In this post, I’m sharing my impressions from my first two weeks as a Digital Nomad in Mauritius. This post is going to be a bit more journalistic, sharing photos and honest impressions from our first two weeks in our new home.
In 2019 Mauritius launched a Premium Visa – and I first learned about it on the side advertising banner of a football game I was watching with my partner. Instantly I started researching the visa and Mauritius, working to convince my partner we should go.
Having spent the past 2 years in Europe and the UK, I really needed to leave the region for a while to reset my visa. On January 31st, at 8pm, we decided to make the move and we boarded a plane to Mauritius.
The premium visa for Mauritius is free and lasts for one year with multiple entries. This is important because you don’t want a visa that ends when you leave the country if you plan on coming back and forth.
To make our transition seamless, we booked our first two weeks in an Airbnb in the North (a place called Trou-aux-Biches) and a car rental for the first two weeks so we could explore the island and find a base for ourselves.
We’ve spent the past two weeks beach hopping in the North mainly, and visiting a few popular tourist destinations in the south.
The beaches we’ve hopped:
- Trou-aux-Biches
- Mont Choisy
- Grand Baie
- La Cuvette
- Pereybere
- Bain Boeuf
- Le Morne
While there are plenty of ways that you can eat veggie in Mauritius – most Mauritian food can easily be made vegan, it tends to be very varied in prices. We’ve eaten rice and noodles with Faratha on the beach for less than $2 (for two people) and we’ve eaten veggie curry on the beach that set us back $30 (for two people). So far my favorite snack around lunchtime is a couple of Faratha (paratha) and fried noodles on the beach.
Food in a sit-down restaurant is often costing us around $30+ so we try to only eat at sit-down places for a few meals so we don’t blow through our budget.
We bought a data package from Emtel but the other major network is My.t. So far the wifi and data is nothing to write home about… in fact, we’ve struggled writing home at all with this wifi and data we’ve had here. But at least the Emtel packages are affordable.
Here are some average food costs I’ve noted down:
- Veg noodles (no egg) on the beach – 70-125 MUR depending on the place you go
- Faratha from the Beach Shacks – 15-50 MUR
- Sodas from the 7/10 – 45 MUR
- Sit down dinner of 1 veg main, 1 salad, and 1 side with 2 beers – 1400 MUR
And on top of eating daily lunches from the beach shacks, we’ve spent about $100 (USD) per week on groceries for 2 people.
With Emtel you can get data packages:
- 82 MUR for 1 Week (3gb of data a day)
- 419 MUR for 1 Month (5gb of data a day)
- 619 MUR for 2 Months (7.5gb of data a day)
- 819 MUR for 3 Months (10gb of data a day)
You also have to pay a one-time fee of 350 MUR for the sim. You can top up your Emtel sim at any of the corner shops.
Those are some typical costs we’ve seen so far!
We’re still looking for somewhere a bit more long-term to rent. But in the meantime, we’ve nipped over to Thailand for a family thing. I’ll probably do a comparison post of the cost of living here in Thailand to Mauritius – but that might just be sad considering how much further your dollar goes here in Thailand! I’ll definitely be doing a post detailing our entrance to Bangkok and weeklong hotel quarantine for anyone interested in that!
In the meantime, if there’s more you want to know about Mauritius, let me know! You can keep up with our adventures @justynjen on Instagram and Tiktok.
