Réunion

Currency budget Réunion

It is France: euros, cards everywhere, contactless in the supermarkets and at the fuel pumps. Cash is for the market stalls, the snack vans and some gîtes in the cirques, which are cash only and a long walk from a machine.

ATMs & cards

Machines in every town. The one gap is Mafate, which has no road and no machine: take cash for the gîtes before walking in. With a card in another currency, decline the conversion.

Cards work almost everywhere, as in mainland France. The mountain gîtes and some market stalls are cash only.

Wherever you are: if the machine offers to charge you in your home currency, decline. That is dynamic currency conversion and the rate is set by the ATM's operator, not your bank.

Safety all of Réunion

Safe on land in the ordinary French way, and the things to respect are the sea and the mountains. Since 2013 a prefectoral order has banned swimming, surfing and bodyboarding in the open sea around almost the whole island because of bull and tiger shark attacks, several fatal: swim inside the reef lagoons of the west and south coast, or at the few supervised beaches with shark nets such as Boucan Canot and Roches Noires, and nowhere else. On the volcano the Enclos is closed by the prefecture during eruptions and when one is expected, and cloud comes up on the summits by late morning. The cyclone season runs roughly December to April.

Our own assessment, not a sourced index.

Entry & visa Réunion visa rules

Health & emergencies all of Réunion

Required to enter

• Yellow fever certificate, but only if you are arriving from a country where yellow fever is present

Orientation, not medical advice — entry rules change and what you need depends on your own history. Check with a travel clinic four to six weeks before you go.

Food tip

Creole cooking is the everyday food: a cari or a rougail saucisse with rice, beans and a chilli rougail on the side, served in heaps. Samoussas and bouchons from the snack vans, Cilaos lentils and wine, and rhum arrangé, which every bar steeps itself.

Nightlife

Beach bars at sunset and a handful of clubs on the west coast, the Saint-Pierre seafront in the south, and early nights everywhere in the mountains.

• Saint-Gilles-les-Bains — the bars round the harbour and the busiest weekend clubs
• L'Hermitage-les-Bains — beach bars on the lagoon at sunset
• Saint-Pierre — the seafront bars and restaurants, busy at the weekend

Closing: Beach bars around midnight; the clubs in Saint-Gilles and Saint-Pierre go on until about five at the weekend.

Driving back down from a mountain dinner at night is slow and dark; book a bed up there instead.

Getting around

• Hire car — the practical choice, and needed for the volcano at dawn and the trailheads; the coast roads jam at the rush hours
• Bus — the Car Jaune network rings the island and runs up to Cilaos and Salazie, cheap and slow
• On foot — the GR R1, R2 and R3 cross the cirques, with mountain gîtes that need booking weeks ahead in season
• Helicopter — flights over the cirques and the Trou de Fer from the west coast, early in the morning before the cloud
• Airport: Roland Garros (RUN) at Saint-Denis, about 50 min to Saint-Gilles; Pierrefonds (ZSE) in the south has regional flights

eSIM

A data eSIM for Réunion, installed before you fly and working the moment you land:Works hereWorks here

Must-see

Nearby day trips

Say a few words

French

• HelloBonjourbon-ZHOOR
• PleaseS'il vous plaîtseel voo PLEH
• Thank youMercimer-SEE
• Yes / NoOui / Nonwee / non

Open with bonjour before anything else. Launching straight into a question without it reads as rude, and explains a lot of reputed French coldness.

Religion

Catholic, with Hindu, Muslim and Chinese communities

A Catholic majority, and alongside it Tamil Hindu temples with fire-walking festivals, Gujarati Muslim mosques — the Noor-e-Islam in Saint-Denis is the oldest in France — and Chinese temples, often on the same street. French secularism applies to the state; daily life is plural. Shoes come off at a Tamil temple, and the ceremonies are open to respectful visitors.

Do's and don'ts

Do

• Say bonjour on entering any shop, as in France, and try a word of Creole — it is noticed
• Swim in the lagoon or in the supervised zones only; outside them, swimming and surfing are banned because of sharks
• Start hikes at dawn, before the cloud comes down on the cirques by late morning
• Book the gîtes in Mafate ahead — there are no roads in, and turning up without a bed means walking out again
• Take shoes off at a Tamil temple, and ask before photographing a ceremony

Don't

• Do not swim outside the lagoon and the marked zones, whatever the surfers you see are doing
• Do not go past the barriers at Piton de la Fournaise when access is closed; the volcano erupts often and the closures are enforced
• Do not take coral or shells from the lagoon, which is a protected marine reserve
• Do not treat Réunion as simply a piece of France; its Creole identity is its own, and people say so
• Do not leave the trail in cloud; the drops in the cirques are sheer