Reunion Island 6 Day Itinerary

Reunion Island 6-Day Travel Itinerary

Piton de la Fournaise has been erupting on and off since January 2026, with the alert level raised more than once as lava output increased. It is one of the most active volcanoes on earth and the eruptions themselves rarely threaten anyone, the caldera is uninhabited, but any itinerary that treats a summit hike as a guaranteed activity hasn’t checked the current alert status. Build in flexibility here and confirm access with the Observatoire Volcanologique before you commit a day to it.

Day 1: Arrival & Exploring Saint-Denis

Fly into Roland Garros Airport, Reunion’s only real gateway, and pick up a rental car there rather than in town, agencies including Jumbo Car, Sixt, Hertz, and Europcar all operate directly from the terminal and airport rates here run competitive with or cheaper than city pickup, sometimes from as little as 17 euros a day for smaller vehicles. You’ll want the car for the rest of the trip, public transport barely reaches the interior of the island.

Reunion is an overseas department of France and uses the euro, and it is worth knowing explicitly that Reunion is not part of the Schengen zone, a standard Schengen visa does not automatically cover it unless the visa sticker specifically says valid for Reunion Island. EU and EEA citizens travel visa-free with just an ID card or passport, most other visitors from around 85 countries also get short visa-free stays, but it’s worth double-checking your specific nationality before booking flights.

Settle into Saint-Denis, the capital, and spend the afternoon at Notre-Dame-des-Victoires Basilica and the surrounding Creole-era colonial streets before wandering a local market for fruit and spices you won’t find priced the same way back home. For dinner, look for a restaurant serving a proper carri, Reunion’s Creole curry built around turmeric, ginger, and garlic rather than the standard sauce base you’d expect from mainland French cooking, it’s the island’s actual signature dish and a better first meal than anything more generic.

Day 2: Saint-Paul & the West Coast

Drive down to Saint-Paul in the morning, one of the island’s oldest settlements and home to a lively Friday market, adjust the day if you can time it right. Anse des Cascades, further south near Sainte-Rose, is worth the detour for a swim among coconut palms and small waterfalls right at the coast, a genuinely photogenic spot that doesn’t get the crowds of the main beaches. In the afternoon, head into one of the island’s cloud forest reserves in the highlands above Saint-Paul for a proper hike through dense, humid vegetation, bring real hiking shoes, the trails get slick fast after rain, which happens often at elevation here.

For dinner in Saint-Paul, seek out a small Creole bistro rather than the beachfront tourist restaurants, prices drop and the cooking gets noticeably more authentic once you’re a couple of streets back from the water.

Day 3: Cirque de Salazie toward Mafate

Drive up into Cirque de Salazie, the greenest and wettest of the island’s three volcanic amphitheaters, stopping in Hell-Bourg, regularly ranked among the most beautiful villages in France, and Grand Îlet, where the paved road ends. From there, the trailhead to Col des Boeufs is your entry point on foot into Cirque de Mafate. No road serves Mafate’s interior at all, it is reachable only by hiking, there are no cars, no buses, no shortcuts, and it’s genuinely wilder and less forgiving than the other two cirques. Confirm your route in advance, one common 4x4 access track toward Rivière des Galets has been closed indefinitely, so don’t count on driving any part of this leg.

Most day hikers push toward Marla or La Nouvelle, each roughly two to two and a half hours in on foot from the trailhead. Book a gîte, the mountain lodges scattered through the cirque, well ahead of time, they fill fast in the May to November dry season and running rates land around 45 to 85 euros a night including simple meals. Stay overnight in Mafate itself rather than trying to day-trip it, the whole appeal of the place is being there once the tour groups have left.

Day 4: Sunrise in Mafate & On to Cilaos

Get up before dawn for the view over the cirque, the light through the peaks here is one of the best free sights on the island and worth losing sleep over. Spend the morning hiking back out, then drive on toward Cilaos, the third and driest of the three cirques, known for its thermal springs, its lentil crops, and a mountain road with over four hundred hairpin turns that locals treat as entirely normal and visitors treat as an event.

Settle into a hotel in Cilaos for the night and, if your legs have any energy left, walk into town for the local lentils, grown almost nowhere else on the island and a point of genuine regional pride, served simply with rice and carri.

Day 5: Piton de la Fournaise & Saint-Leu

Check the current eruption status and alert level before heading toward Piton de la Fournaise, conditions here can change within days and access to the crater rim closes without much notice when activity increases. If conditions allow, a guided visit to the Pas de Bellecombe viewpoint over the caldera is worth the early start regardless of whether you can hike further in, the volcanic landscape alone, black lava fields against green highland further out, doesn’t need an active eruption to be worth seeing.

Head to Saint-Leu on the west coast in the afternoon for a complete change of scenery, one of the better beaches on the island and a relaxed base for fresh seafood, grilled fish with a Creole rougail sauce is the move here over anything trying too hard to be French bistro food.

Day 6: Departure

Use the morning for any last errands, a final market stop, or simply resting after a physically demanding few days, then return the rental car and head to Roland Garros for departure. Build extra time into the return drive if you’re coming from the east side of the island, the coastal road can back up around Saint-Denis at peak commuting hours, and missing a flight over a traffic jam is a genuinely avoidable way to end a good trip.