Lakaz Safran

The rooms and the breakfast win steady praise. Guests describe huge, freshly made-up rooms, some with a lovely sea view, with the amenities you need inside and, outside, a small sitting area stocked with books and a kitchen area to use. Breakfast is genuinely homely, with a choice of eggs, a fruit platter, bread, coffee, tea and fresh juice, and reviewers note how clean the place is kept, with a fresh, pleasant scent throughout the house.

The hosting is the heart of it. Lizette and the ladies who run the guesthouse are described as eager to share valuable local information, happy to help organise tours and always ready with advice, and more than one guest says the effect is of staying in a friend's house rather than a hotel. That personal warmth is exactly what turns a well-placed guesthouse into somewhere people remember fondly.

Two honest notes, both raised by guests themselves, round out the picture. A few harsh reviews circulate online, which recent visitors push back on, suggesting some travellers simply look for faults, and the balcony overlooks the roadside and the Fish in Trap restaurant, so it is lively and part of village life rather than secluded.

La Passe is the small, car-free main village of La Digue, the point where the ferries from Praslin dock and the busy little heart of island life, a place of bicycles, ox-carts and almost no traffic. To be based here, steps from the jetty, means the ATM, the shops, the bakeries, the bike-hire stands and a good choice of restaurants are all right on your doorstep, so nothing needs planning. From the village the famous Anse Source d'Argent, reached through the old L'Union Estate plantation, is a short and scenic ride south, while the wilder beaches of Grand Anse and the east lie a little further out over the green interior. The Praslin ferry crossing takes about fifteen minutes.