Yes, Réunion is easy to travel independently: it’s safe, signage and trails are excellent, and as a French department it runs on euros and French rules.
The challenge is cost and planning rather than difficulty. Hostels are rare, so expect gîtes and guesthouses at €25 to 35 for a dorm bed or €50 to 80 for a double. Mountain gîtes in
Mafate and on
Le Piton des Neiges (about €45 to 60 with half board) must be booked in advance. A realistic backpacker budget is €55 to 90 a day, and some French helps outside
Saint-Denis and
Saint-Gilles-les-Bains.
Plan 7 to 10 days for Réunion to cover the volcano, one or two cirques and the west coast without rushing; two weeks lets you add a multi-day trek.
Five days gets you
Piton de la Fournaise,
Hell-Bourg and a lagoon swim if you rent a car. Add 2 to 3 days for
Cilaos and
Le Piton des Neiges, and 3 to 4 more for a hut-to-hut walk through
Mafate. Distances are short (Saint-Denis to Saint-Pierre is about 1 hour 15 minutes by car), but mountain roads are slow, clouds roll in by late morning and most hikes start before dawn, so allow one main activity per day.
You can see much of Réunion without a car, since the Car Jaune buses circle the coast for a flat fare of about €2, but the volcano and several high viewpoints need wheels.
Saint-Denis to
Saint-Gilles-les-Bains takes 45 minutes to 1 hour by bus, and Saint-Denis to
Saint-Pierre 1 hour 30 minutes to 2 hours. Local buses climb from Saint-Louis to
Cilaos (about 1 hour 30 minutes) and from Saint-André to
Hell-Bourg (about 1 hour).
Mafate has no roads at all, so you walk in. For
Piton de la Fournaise and
Le Maïdo, join a tour or rent a car for a day or two at €25 to 45 a day.
The essential places in Réunion are
Piton de la Fournaise, at least one of the three cirques, and the reef lagoon on the west coast.
Walk across the lava to the Dolomieu crater rim (5 to 6 hours round trip from Pas de Bellecombe). Spend two nights in
Hell-Bourg or
Cilaos, or trek 2 to 4 days through car-free
Mafate. Swim inside the reef at
L’Hermitage or
Plage de la Saline, and visit
Kélonia in Saint-Leu for the sea turtles. Round it off with an evening in
Saint-Pierre, the liveliest town on the south coast, ideally on a Saturday for the morning market.
If time is short in Réunion, skip the industrial northwest and most of the east coast, and focus on the volcano, one cirque and the lagoon.
Le Port and
La Possession are working towns with little for visitors. The
Aquarium de La Réunion is small compared with snorkeling the real lagoon at L’Hermitage for free.
Sainte-Suzanne and
Sainte-Rose are pleasant but take a full day of driving (about 1 to 2 hours each way from Saint-Gilles) for modest sights. With only 3 to 4 days, pick either
Cilaos or
Salazie rather than both, and leave
Mafate for a return trip with at least three days to spare.
Yes, our itinerary-planner does exactly that. Set your trip length in days, give your interests and travel style, optionally give start- and end location and/or some mandatory stops you would like to include and the itinerary planner creates your personalized routes for Réunion in seconds. Try it out!
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