The Andaman Islands are the beach destination India keeps to itself — not entirely, and not for much longer, but for now the gap between what the islands offer and how well they are known outside India is still significant. Radhanagar Beach on Havelock Island was named one of the best beaches in Asia by Time magazine in 2004, and the designation still holds: white sand, clear water, the tropical forest behind, and in the early morning before the other guests emerge, very few people and a lot of silence. The reefs around Havelock and Neil Island — Elephant Beach, the Lighthouse Reef, the Aquarium — have a coral coverage and a diversity of marine life that competes with the Maldives and the Seychelles, and is almost completely undived in comparison to both.
The honest Andaman versus Maldives comparison goes like this: the Maldives has a higher concentration of luxury infrastructure, a flatter and more accessible lagoon experience, and no Indian mainland flight involved. The Andamans have more variety within the archipelago, genuinely wilder reefs, a cultural layer (the colonial Cellular Jail in Port Blair, the Jarawa tribal territory, the living history of the freedom struggle) that the Maldives cannot offer, and a price point that makes the equivalent beach experience significantly more affordable. For Indian travellers who have done the Maldives and want the comparison trip, or for those for whom the Andamans’ Indian character matters — the food, the language, the familiar currency — it is the right choice.
The logistics are the one honest constraint: Port Blair is two hours from Chennai by air, and Havelock is an additional ninety minutes by speedboat or two and a half hours by government ferry. The ferry books up in December and January; we arrange it at the same time as the flights.
