Trek the Grand Traverse of Reunion Island

Reunion island is an amazing place to hike. The scenery is spectacular and our guide Giles was great. The hiking is tough as very up and down but the views are incredible so worth it. However the trip is fairly new and still needs tweaking to make the experience better. The days are longer than typical hiking days so there was not much time to rest and recover in the evenings. The food provided for breakfast and lunch is not enough, definitely bring your own snacks. The dinners at the mountain huts are delicious and the accommodations are in picturesque settings. Has the potential to be 5 stars.

This is an amazing island with beautiful landscape, everyday is different which is great . Be prepared for steep ups and steep downs with stairs and rocks which makes it difficult to have a rhythm . It’s a tough but beautiful hike . Bring breakfast food as there is only bread , butter and jam . Gilles was a great guide , very helpful at all times .

La Reunion is probably one of the prettiest places I have ever been, with varied scenery and stunning hiking. We had a really fun group of people led by our guide Giles and his colleague - Eric - a trainee guide who joined us for about 2/3rds of the trip.

I am a little surprised by the grading of this hike and think it should be ranked tough rather than challenging. the terrain is rarely easy and the climbs are steep and long - combined with hot weather it adds up. I did the haute route in the pyrennes in august with MBA which is ranked tough, and i thought the reunion hike was harder.

a couple of things AKA nuts and bolts: 1 - the days are long. the provided breakfasts (bread and jam) and lunch (baguette only - no accompanying snacks) are not nutritious or fueling - bring protein bars/nuts. 2 - after the day in cilaos you will need to carry your lunch and snacks for the following 2 days. the gite on piton de neiges carries chocolate bars only and does not provide lunch - we raided the hotel breakfast before we left. the gite has no potable water - you can buy water or opt to carry two days water from cilaos.

3 - the summit day is VERY LONG. we were up at 3. 15am and did not get to our gite until after 5. 30 that evening despite walking as fast as we could and making the bare minimum of stops. the terrain down from the gite is tricky to begin with and makes for slow going. the info indicates that it is possible to cut off the last 90 minutes by getting a cab - after an early start at least half of our group would have liked to take advantage of this option - all of us interpreted it that MBA would provide the transport if needed - this is not the case. a few members of our group did manage to get a cab but it was a logistical nightmare for the guide to arrange so the rest of us had to walk.

(fyi you stay in a house that night which was a welcome change and the supper was delicious - but the owner does not allow drinking on site - and a beer would have tasted really good. i recommend you try and get in a room downstairs - more comfortable than upstairs. )

4 - pacing. a very tough hike to do together when the group is as large as ours was. no doubt the original intent was for Giles to be the only guide but when the group demonstrated very different pacing preferences it proved necessary to have the 2nd guide.

5 - getting there - we opted to fly in the day before - this was undoubtedly too much time but one poor member of our group had problems with their flights and had to meet us midway through the first day. if you do decide to arrive early - i recommend the radisson in st denis - it's close to the juliette but a nicer experience. in hindsight i would not have stayed two days in the apaart hotel at the end of the hike - i think flying home on the saturday night would have worked better.

Reunion Island is a beautiful and constantly surprising place. The trekking starts off along the riverbed of a ravine that quickly turns into the never ending stairmaster. Although challenging for the moderate hiker, the pay off with the views is well worth the effort. Luscious green foliage decorates the scaling mountains, with white tropic birds soaring in the distance that contrast so well. The gites are basic but welcoming. If you naturally get all the mozzie bites, be prepared in the first few days to keep your legs and arms covered in the evenings otherwise you’ll be peppered in them. Following the constant up and down of the first few days you come into a well deserved rest in Cilaos. I opted for a days rest as did much of the group which set me up well for the slight change in the schedule the next day. We walked from Cilaos to Piton de Neige in one day due to it being predicted for poor visibility the next morning. The walk up was more than manageable on rested legs and we were rewarded with a beautiful sunset over the mountains and clouds. Be prepared for it to be wind-chilling cold and take gloves! We then walked down in the dark with our head torches, able to appreciate the different star constellations of the southern hemisphere, finishing by bunking together in triple bunk beds back at the gite. Another change to the schedule due to a challenging and slippy walk down, led us through more rolling terrain, into farmland, and fantastic cloud displays of the mountain edges to a sweet and modern gite. The early finish meant we had team to visit Cite de Volcan, the local volcano museum. The 4D cinema experience led to many in jokes for the rest of the trip. I’d highly recommend visiting purely to learn about the formation of the island itself. Then started the longest walk of all the days. 21km of mostly gentle incline with occasional steeper sections which unfortunately had the latter half walking through cloud. But the morning views were lovely and showed again a change in environment and flora. Throughout all the trekking days, our guide Fred educated us on the local plants and pointed out various fruits and plants we could eat including my favourite… the strawberry guava! We finished the trek with an early start to see the sunrise over Piton de la Fournaise. The resulting cloud and the brilliant low level orange sun gave yet more stunning views that will last me a lifetime time. And according to Fred, every visit displays different colours and cloud formations so you never know what you’re going to get. Simply beautiful! I can officially say I’ve been on, in, and around an active volcano, much to my mother’s consternation but it’s very well monitored for any eruptions. Geography nerds will be absorbed with the varying types of rock and lava formation, and pique with excitement with the opportunity to crawl in a lava tunnel. The final couple of days in Saint Gille were great to rest and appreciate the warmer climes again. Made even more special to share it with 7 new friends from the UK, Australia, and Canada. Without them the trekking wouldn’t have been half as fun. This trip for me was 6 months of anticipation and by no means an anti-climax. I enjoyed almost all of my time there (mozzie bites drive me a little grumpy around day 4), and I couldn’t have wished for a better holiday. Fully recommend 5 stars 🤩

What a totally amazing trip. Physically challenging?…. . yes. Rewarding?……beyond all expectation. Being immersed in such a 3-dimensional wonderland left me in total awe. And just when you think it couldn’t get any better, every day kept giving even more. Our incredible Guide Fred was so good at what he does. He took the time to understand each member of the group……their motivations, strengths and weaknesses. He gave encouragement and assistance when required, and celebrated our successes as a true and genuine Leader. He enabled us to truly experience all of the best that Reunion Island has to offer. Fred’s knowledge of the island, its topography, flora and fauna was sensational, and I feel incredibly privileged to have had him as our Guide.

I've loved visiting and exploring Réunion on this group hike with MBA and would highly recommend it.

This island is such a special place. On a relatively small area, it offers a huge variety of different landscapes, sceneries and climates. You get to experience everything from steep mountains covered in tropical jungles to a barren landscape surrounding one of the most active volcanoes of the world. Every day offers something new.

It's certainly a challenging hike. Different group members struggled with different days. I found the first few days of Mafate very hard because it was very hot and the climbs there are incredibly steep; so steep that a lot of the trails are just seemingly never ending staircases! Others struggled more with the latter portion of the hike. But each difficult section rewarded us with the most spectacular views at the end of it, so although it was difficult, it was an incredibly enjoyable experience and I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

The only constructive feedback I have to say is that I think a group of 12 people would possibly be too large a group, at least for 1 guide. We were a group of 8 and that felt a good size.

The communication through Clément and our guide Fred was excellent. They were very helpful with organising logistics such as transfers and answered lots of other questions ahead of and during the trip. The roadmap that was provided by Clément ahead of the trip was absolutely brilliant and have a very clear idea of what to expect from this hike. Fred is extremely kind and patient as a guide and had lots of interesting facts to share with us along the way. He also had very good insight into the needs of the group. This hike is very long and challenging, but is also modifiable at various points along the way, and Fred made excellent judgement calls for when an adjustment to the programme was needed to keep it manageable and enjoyable for the whole group (e. g. doing the Piton des Neiges summit as a sunset rather than sunrise hike the day before originally planned and taking a car transfer for the last couple of kilometres on the day after the summit hike to the gîte in Bourg Mourat).

Other group members felt the trip was harder than they expected, but I personally thought the MBA listing was representative of the trip and how challenging it would be. Maybe mentioning how many steep staircase paths there are especially in the first half of the trip would be helpful, because a lot of people in our group were surprised by this and found it difficult.

A traverse that takes you through all sorts of climates, altitudes and culture. It really is hard to wrap your head around the hundreds of micro-climates you pass through on Reunion - tropical forests, barren volcano landscapes, the endless clouds on Piton des Neiges. It feels as though you’ve passed through several different countries in one small island. Fred was an outstanding guide and our group had plenty of laughs and good times. Reunion is most definitely a special place!

This was a fantastic trip start to finish of new and old volcanic landscapes, early morning sunrise summit trips and endless exploration of he cirques of La Reunion. Fred out local guide was excellent. He carefully guided us throughout the 9 day hike, bearing with us on the steep ascents and descents and at all times being ready to give some local knowledge of the flora and fauna. If you are up for a challenge and are thinking twice, don't as this trip really does have it all!