Réunion in 5 Days

This five-day loop suits active travelers who want the volcano, a cirque and the lagoon coast in one trip, and who are fine with early alarms and a steady but unhurried pace. It needs a rental car (roughly €25 to 45 a day): the Car Jaune buses cover the coast and a local bus from Saint-André climbs to Salazie, but nothing public reaches Pas de Bellecombe or the Bélouve forest road, and the order below only works if you can leave at 5 a.m.

Day 1: Saint-Denis to Hell-Bourg

Land at Roland Garros in the morning and give Saint-Denis three or four hours: walk Rue de Paris for the Creole villas with their lace-edged verandas, grab samoussas at the Grand Marché, then cross to the Barachois seafront where the old cannons face the swell. Drive east around 40 minutes to Bras-Panon, the island’s vanilla town, where the Provanille cooperative explains how every flower is still pollinated by hand. From Saint-André the road climbs into the Cirque de Salazie, and you’ll pull over at La Cascade du Voile … read more 👉

This five-day loop suits active travelers who want the volcano, a cirque and the lagoon coast in one trip, and who are fine with early alarms and a steady but unhurried pace. It needs a rental car (roughly €25 to 45 a day): the Car Jaune buses cover the coast and a local bus from Saint-André climbs to Salazie, but nothing public reaches Pas de Bellecombe or the Bélouve forest road, and the order below only works if you can leave at 5 a.m.

Day 1: Saint-Denis to Hell-Bourg

Land at Roland Garros in the morning and give Saint-Denis three or four hours: walk Rue de Paris for the Creole villas with their lace-edged verandas, grab samoussas at the Grand Marché, then cross to the Barachois seafront where the old cannons face the swell. Drive east around 40 minutes to Bras-Panon, the island’s vanilla town, where the Provanille cooperative explains how every flower is still pollinated by hand. From Saint-André the road climbs into the Cirque de Salazie, and you’ll pull over at La Cascade du Voile de la Mariée, a series of thin falls dropping straight down the green wall next to the road. Sleep in Hell-Bourg.

Day 2: Hell-Bourg and the Trou de Fer

This is the big walk of the trip, so you sleep in the same bed two nights. From Hell-Bourg a steep forest trail climbs about 600 meters to the Bélouve gîte, then a mostly boardwalked path runs through tamarind and tree ferns to the viewpoint over the Trou de Fer, a sinkhole-like gorge where several waterfalls pour into a slot roughly 300 meters deep. Budget 6 to 7 hours round trip and be at the viewpoint before 11 a.m., when cloud usually fills it. In the evening, wander Hell-Bourg’s lanes of painted cases and the ruins of the old thermal baths.

Days 3-4: The Plaines and Piton de la Fournaise

Day three is deliberately light. Drive back down and around via Saint-Benoît and up the Route des Plaines (about 1 hour 30 minutes) through La Plaine-des-Palmistes, cool and misty with roadside fruit stalls. Continue to Bourg-Murat for the Cité du Volcan, the best place on the island to understand what you’ll walk on tomorrow, and sleep nearby in Le Tampon’s upland hamlets to cut the morning drive to 45 minutes. On day four leave before dawn, cross the rust-red Plaine des Sables and start the Piton de la Fournaise hike from Pas de Bellecombe: around 5 to 6 hours round trip across fresh lava to the Dolomieu crater rim. Check the prefecture’s access status the night before, as the trail closes during eruptions. Descend to Saint-Pierre for a seafront dinner and a night by the lagoon.

Day 5: South to West Coast

Start at the Saga du Rhum at the Isautier distillery just outside Saint-Pierre, then drive 25 minutes to Étang-Salé for a walk on black volcanic sand. Finish with a swim inside the reef at L’Hermitage, under the casuarina trees, before the 50-minute drive to the airport.

If you have a spare hour on the south coast, the Langevin river’s Cascade de Grand Galet near Saint-Joseph is a quiet, deep green pool a short drive up the Langevin valley.