Why We Didn’t Step Out of Our Seychelles Hotel – The Hilton Seychelles Labriz Resort & Spa, Silhouette Island

Why did we fly all the way to the Seychelles to stay put and not step out of the Hilton Seychelles Labriz? While it does sound odd, any travel blogger will tell you how differently they see travelling v/s holidaying. And like we’ve said before, we try to find those trips that let us truly take a break from our hectic style of travelling. You’ll find the whole story on a previous post – What do travel bloggers do on holiday. Charles and I have day jobs too (just in case you thought we’re jet setting and taking pictures of pretty places or digging into exotic cuisines all the time), and a career in advertising (read: crazy hours) coupled with travel blogging by night can really take its toll on you. So we try to squeeze in a bit of downtime every now and then where the agenda features one thing and one thing only – do nothing.

Why Seychelles?

So when I found myself scrolling through old pictures of our trips to Mauritius, the Philippines, Thailand, Goa and other beachy locales, I knew it was time to schedule a do-nothing holiday to some isolated, gorgeous island on the next available long weekend. We’ve been planning to redo our spectacularly luxurious honeymoon to Mauritius on some landmark wedding anniversary (it’s been over 6 years already, so perhaps the 10th Anniversary?) So we couldn’t visit there, but I wanted something similar. And with Air Seychelles’ direct flights to Mahe from Mumbai, we knew it was a good idea. We started hunting for the perfect resort.

Silhouette Island

This was a first for me. To discover an island that is entirely owned by a hotel, to discover a hotel that can only be reached by boat, sounded wonderfully isolated. Just the kind of thing we were looking for. Silhouette is Seychelles’ third-largest island. Set in a national marine park, I also discovered they had a Turtle conservation center over on the other side of the island, and it was rumored to be an absolute haven for birders (something I’ve found myself getting increasingly interested in). We trawled through several hotel and luxury villa listings before we zeroed in on the Hilton Seychelles Labriz. We figured, a villa with your private strip of beach, and an entire island closed off from the outside world, definitely worth the extra travel time by boat. It meant we wouldn’t be able to go do the touristy thing like checking out the Coco Palms in Praslin or La Digue, but we were so badly in need of a real holiday, the prospect of staying put and doing nothing touristy sounded like music to my ears.

The Hilton Seychelles Labriz – Villa

We couldn’t just go ahead and pick any beach villa at the Hilton Seychelles Labriz. Oh no, there were certain key considerations to be made. We learned our lesson in Mauritius when we discovered the beach was littered with sharp shells and stones, making it a rather painful frolic in the water, and we were so thankful for our private plunge pool. So even though Charles has since learned to swim (I know!!), we knew we had to have a private plunge pool just in case there was anything wrong with the beach, cold water like we faced in the Algarve, sharp, pokey sand like in Mauritius, or short tides like in the Philippines. Now that the plunge pool bit was out of the way, we knew the main reason we were headed to the Seychelles was the beach, so we had to have a villa on the beach. Not more than 20 steps from bed to beach was our dream. And that’s precisely what we got. Being able to wake up and stare out at the ocean without even getting out of bed? Priceless. So one King Beachfront Private Pool Villa was booked at the Hilton Seychelles Labriz.

What We Did

The Hilton Seychelles Labriz is a sprawling property. Getting anywhere, especially the spa which was right at the very end of the strip, required a golf cart. Just as well considering we literally didn’t step out of our villa for anything besides trips to the spa or the restaurant. So how did we spend our time in this luxurious, well-serviced (but they leave you alone if you don’t want them around) resort: Short naps on the bed. Long naps in the hammock on the beach. Falling asleep at low tide. Waking up to high tide water lapping at my hanging arm. Watching the sunrise over the beach from bed. Keeping champagne cool in the sand. Watching the sun change positions in the sky. Counting the little fish swimming around our ankles. Counting the bright green island geckos on the porch. Devouring bowls of fresh tropical fruit. Cooling off in the plunge pool. Getting burnt in the sun. Watching water herons swooping in to catch fish. Walking all the way out to the coral reef. Feeling the tropical breeze whisk away the humidity, for a couple of seconds. Ordering room service. Grabbing a Teppanyaki meal at the Gazebo. We were obviously pretty busy.

Do-nothing holidays will never be over-rated to us. And now you know why we didn’t step out of the Hilton Labriz Seychelles on Silhouette Island. We can’t recommend switching off and doing nothing on holiday enough, especially if you work in advertising and have crazy hours, crazy stress, and busy lives like us. We can’t wait till the next time we run away and luxuriate on an exotic island someplace else. Any recommendations? Tell us in the comments below!

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