3 Best things to see & do in Mauritius

The wild, enigmatic bottlenose and spinner dolphins found in Tamarin Bay have become a popular attraction in Mauritius – and let’s be honest, who doesn’t like dolphins? Excursions allow people of all ages to watch them frolicking in the bay, and some excursions offer the opportunity to swim with them here. Visibility is excellent, often up to 40m, so you can see them cleary underwater.

Other goodies can be thrown in, like a BBQ lunch on a deserted island, snorkelling on reefs, and even whale watching – sperm and (depending on the time of year) humpback whales are present.

If you don’t want to swim, you can always take a sailboat excursion to Ile aux Benitiers, which takes you to see dolphins in the wild, then moors up for a BBQ lunch and diving/snorkelling on a coral reef.

The west coast of Mauritius is a relatively unknown whale-watching destination, but offers great whale watching all year round in a pleasantly warm climate.

Squid-hunting sperm whales are here all year round; they live in groups of 10-20, reach 18m and can live 60-70 years. Playful humpbacks, that can reach 14m and enjoy breaching in front of tourists, can be spotted from July to September, when they return to warmer waters from the Southern Ocean to breed and reproduce. Pilot whales and Gray’s beaked whales and Blainville’s beaked whales can also be seen from July to November.

Whale watching in Mauritius is usually paired with dolphin swimming on a full day tour that will include, and a beach stop for a BBQ lunch and snorkelling on local reefs. Not a bad day’s work!

Set on its own island, this beautiful course is the epitome of a golfing idyll. The island itself – the Ile Aux Cerfs – is impossibly beautiful, a perfect tropical picture of blindingly white sand and lush vegetation framed by aquamarine waters. And it’s here that golf legend Bernhard Langer created a stunner of a championship course

The undulating terrain wends its way through volcanic outcrops, lakes and gullies. Every hole has a view of the Indian Ocean. This is pure golfing indulgence – it’s like playing golf at the private course of a Bond villain (minus the attempts at world domination).