India
Andaman Islands
The best diving in India and its emptiest beaches, on islands that were a prison colony long before they were a holiday.
The Andamans are a chain of forested islands in the Bay of Bengal, Indian territory that sits closer to Myanmar and Sumatra than to the mainland. Almost everyone lands at Port Blair, a working port that grew out of a British penal colony, then takes a boat out to the beach islands, where the reef starts a short swim from the sand and the diving is the best in the country. Parts of the archipelago are not open and are not meant to be: several indigenous peoples live on protected land here, and the whole Nicobar group south of the Andamans is closed to visitors.
Suggested stay
5–10 days
Language
Hindi, English
Currency
INR
Timezone
UTC+5:30
Why you'll love Andaman Islands
The water Reef within wading distance of the sand, visibility that opens up for months at a time in the calm season, and deep sites where the fish are big and the boats are few.
Room to spread out Even the famous beaches run long enough to walk away from everyone, and on the smaller islands the coast is mostly paddy, banana plots and forest coming down to the sand.
History that is not scenery a place of transportation and forced labour, then the one piece of Indian territory occupied in the Second World War, and the Cellular Jail in the capital is a memorial.
Properly remote The last leg is always a boat, the weather decides whether it sails, and the map runs out into islands nobody is allowed to visit.
Best time to visit
Jan-Apr
30-33° days
11.665° N, 92.739° E
UTC+5:30 · Asia/Kolkata
whenywhere contains ads and partner links that we think are helpful and that earn us a small commission at no extra cost to you.
Weather & when to go to Andaman Islands
Month by month: typical highs and lows, rainfall and rain days.
✓ Best Jan-Apr
Watch for Apr-Jun, Oct-Dec cyclones & hurricanes risk · May-Oct monsoon flooding risk
Cards tinted by calculated verdict · big number = typical daily high, small = low · hover for conditions
When to avoid Andaman Islands
The southwest monsoon takes over from May and runs through to October: heavy rain, a rough sea, ferries cancelled at short notice and most dive operations shut, which on a trip built entirely out of boat crossings is a logistics problem as much as a weather one. November and December are the recovery, though the Bay of Bengal can still throw up a cyclone late in the year.
Top things to do in Andaman Islands
-
Cellular Jail, Port Blair - the prison the islands were built around
history culture arts 👍 PopularBuilt by the British between the 1890s and 1906 as seven wings radiating from a central watchtower, with hundreds of one-man cells arranged so no prisoner could see or hear another. It held people transported across the kala pani for opposing colonial rule, and its record includes forced labour, hunger strikes and deaths in custody. Three wings and the tower survive, along with the gallows and a museum; an evening sound-and-light show fills the courtyard in a patriotic register that lands differently for different visitors. Go in daylight first and treat it as a memorial.
-
Radhanagar Beach (Beach No. 7), Havelock - the headline strand
scenic nature wildlife 👍 PopularA long white crescent on the west side of Havelock, backed by mahua and forest rather than building, with shallow water and a sunset that draws most of the island. There is little shade once the sun is up, currents can run hard on a changing tide, and the flagged swimming zone and lifeguards are there for a reason. Come early or late and walk away from the entrance and it empties out fast.
-
Elephant Beach, Havelock - the shallow reef everybody snorkels
adventure nature wildlife 👍 PopularReached by speedboat from the jetty or on foot through forest and mangrove mud from the main road, a walk that turns miserable after rain. The reef starts close in and is easy to snorkel, which is why the beach carries a full watersports strip of sea walking, banana boats and jet skis. The coral has taken a beating in the busiest sections, so swim out along the edge and go on the first boats of the day.
-
Dixon's Pinnacle and Johnny's Gorge - the deep sites off Havelock
diving adventure ⭐ Highly recommendedAn hour or so out by boat, a set of submerged pinnacles and a sand gorge where the schooling fish stack up: barracuda, giant trevally, humphead parrotfish, napoleon wrasse and grey reef sharks working the current. These are advanced dives on a good day and dependent on a calm sea, and they are the reason serious divers come to India rather than the shallow house reefs.
-
Ross Island (Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose Dweep) - the ruined colonial headquarters
history nature wildlife ⭐ Highly recommendedA short boat hop from Port Blair harbour to the island that ran the settlement: a ballroom, a church, a bakery, a printing press and the chief commissioner's house, all of it now half-eaten by ficus roots after an earthquake and the Japanese occupation emptied the place. Spotted deer and peacocks wander the paths. It is a small island and an easy walk, and the collapse of an administration that once called itself the Paris of the East is the whole point of going.
-
Barren Island - diving beside an active volcano
diving nature wildlifeIndia's only active volcano, a bare cone rising out of open sea east of the main chain, dived from liveaboards and long day boats out of Havelock. Black volcanic sand runs down into clear water with manta, tuna and big schooling pelagics passing through, and the contrast between the dead grey slope above the surface and the reef below it is the draw. Landing on the island is not permitted, trips run only in the calm months, and the crossing is long and exposed.
-
Natural Bridge, Neil Island - the coral arch at low tide
scenic nature wildlifeA wind-cut rock arch on the Laxmanpur side of Neil, reachable only when the tide drops far enough to expose the reef flat in front of it. The walk out crosses sharp dead coral and rock pools full of urchins, anemones and octopus, so wear something on your feet and take a guide if the tide table is not obvious to you. Sunset lines up behind it.
-
Bharatpur Beach, Neil Island - reef straight off the jetty
nature wildlife scenicThe most accessible snorkelling in the islands, a calm shallow bay right beside the Neil jetty with live coral and reef fish a few metres out and glass-bottom boats working the same patch. It is busy and noisy at the boat end and quiet at the other, and it is the easiest place to put a nervous first-timer in the water.
-
Anthropological Museum, Port Blair - the islands' first peoples
culture arts historyA small, serious museum on the archipelago's indigenous groups: the Great Andamanese, Onge, Jarawa and Sentinelese of the Andamans and the Nicobarese and Shompen further south, shown through tools, canoes, shelters and photographs. It is the honest way to engage with peoples whose land is legally closed and whose numbers collapsed after colonisation brought disease, and it does more than any road trip north can.
-
Saddle Peak, Diglipur - the highest point in the islands
nature wildlife adventureA steep forest climb from near Kalipur up through evergreen jungle to the top of the archipelago, with the coast and the offshore islands laid out from the ridge. It is humid, leech-prone after rain and takes most of a morning up and back; the forest department gates the trail and registers walkers at the range office, so ask locally before setting out.
-
Kalipur Beach, Diglipur - turtle nesting on the north coast
nature wildlifeOne of the few beaches in India where four sea turtle species come ashore, leatherback among them, with nesting concentrated in the cool dry months and a forest department hatchery on the sand. Walks go out after dark with rangers, sightings are never promised, and the rules about torches and distance exist because a disturbed female will turn round and go back without laying.
-
Aberdeen Bazaar, Port Blair - the settler kitchens and the fish market
food culture artsThe islands have no old cuisine of their own, because almost everybody arrived in the last century and a half: Bengali fish curries, Tamil and Telugu tiffin, Ranchi and Bihari settler cooking, a Karen community in the middle islands with Burmese habits, and coconut through all of it. The bazaar and the harbourside fish market are where that shows up plainly, alongside crab, lobster and whatever the boats brought in.
Best areas to stay in Andaman Islands
$ Budget $$ Mid-range $$$ Premium
Port Blair
Arrivals and history $$Workaday island capital and arrival port
Explore hotels in Port Blair →
Havelock Island (Swaraj Dweep)
Beaches and diving $$$Main beach island, dive shops and resorts
Explore hotels in Havelock Island (Swaraj Dweep) →
Neil Island (Shaheed Dweep)
Slowing down $Small, flat farming island, quiet beaches
Explore hotels in Neil Island (Shaheed Dweep) →
Diglipur and North Andaman
Getting properly away $Remote north end, turtles and forest
Explore hotels in Diglipur and North Andaman →
Live nightly prices from Booking.com, Agoda and others, centred on Andaman Islands
Getting to & around Andaman Islands
Getting there
Fly into Port Blair from the Indian mainland; the airport is minutes from town, and everything beyond South Andaman is a boat ride from the jetties.
Flight
Veer Savarkar International Airport, Port Blair (IXZ)
The runway runs along the southern edge of Port Blair, so the ride into Aberdeen Bazaar or down to the harbour takes only a few minutes by taxi or autorickshaw, and most hotels send a car. Flights come in from Chennai, Kolkata, Delhi, Bengaluru and Hyderabad, mostly landing in the morning, and they are the only practical way in. If you are heading straight out to a beach island an early arrival can usually connect with an afternoon catamaran from the Port Blair jetties, but a late flight means a night in town first.
Ferry
Haddo Wharf, Port Blair
Passenger ships sail from Chennai, Kolkata and Visakhapatnam and take roughly three days each way, a handful of times a month. Berths are limited, the schedule moves, and the crossing is the trip rather than the transfer, but it is the one way in that is not a plane.
Getting around
Private catamaran
The fast boats linking Port Blair, Havelock and Neil, around two hours on the first leg. Book online well ahead in the busy months, and expect cancellations when the sea gets up.
TBC
Government ferry
Slower and much cheaper than the catamarans, and the only service to the outer islands and the north. Tickets are sold in person, often a day or two ahead, and the queue starts early.
TBC
Scooter
The standard way to move on Havelock and Neil, hired near the jetties. Roads are narrow with sand on the bends, fuel points are few, and a licence and helmet matter here.
TBC
Autorickshaw
Port Blair's default for short hops. Meters go unused, so settle the fare before you get in.
TBC
Taxi or hired car
Taken by the half or full day for anything outside Port Blair, and the usual way people reach the southern beaches and the marine park. Drivers double as the local booking agent for harbour boats.
TBC
Bicycle
Neil is flat and small enough to ride end to end, and many guesthouses lend bikes out. Havelock is rideable too if you are happy with the hill to the west coast.
TBC
Local bus
Government buses run the trunk road and the main island routes: slow, crowded and cheap, and they reach villages nothing else serves.
TBC
Day trips from Andaman Islands
Ross Island and North Bay
Half dayHarbour islands
The classic half day out of the capital: colonial ruins under strangler figs on one island, then a shallow reef off the other where glass-bottom boats, snorkelling and sea walking run all morning. Both are close in, both get busy by mid-morning, and the first boats are the good ones.
Getting there
ferry | tour
About 20-30 minutes by boat from the Port Blair jetty, usually sold as a combined trip
Baratang
Full dayLimestone caves and mud volcano
Limestone caves reached by a mangrove creek boat and a short forest walk, plus a small mud volcano. The trip is genuinely contentious: the road north crosses the Jarawa Tribal Reserve, and while photographing, filming, feeding or interacting with Jarawa people is illegal and convoys are not meant to stop, operators have been documented doing exactly that, which is why the run has been called a human safari. If you go, go with your camera away and no expectation of seeing anyone, take the sea route where it is running, or skip it entirely and dive instead.
Getting there
car | bus | ferry | tour
About 3 hours each way by road in an escorted convoy, then a boat through the mangrove creeks
Wandoor and the marine national park
Full dayReef island snorkelling
Mahatma Gandhi Marine National Park protects a scatter of islands off the south-west coast, and two of them open to visitors in alternate seasons so the reefs get a rest. No plastic is allowed ashore, boats run on a permit and a fixed timetable, and the coral and fish are in better shape than anywhere you can reach on a speedboat from a resort.
Getting there
car | ferry | tour
About an hour by road south-west of Port Blair, then a boat out to the island
Chidiya Tapu
Half daySunset point and birding
The end of the island: mangroves, a biological park, forest full of parakeets, sea eagles and hornbills, and a rocky sunset point looking out at a scatter of small islands. Locals treat it as the evening drive out of town, and it is the easiest wildlife you will see without a boat.
Getting there
car | bus
About 45 minutes by road to the southern tip of South Andaman
Mount Harriet (Mount Manipur)
Half dayForest hill and viewpoint
The old hot-weather retreat of the colonial administration, now a national park on the hill across the harbour from Port Blair, with a nature trail down to Kalapathar and a view back over the islands that is among the most photographed in the territory. Birding is good in the early morning and the forest is properly quiet.
Getting there
ferry | car
A short ferry across the harbour then about 30 minutes by road, or an hour the long way round
Ross and Smith Islands
Full dayTwin islands and sandbar
Two small islands joined by a white sandbar you can walk across at low tide, with clear water either side and almost nobody on it. Numbers are capped and permits are issued at Diglipur, which is the reason it still feels the way it does; treat it as the payoff for basing yourself in the north rather than a trip from the capital.
Getting there
ferry | tour
About 30-40 minutes by boat from Aerial Bay jetty at Diglipur, itself a long day north of Port Blair
A little history of Andaman Islands
The Andamans have been inhabited for thousands of years by peoples with no close relatives anywhere nearby: the Great Andamanese, the Onge, the Jarawa and the Sentinelese, hunter-gatherers whose isolation is the oldest fact about these islands. Passing ships knew the archipelago mainly as somewhere to avoid. A first British settlement under Archibald Blair in 1789 was abandoned within a decade to disease, and the islands were left alone until the 1857 uprising gave the colonial government a use for them.
From 1858 Port Blair was a penal settlement, and transportation across the kala pani became a sentence in its own right, served through forest clearance, forced labour and, from 1906, the solitary cells of the Cellular Jail. Contact with the settlement was catastrophic for the Great Andamanese, whose population collapsed under introduced disease. Japan occupied the islands from 1942, the only Indian territory held in the Second World War, and the flag of the Azad Hind government was raised at Port Blair in 1943. After independence the islands filled with mainland settlers, refugees from East Bengal among them, cleared land was handed out, and a trunk road was pushed north through the forest in the 1970s and 1980s straight across Jarawa land, with consequences still being argued over. The 2004 tsunami hit the southern islands hardest and permanently changed coastlines. Tourism came late and now concentrates on a handful of beaches.
Lieutenant Archibald Blair establishes the first British settlement; it is abandoned within a decade after disease and hardship.
A penal settlement is founded at Port Blair after the 1857 uprising, and the first convict transports arrive.
Viceroy Lord Mayo is stabbed to death by a convict while inspecting the settlement, the only British viceroy killed in office.
The Cellular Jail is completed, seven wings of single cells built to keep prisoners from seeing or hearing one another.
A major earthquake wrecks much of the colonial headquarters on Ross Island.
Japanese forces occupy the islands, the only Indian territory held during the Second World War.
Subhas Chandra Bose visits Port Blair and raises the flag after the islands are nominally handed to the Azad Hind government.
The Protection of Aboriginal Tribes Regulation makes the tribal reserves off limits without permission, a law still in force.
The Cellular Jail is declared a national memorial.
The Indian Ocean tsunami devastates the southern islands, worst of all in the Nicobars, and shifts coastlines along the chain.
Ross, Havelock and Neil islands are officially renamed Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose Dweep, Swaraj Dweep and Shaheed Dweep; the old names stay in daily use.
Know before you go
Payment
Cards & cash mixed
English
Widely spoken
Wifi
Limited
Power
Type D / M
230 V, 50 Hz
Dialing
+91
Cyclones & hurricanes risk in this window; check current conditions before you go.
Monsoon flooding risk in this window; check current conditions before you go.
The months our climate read flags to avoid: the wettest, lowest-rated weather of the year.
Mobile network & SIM card
Get an eSIM before you fly
A India eSIM installs in minutes and works the moment you switch off flight mode. No SIM swap, no roaming bill.
FAQs about Andaman Islands
▸ When is the best time to visit the Andaman Islands?
January to April is the clear stretch: calm seas, dry days and the best underwater visibility of the year. It is also the busiest, with an Indian holiday peak around the turn of the year and rooms on the beach islands gone weeks ahead. May brings the build-up to the southwest monsoon, and from June through October rain and rough water dominate. November and December are recovery months, greener and quieter, with the sea steadily settling.
▸ Do you need a permit?
Indian nationals do not need one for the Andaman group. Foreign nationals need a restricted-area permit, in practice issued on arrival at Port Blair, listing the islands you may visit; keep copies, because hotels and jetty staff ask for it. The Nicobar Islands are closed to tourists altogether and the tribal reserves are off limits regardless of nationality. These rules have been loosened and tightened more than once, so check the current position before booking.
▸ What is the situation with the Jarawa reserve and the Andaman Trunk Road?
The road north from Port Blair to Baratang and beyond runs through the Jarawa Tribal Reserve, and vehicles cross it in escorted convoys. Photographing, filming, feeding or interacting with Jarawa people is illegal, and convoys are not supposed to stop, but operators and tourists have repeatedly been documented arranging encounters anyway, which is why the trip has been described as a human safari. If you use the road, treat it as a road you are passing along: camera away, nothing handed out of a window, no stopping. Where a sea route to Baratang is running it avoids the reserve, and choosing not to make the trip at all is a legitimate answer.
▸ Can you visit North Sentinel Island?
No. The island is a protected reserve, entry and any attempt at contact are illegal, and boats are required to stay well clear. The Sentinelese have refused outside contact consistently and forcefully, and people who have ignored that have been killed. Beyond the law, the islanders have no acquired immunity to ordinary illnesses, so a single visitor with a cold could be catastrophic for the whole population. There is no tour, no viewing trip and no version of this that is acceptable.
▸ How do you get between the islands?
By boat, and it shapes the whole itinerary. Private catamarans run Port Blair to Havelock and on to Neil in a couple of hours and sell out in the busy months, so book before you fly. Government ferries are slower and are the only way to the outer islands and the north, with tickets sold in person. Everything depends on the sea state and sailings are cancelled at short notice, so never plan to make a crossing and a flight on the same day.
▸ Is this a good place to learn to dive?
Yes. Havelock and Neil are where a large share of India's divers get certified, with a cluster of schools running courses in sheltered bays and water warm enough that a thin wetsuit is plenty. Two caveats: the schools are built around the calm months and most shut or run skeleton operations through the monsoon, and the sites that make the islands genuinely special are deeper dives an hour or more offshore, which need experience and a settled sea.
▸ Is the Cellular Jail worth going to?
Yes, and it repays being approached as a memorial rather than a sight. The surviving wings, the central tower and the gallows carry the design intent plainly, which was isolation as punishment, and the museum fills in the transportation system around it. The evening sound-and-light show is staged in a strongly patriotic register that some visitors find moving and others find heavy; the daytime visit is the substantial one.
▸ How long do you need?
A week is the honest minimum once flights and boat legs are counted; five nights on the ground works if you stick to Port Blair and a single beach island. Ten days lets you give Neil its own time, or push north to Diglipur without spending the trip in transit. Build in a spare day before your flight home, because a cancelled crossing is a normal event here.
More in India
Alleppey
The Kerala backwaters at their most complete, and the one place where sleeping on the water is the point rather than a gimmick.
✓ best Dec-MarAmritsar
The spiritual heart of the Sikh world: the Golden Temple in its marble tank, a free kitchen feeding tens of thousands a day, and the Pakistan border 30 km away.
✓ best Feb-MarChennai
The capital of Tamil culture and the oldest of Britain's Indian cities: temple streets, Chola bronzes and the best vegetarian breakfast in the country.
✓ best Jan-Mar