Seychelles versus French Polynesia

[settiee]

Has anyone been to both of them?

We have been to Seychelles and liked it. We are thinking about going to French Polynesia but not sure if it is worth the added expense and hassle of getting there if we like Seychelles.

Hi. I've been to both in the past five years. Personally, we preferred French Polynesia. In the Seychelles we did Praslin, La Digue and Mahe. La Digue was our fave as you could cycle round on bikes but every day brings ferries packed with people taking selfies on the famous beach. The beaches look gorgeous but all the ones we tried (apart from Mahe) were too shallow or too rough to swim. Don't get me wrong, all the islands are beautiful and they are only 11 hours from London. You are kind of trapped in the big resorts so need to hire a car to get around. We felt safe -ish on a walk out of the resort one day.
FP is just stunning. The lagoons are easier to swim in and there are way way fewer people as tourism is tightly controlled so you get that feeling of privacy. The people are incredibly friendly and laid back and we felt safe everywhere. We did five islands: Tahiti, Moorea, Vahine, Raitea and Bora Bora. Bora Bora is crazily expensive so you don;t have to do it but this was a bucket list so we did three nights. Raitea is real FP with amazing cultural sights. We loved it so much we are going back this year as two less expensive apart hotels have opened. I would choose FP every time but it does take an 11 hour flight via LA or SF and another 8 hours to Tahiti. We stayed over in LA last time but never again! Hope that helps.