutique intimacy. There are myriad ways to keep active — from football and beach volleyball to golf and nature walks — and almost as many ways to refuel, with Chinese, Japanese and Italian cuisine, and a Mauritian restaurant where you can sink your toes into the sand during candlelit dinners.
Details Seven nights’ all-inclusive from £2,124pp, including flights and transfers (firstchoice.co.uk)
13. Zilwa Attitude, Calodyne
Back to Mauritian roots
“Zilwa” means “islander” in Creole, and the design of Zilwa Attitude — at the northern tip of the island — has been inspired by the traditional wood-and-thatch fishermen’s homes, so it feels more like a local village than a standard resort. Cuisine stays close to home too — its seven restaurants segue through the island’s culinary influences, including Chinese and Indian, but the highlight is probably a casual lunch at Taba-J, which offers a spin on typical Mauritian street-food shacks with its fabulous rotis, faratas, dholl puris and curry of the day (warning: they can be spicy). The 214 rustic rooms are rooted in the region too, sporting the red, blue, yellow and green of the Mauritian flag.
Details Seven nights’ all-inclusive from £1,643pp, including flights and transfers (kuoni.co.uk)
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Seychelles
14. Four Seasons Resort Seychelles at Desroches Island
Private island sophistication
If you can’t decide between the naturally lush beaches of the Seychelles and the Maldives, the island of Desroches is a classy compromise. It has the dreamy Seychellois jade-green jungle and Jurassic Park-style wildlife, but it also has eight miles of pearl-white beaches and pristine reefs. Design for the Four Seasons’ 71 villas and suites draws on Creole heritage and colonial influences, so you’ll feel like very posh pirates. Active options include all the usual suspects — paddleboarding, kayaking, diving, sunrise and sunset yoga — and you also get to meet the 150 resident Aldabra giant tortoises.
Details Seven nights’ all-inclusive from £6,620pp, including flights and transfers (elegantresorts.com)
15. Constance Ephelia, Mahé
All-action resort
If you are more busy bee than sunlounger lizard, punch Constance Ephelia into your holiday sat nav. There are water sports, tennis, squash, rock-climbing, diving and snorkelling in the national marine park of Port Launay, access to two golf courses and zip lines strung over the forest canopy. That should surely tire you out enough to flop at one of its five pools, two boulder-strewn beaches or huge spa. There are 313 rooms sprinkled throughout the resort’s 290 tropical acres and five bars and six restaurants to cover all your culinary whims.
Details Seven nights’ half-board from £3,242pp, including flights and transfers (abercrombieandkent.co.uk)
16. Mango House, Mahé
Picture-perfect boutique
While on a Vogue shoot in the Seventies the fashion photographer Gian Paolo Barbieri found the skinny beach and sexy drape of jungle at Anse aux Poules Bleues so irresistible that he bought a plot and built Mango House. Now converted into an adults-only boutique hideaway, Barbieri’s artiness prevails in mementoes dotted throughout the original building, while the photogenic 41 rooms have muslin-draped four-poster beds framing distant misty mountains. The resort is in a corner of southwest Mahé that has barely changed since the snapper’s day — it is low-key, lush and popular with locals visiting its trio of restaurants, including Moutya, where Creole dishes are cooked in coconut husks over coals.
Details Seven nights’ B&B from £2,799pp, including flights and transfers (turquoiseholidays.co.uk)
17. Raffles Seychelles, Praslin
Spa-lover central
Raffles Seychelles offers an adorable David Attenborough moment: the chance to meet the resort’s 100-year-old Aldabra tortoises. But you can also explore and improve your inner world at its stress-busting spa. The dozen treatment pavilions built into the hillside’s greenery are open-air, so the sea breezes and ocean waves add some nature-based therapy to the intricate pearl and caviar facials, t’ai chi-balancing massages and wildflower-strewn candlelit bathing rituals. The 86 tropically modern villas are also wedged into that steep hillside, so they have the same to-die-for outlook onto the bay. Most have plunge pools where you can extend your spa soaks, and all have butler service to ensure that your martinis are expertly shaken or stirred while you stay nicely chilled.
Details Seven nights’ half-board from £4,045pp, including flights and transfers (inspiringtravel.co.uk)
Sri Lanka
18. The Fort Printers, Galle
Original 18th-century features in atmospheric town
This converted 18th-century mansion, formerly owned by a printing company, makes the ideal boutique base in the world heritage town of Galle. On a prime spot on Pedlar Street, it’s in the thick of the cool indie fashion stores and laid-back restaurants that have made the old Dutch quarter of the south coast’s port city a magnet for digital nomads. Rooms in the main building have a pared-back minimalist aesthetic that works beautifully with their original beams and antique hardwood floors, while more contemporary suites are dotted in villas down the road. There’s a dinky pool and a frangipani-filled courtyard for relaxed seafood suppers.
Details B&B doubles from £175 (thefortprinters.com). Fly to Colombo
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19. Lunuganga Country Estate, Bentota
The modernist architect’s house
It’s impossible to get more than three sentences into a Sri Lanka guidebook without finding a mention of the local architect Geoffrey Bawa, whose indoor-outdoor tropical modernism style is still much copied 20 years after his death. Lunuganga is the 15-acre rubber plantation that he transformed over four decades into his wildly romantic private home. It’s a tourist sight in its own right but once the day-trippers have gone you get its whimsical gardens and misty lake to yourself and a choice of ten characterful bedrooms including Bawa’s old suite and Cinnamon Hill, a secluded outbuilding with alfresco bathroom. The estate is pin-drop quiet but the bustle, beaches and bars of the popular west-coast Bentota resort are only a short tuk-tuk ride away.
Details B&B doubles from £125 (teardrop-hotels.com). Fly to Colombo
20. Amba Estate, near Ella
Plantation escape
Perched above the Ravana Ella waterfall in an unspoilt valley, this is the place to dunk your traditional Sri Lankan gnanakatha cookies in your tea. You can enjoy tours of the organic tea plantation, tastings of its artisanal brews, tea and food pairing workshops, and the chance to pick and process your own batch of tea. Cheerful rooms are divided between a 100-year-old farmhouse, old tea pickers’ quarters and a 1930s planter’s bungalow. A stay is the highlight of a tour that also includes a tea-themed trek along the Pekoe Trail, passing eucalyptus forests, Buddhist temples and waterfalls, a scenic train ride from Kandy to Ella and time on the beach at Tangalle.
Details Eight nights’ B&B from £2,895pp, including flights, transfers, some extra meals and carbon contribution (experiencetravelgroup.com)
21. Santani Wellness, Werapitiya
Tea and therapy
Vickum Nawagamuwage is a former global consultant for Deloitte who was one memo away from burnout when he called time and returned home to set up Santani Wellness. His spaceship-sleek wellness retreat on a former tea plantation near Kandy plugs you back into nature for a subtle reboot. Yoga is riverside, mountain biking and hiking are through lush jungles and afterwards ayurvedic doctors advise on personalised treatments. Rooms that are more modern meditation caves with views over the craggy Knuckles mountains further encourage decompression. Meals are nutritionally balanced and, of course, there’s plenty of tea and sympathy.
Details Seven nights’ full board from £3,329pp, including flights, transfers and treatments (healingholidays.com)
Rest of Indian Ocean
22. Fanjove, Songo Songo archipelago, Tanzania
Island castaway fantasy
OK, Fanjove is hardly cheap, but it is miles more affordable than Mnemba, Tanzania’s only other private-island resort, which is so wildly expensive that it’s in the “Is that Bill Gates at the bar?” category. What’s more, Fanjove is looking the real Crusoe-with-knobs-on deal right now after a complete rebuild that’s given extra castaway oomph to its ten thatched shoreline villas and open-air restaurant. There are sunset dhow cruises and sundowners at the 19th-century lighthouse; otherwise it’s wildlife rather than nightlife, thanks to pristine coral reefs and seas full of spinner dolphins and green turtles.
Details Seven nights’ all-inclusive from £4,645pp, including flights and transfers (expertafrica.com)
23. Mantis Soanambo Hotel, Île St Marie, Madagascar
Fishing-village escapism
Locals also call the island Nosy Boraha; holidaymakers will be delighted to call this dot off the northeast coast of Madagascar home — it’s 85 sq miles of utter heaven. Its empty beaches and sleepy fishing villages epitomise slow-lane living, while the eco-focused Mantis Soanambo helps to apply the brakes too, with 48 pared-back rooms in tropical gardens. This is the place to be between July and September, when humpback whales pass through the channel between Île St Marie and the mainland to their breeding grounds. Year-round on Île aux Nattes, accessible only by dugout canoe, a network of trails lead to even sleepier villages and emptier beaches.
Details Eight nights’ B&B from £1,595pp, including flights and transfers (steppestravel.com)
24. Emerald Zanzibar, Matemwe, Tanzania
Moorish marine park all-inclusive
The image of Zanzibar’s all-inclusive resorts as a bit tacky is changing thanks to properties such as Emerald Zanzibar, standing on Muyuni beach within a protected marine park where you can see surgeonfish and snappers among the corals. The low-rise Moorish design in its 250 suites, inspired by the island’s Arabic history, features atmospheric dark woods and latticework. They’re spacious enough to sleep three, and a child sharing with two adults can stay and eat for free. The spa also nods to heritage with a Zanzi Island Spice ritual that uses local coffee, cinnamon and orange for a lively scrub and massage.
Details Seven nights’ all-inclusive from £1,229pp, including flights (awayholidays.co.uk)
25. Pole Pole, Mafia Island, Tanzania
Stick to the slow lane
Here’s an offer you can’t refuse: Mafia Island is less touristy than Zanzibar, less expensive than the Maldives and home to the small but perfectly formed Pole Pole eco lodge. “Pole” means “slow” in Swahili, and this place takes the term seriously. Activities tend to be snail-paced, so think walks to Arab ruins and local villages or daily snorkelling excursions. The nine timber bungalows are decorated with Swahili fabrics and antique furniture, and are a hop and a skip from the azure waters of Chole Bay — actually, make that more of a shuffle; this place doesn’t encourage moving fast.
Details Seven nights’ full board from £2,603pp, including flights and transfers (aardvarksafaris.com)
Which is your favourite hotel in the Indian Ocean? Let us know in the comments below
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