Twelve days on Mauritius without playing a single round

We are asked this more often than anything else, and almost always quietly, at the end of a conversation: what will she do while I play? Sometimes it is he. Sometimes both play, but not every day. The question is always the same, and the short answer is that Mauritius is a holiday island first and a golf island a long way second. People come here without ever picking up a club.

Here are twelve days without a single round. It is not a schedule — nobody should have to perform on holiday — but it shows what the island actually holds.

The first days: do nothing

The flight lands in the morning after a night in the air. In our experience, those who try to fill day one regret it on day three. The beach, the pool, a long lunch, an early dinner. Let your body catch up.

Day two can happily be just as empty. Constance Belle Mare Plage and Heritage Le Telfair both have a spa worth a morning in itself, and the sea inside the reef is calm enough to swim in alone.

The catamaran to the northern islands

If you do only one excursion, do this one. The boat leaves early, anchors off Île Plate and Îlot Gabriel, and the water is the kind of clear that looks retouched in photographs. Lunch on board, snorkelling for anyone who wants it, and back in time for the afternoon. A full day, but a lazy one.

Chamarel and the south-west

The most photographed thing on Mauritius is the seven-coloured earth, and it is smaller than you expect. But the road there runs through the part of the island that looks nothing like a resort brochure: cane fields, villages, mountainsides. Combine it with the waterfall and lunch in Chamarel and it becomes one of the days you remember.

We will also say what no brochure says: if you go only for the seven-coloured earth, you will be disappointed. Go for the road.

Le Morne, and a day in the water

Le Morne Brabant rises 556 metres straight out of the sea in the south-west, and carries a history worth reading before you go — the mountain was a refuge for escaped slaves, and is on the UNESCO World Heritage list for that reason, not for the view. You can climb it. You can also simply look at it from the beach, which is what most people do.

The dolphins off Île aux Bénitiers are a morning trip: out early, into the water with a snorkel, back for lunch. Blue Bay is shallower and calmer, and can be done on your own.

Port Louis, one morning

The capital is not beautiful and does not need to be. The market, Aapravasi Ghat, the waterfront. Two hours is enough, and those two hours make the rest of the island make sense: Mauritius is a country, not a resort.

What you can skip

Casela is excellent with children and arguably unnecessary without them. Deep-sea fishing is a full day that is only enjoyable if you actually want to fish. And the botanical garden at Pamplemousses is lovely but hot in the middle of the day — go early or not at all.

And the evenings

This is really the answer to the question we began with. The golf takes a morning. You have dinner together every evening anyway, and the one who played and the one who was on the catamaran both have something to tell. That is the part that makes the trip work for two people who want different things from the same fortnight.

Our host lives on the island for the whole season and books all of this for you as you go — not in advance, and not as a package you have to stick to. You decide there, day by day, exactly as you would at home.