Trip Planning
The TakeYourBackpack guidebooks are your all-in-one travel companion, featuring the best cities, national parks, hikes, beaches, and unique sites, along with essential tips on when to go, how to get around, exchanging money, and even local phrases to get you started — everything you need for a smooth, unforgettable backpacking adventure.
Stop researching. Start exploring.Discover all 64 highlights,ranked
and organized into practical routes.
Get instant access
Planning a backpacking route through Réunion can be tricky — you need to balance must-see places, travel times, budget, and how long to stay in each destination. Our free personalized Réunion itinerary planner creates a route based on your travel style, trip duration, and interests, so you can spend less time researching and more time exploring.
Personal tip: I normally search on good rating for atmosphere (for meeting people) and location (for easy exploring). Cleanliness as a bonus.
Travel Essentials
No vaccinations are compulsory for Réunion unless you arrive from a country with yellow fever risk, which requires a yellow fever certificate. Make sure routine vaccines (MMR, tetanus-diphtheria-polio) are up to date, and hepatitis A and B are commonly recommended. Réunion has seen dengue and large chikungunya outbreaks, so ask a travel clinic about the chikungunya vaccine and pack strong mosquito repellent, because there is no vaccine against dengue for most travelers.
vaccination requirementsWhen I first started traveling, I often spent part of my first day in a new country hunting for a local SIM card. While this can still be slightly cheaper, it also takes time and planning.
These days, it's much simpler to install an eSIM before leaving home. Once you arrive in Réunion, you can activate it immediately and have mobile data from the moment you land — which is especially useful for ordering transport or navigating away from busy airports.
There are many providers nowadays, and price differences are usually small. I personally go with
Holafly, as it offers excellent network coverage throughout the country and strong global coverage, so you can manage multiple countries from a single app.
HolaFly eSimCulture & Customs
Réunion mixes Creole, Tamil (Malbar), Muslim (Zarab), Chinese and mainland French communities, and respect for that blend is the core of local etiquette. Do remove your shoes and cover shoulders and knees before entering a Tamil temple or mosque, and ask before photographing ceremonies such as fire-walking or temple processions. Do accept an offered glass of rhum arrangé or plate of food, as refusing outright can seem cold. Don’t treat locals as exotic or lump everyone together as French, and avoid loud comparisons with mainland France. Topless sunbathing is less accepted than in mainland France, and swimming outside supervised lagoon zones ignores shark warnings that locals take seriously. Women may get occasional comments but rarely more. Gay couples are legally protected, though public affection draws more stares in rural and religious communities than in Saint-Gilles.
Trying traditional food is always a great way to experience the culture. Here are some must-try dishes for Réunion.
- Rougail saucisse: Smoked sausages simmered with tomato, onion, garlic, ginger and chili, served with white rice, red beans or lentils and a fiery chili condiment. It’s the everyday Sunday dish of the island, on every family table and snack-bar menu.
- Cari: The Creole take on curry, built on turmeric (called safran péi), garlic, onion and thyme. Chicken, pork, fish or octopus (cari zourite) are the classics, always eaten with rice, grains and rougail. Its spice blend shows the island’s Indian, African and French roots in one pot.
- Rougail morue or rougail tomate: Rougail also means a raw relish of chopped tomato, onion, ginger and chili, and rougail morue cooks salt cod in that mix. It shows how imported salt cod became a Creole staple.
- Bouchons and samoussas: Bouchons are steamed pork dumplings of Chinese origin, sold by the half-dozen with soy sauce, and samoussas are crisp triangles stuffed with spiced cheese, chicken or tuna. Both are the go-to cheap snack from roadside stalls and markets.
- Gratin de chouchou: A creamy baked gratin of chayote, the pale green squash grown in huge quantities around Salazie and Hell-Bourg. It’s the signature dish of the cirques.
- Achards: Lightly pickled vegetables (cabbage, carrot, green beans) with turmeric, ginger and chili. They are served as a side with almost every cari and are a direct link to the island’s Indian heritage.
- Rhum arrangé: Local cane rum steeped for months with vanilla, fruit, spices or herbs. Most families and restaurants make their own, and a small glass after dinner is a classic gesture of hospitality.
Tap water in Réunion is treated to French standards and generally safe in the main towns, and many locals drink it, though plenty of households still buy bottled water. Quality varies by commune and drops after heavy rain or cyclones, when boil-water advisories are issued, so check local notices and switch to bottled water during those times. Never drink untreated water from streams or mountain springs, where leptospirosis is a real risk, and carry a filter bottle for long hikes.
The main language in Réunion is
Réunion Creole. Backpacking is way more rewarding if you know a bit of the local language, so I'd suggest brushing up on the basics just in case your Réunion Creole skills have become a bit rusty.
Want to understand locals better?The complete Travel Guide for Réunion includes 52 essential words and phrases — greetings, thank-yous, ordering food, transport, numbers, and common local expressions you'll actually hear.
Get your local basic phrases 👉
Get the Travel Guide - is limited in Réunion. In Saint-Denis, Saint-Gilles and Saint-Pierre, some hotel staff, dive shops and younger people manage basic conversation, and hostel or gîte owners used to foreign hikers often speak a little. In the cirques and rural east, expect French and Réunion Creole only. French is the language that helps most, so download Google Translate’s offline French pack and learn bonjour, merci, combien and the numbers before you land.
Money & Payments
The local currency of Réunion is EUR (€).
Réunion uses the euro, so bring euros or simply withdraw them on arrival. ATMs (distributeurs) are easy to find in every coastal town, supermarket and at the airport, and Cilaos and Hell-Bourg each have one or two, but there are none in the Cirque de Mafate, so carry enough cash for several days of gîtes and meals there. Local machines usually charge no fee themselves, though your home bank may add a foreign withdrawal fee of around €2 to 5, and euro-zone cards avoid conversion costs entirely. Visa and Mastercard work in supermarkets, most restaurants, hotels, car rentals and petrol stations, while market stalls, roadside snack bars, small gîtes and buses often take cash only. US dollars are of little use, and if you must exchange them, use a bank or the airport exchange counter rather than anyone offering a rate on the street.
Tipping in Réunion is appreciated but never expected, since French law includes service in restaurant and café prices. Locals usually round up or leave €1 to 2 for good table service, and around 5 to 10 percent at a nicer restaurant is generous. Hiking or canyoning guides and gîte hosts appreciate a small tip of about €5 to 10 if they went the extra mile, while taxi drivers usually just get the fare rounded up.
v2.webp){kind=logo}
Best Backpacking.jpg)
Over the years, I've learned the importance of packing minimally. It's so much easier to jump on the back of a truck or squeeze yourself into the last spot of a minibus without that supersized backpack. If you're headed to a warm destination, leave your winter jacket at home; for colder regions, opt for thin thermal underlayers. Instead of packing your entire wardrobe, bring just three sets of clothes, as laundry facilities are available everywhere.
.jpg)
Hi, I’m Johan (Netherlands 🇳🇱), the creator of TakeYourBackpack. Over the past 3 decades, I’ve backpacked through 90+ countries across six continents, gaining extensive experience with independent travel, long-term trips, and overland routes.