French Polynesia vs Seychelles

Cost

We can only give you half of this honestly, and the missing half is the expensive one.

Seychelles, checked 16 July 2026: an inexpensive restaurant meal is SCR265. A three-course dinner for two at a mid-range restaurant is SCR1,305. A pint of domestic draught is SCR110. That dataset is thin — 130 entries from 16 contributors over twelve months — so treat it as indicative rather than exact.

For French Polynesia we have no sourced prices at all. It is not covered by the cost-of-living dataset the rest of this directory uses, and we would rather say that than repeat a figure we cannot stand behind. What we can tell you without guessing is that the territory prices in CFP francs and that everything beyond Tahiti involves a domestic flight or a ferry, which is a cost Seychelles' inter-island hops do not carry in the same way.

Getting there

Both are one-gateway countries, and both make you connect onward.

Seychelles: Seychelles International on Mahé, then a domestic flight or ferry to Praslin and La Digue. Entry needs an Electronic Travel Authorisation obtained BEFORE you depart — this catches people out, because there is no visa and it is easy to assume there is nothing to do. It applies to every traveller, including anyone arriving by sea. A Visitor's Permit is then issued on arrival for up to three months, extendable in three-month blocks to a maximum of twelve, against a return ticket, confirmed accommodation and sufficient funds.

French Polynesia: Faa'a on Tahiti, then a domestic flight or ferry onward. French and EU citizens need no visa and many other nationalities are exempt for tourist stays under three months; a valid passport is required in every case.

The beaches

Seychelles' inner islands are granitic — the boulder formations sitting on the sand at La Digue and Praslin are why these are among the most photographed beaches anywhere, and they are public and walkable.

French Polynesia's draw is the lagoon rather than the sand: the reef-ringed water the overwater bungalow was invented over. The tourism board names May to October as the period offering the clearest conditions for diving and snorkelling, and November to April as when the lagoon water is at its warmest — so there is a genuine trade between visibility and temperature that most destinations do not force.

Put simply: Seychelles rewards walking on sand, French Polynesia rewards being in water.

In this directory: French Polynesia has 2 beaches listed, 2 rated calm for swimming. Seychelles has 2, 1 calm.

In the water

French Polynesia's lagoon runs 27-29°C depending on season, warmest November to April, with air temperatures of 20-30°C year-round. Humpback whales migrate through between August and November and guided excursions run to see them — a fixed, datable draw that Seychelles has no equivalent of.

Seychelles is warm year-round and swimmable in every month. We do not have month-by-month figures for it from a source we trust, so this page will not put numbers on it.

When to go

This is the section that decides most of these trips.

French Polynesia splits into the Season of Renewal, May to October — the dry season, cooler at 21-27°C, lower humidity, clearest water — and the Season of Abundance, November to April, humid with tropical showers heaviest December to February. The showers are generally brief and followed by clear skies, and the lagoon is warmest then, so the wet season is a trade rather than a write-off.

Seychelles inverts it: on the inner islands the dry season runs December to April and the wet season June to October. The difference between the two is mainly wind and rainfall rather than temperature.

So a January trip points at Seychelles and a July trip points at French Polynesia, and that is usually the end of the argument.

Beyond the beach

Neither is a large country with a lot behind the coast, but they are differently shaped.

Seychelles puts three genuinely distinct islands within one week: Mahé with the airport and the capital, Praslin, and La Digue. The moving between them is part of the trip.

French Polynesia's range is wider but further apart. The Marquesas are described by the tourism board as a year-round cultural destination rather than a seasonal beach one, which is a real alternative to the lagoon holiday — but it is a serious domestic flight away from Tahiti.