Vallée de Mai: SCR 450, a 15:30 Cut-off, and Whether You Need a Guide
Updated September 26, 2026 · 7 min read
The Vallée de Mai is a palm forest in the middle of Praslin, it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and it is the single most expensive entrance ticket you will buy in the Seychelles. That last fact catches people out, so here it is first, with the numbers next to it.
| Where | Entrance, per adult non-resident |
|---|---|
| Vallée de Mai | SCR 450 |
| Curieuse Marine National Park | SCR 300 |
| Sainte Anne Marine National Park | SCR 200 |
| L’Union Estate, La Digue | SCR 150 |
Three times the gate fee at L’Union Estate for a forest you can walk across in about an hour on the shortest of its routes. Whether that is worth it depends on two things nobody mentions: what the money does, and whether you turn up in time.
The cut-off nobody plans around
The Vallée de Mai is open 8.30am to 4.30pm, and last entry is 3.30pm. It is closed on 25 December and 1 January.
That hour between last entry and closing is where day trips go wrong. If you are coming over from Mahé, doing a beach in the morning and treating the forest as the afternoon stop, 3.30pm arrives sooner than it sounds. Put the forest first in the day, not last.
The fee is payable in Seychelles rupees or in euros, US dollars or British pounds, in cash or by card. That is a rare piece of flexibility here – the marine parks, by contrast, take cards only on site.
Where the money goes, which is the actual argument for paying it
The Seychelles Islands Foundation, which runs the site, publishes the split of every ticket:
- 20 % to foundation management
- 30 % to running the Vallée de Mai and looking after the coco de mer
- 50 % to the Aldabra Atoll
Half of your ticket funds an atoll a thousand kilometres away that almost no visitor will ever see and which is the other Seychelles World Heritage Site. You are not buying an hour in a forest; you are part-funding Aldabra. That is not a sales line, it is the published allocation, and it is the reason the price is what it is.
The tree you came for
The coco de mer bears the largest seed in the plant kingdom. The adult palms reach over 25 metres. The nut in the photographs – the one everybody knows the shape of – is the reason the valley was protected in the first place, and you cannot take one out of the country without the official permit that comes with a legally purchased nut.
The other resident worth a moment is the Seychelles black parrot, the national bird, one of thirteen endemic bird species in the country. It is not colourful and it is not loud, and most visitors walk underneath one without noticing. If you want to see it, that is a reason to take a guide, because you will not find it by looking.
Guide or alone?
Here is the part that is genuinely unclear from outside, so it is worth being precise.
The Seychelles Islands Foundation notes that independent guides offer tours of the Vallée de Mai. They are not foundation staff and they are not included in the SCR 450. So the question is not “does the site provide a guide” – it is whether you want to hire one at the gate, arrive on a tour that already includes one, or walk it by yourself.
Walk it alone if: you want an hour of quiet, you are comfortable following a marked trail, and the trees are the point. The paths are clear and the site has a cafeteria, lockers, a shop, an information centre, toilets and parking.
Take a guide if: you want the black parrot, you want to be told which palm is male and which is female and why that matters to the coco de mer, or you have children who need the forest narrated rather than presented.
There are several walking routes, running from about 1.5 km to about 4 km. That is the other thing a guide settles for you: which route fits the time you have.
The tours, and the one that is actually good value
The Vallée de Mai and Anse Lazio Beach Full-day Tour is €65 for seven and a half hours, 4.6 stars from 377 reviews. It pairs the forest with Anse Lazio, which is the beach on Praslin’s north-west coast, and at that price it is the best-value full day on the island by a wide margin.
The Vallée de Mai, Côte d’Or Museum and Anse Lazio tour runs six hours at €184 and holds 4.9 stars, though from a smaller sample of 63 reviews. Nearly three times the price for the same forest and the same beach, plus a museum.
If you only want the forest with somebody explaining it, the Private Tour of Vallée de Mai with a Live Guide is €75 for an hour and a half, 4.7 stars from 46 reviews. That is the honest option for anyone already staying on Praslin: no beach bolted on, no full day surrendered.
Check on any of them whether the SCR 450 is included or payable at the gate. It varies, and it is a meaningful sum to be surprised by.
What not to book
The one arrangement to avoid is reaching the Vallée de Mai as the third stop of a day that started on Mahé. The listing that tries it holds 3.4 stars from 173 reviews – the lowest score of any listing in the inventory with more than a hundred reviews – and the arithmetic of that day explains why. Two ferry crossings, a forest with a 3.30pm cut-off and a second island do not fit inside ten hours.
The forest sits with the nature parks, which start at €46.53. If walking is what you are after more broadly, the Seychelles has 22 guided hiking listings, which is more than a beach destination has any right to. And on Praslin itself, the most-reviewed boat day in the country leaves from the same island.
