Andaman and Nicobar Islands

Port Blair, the archipelago's capital and main gateway, is built around a natural harbour and functions primarily as the practical base for arranging permits, ferries and onward travel. Its central historical site, the Cellular Jail, was built by the British colonial government in the early 20th century to hold political prisoners in solitary confinement — the “cellular” design, with cells arranged so no prisoner could see another, was intended specifically to isolate freedom-movement activists from mainland India. The site, now a national memorial, includes a sound-and-light show most evenings narrating this history, and stands as one of the more sobering colonial-era heritage sites in the country. The Samudrika Naval Marine Museum and Anthropological Museum in town add context on the islands' marine environment and indigenous cultures respectively, the latter presented through a conservation and protection lens rather than as a display of the communities themselves.

Havelock, renamed Swaraj Dweep in 2018, is the archipelago's main tourism hub beyond Port Blair, built around Radhanagar Beach — repeatedly cited among Asia's finest for its white sand and turquoise water — and a well-developed diving scene serving reefs with a genuine claim to rival better-known Southeast Asian destinations. Dive schools here run PADI-certified courses alongside single dives for certified divers, with visibility and reef health generally strongest outside the monsoon months. Beyond Radhanagar, Elephant Beach and Kalapathar offer quieter alternatives, and the island's relatively compact size makes it easy to base here for several days without exhausting what it offers.

Neil Island, renamed Shaheed Dweep in the same 2018 change, sits a short ferry hop from Havelock and offers a noticeably slower, less developed pace — smaller guesthouses rather than resorts, fewer visitors, and a genuine village atmosphere alongside its own good beaches (Bharatpur and Laxmanpur among them). Natural Bridge, a coral rock formation exposed at low tide, is the island's distinctive geological landmark. Many travellers pair a Havelock stay for diving and beach infrastructure with a shorter Neil Island stop for the contrast in pace.

Ross Island, officially renamed Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose Dweep, served as the British administrative headquarters for the penal colony from the 1850s until a 1941 earthquake and the subsequent Japanese occupation during the Second World War ended its use. What remains today is a genuinely striking sight: the ruins of churches, ballrooms and colonial residences now half-consumed by strangler fig roots, with resident spotted deer and peacocks wandering freely among the crumbling structures. The island is an easy half-day trip from Port Blair by ferry, and a sound-and-light show in the evening narrates its history against the ruins themselves.

The wider archipelago's coral reefs support a genuinely rich marine ecosystem, and diving or snorkelling extends well beyond Havelock's main sites — the North Bay and Chidiya Tapu areas near Port Blair, and further-flung reefs around the smaller islands accessible on longer live-aboard or day trips. Species range from reef fish and turtles to, in deeper or more remote water, occasional larger pelagics. The reefs, like coral systems worldwide, face bleaching pressure from warming waters, and responsible operators generally brief divers on reef-safe practices — avoiding contact with coral, using reef-safe sunscreen — as standard practice rather than an optional add-on.

Several of the archipelago's islands are home to indigenous communities — the Jarawa, the Sentinelese and others — whose reserves are legally protected areas that visitors cannot enter, and whose members cannot be approached, photographed or engaged with under Indian law. The Sentinelese, on North Sentinel Island, remain almost entirely uncontacted by the outside world by their own choice and by legal protection, among the last such communities anywhere on Earth. This is not a matter of tourism etiquette but of law and basic ethics: these protections exist because contact carries genuine risk to communities with no immunity to common outside diseases, and because their isolation is their own choice, not a spectacle for visitors. The Andaman Trunk Road passes near the Jarawa reserve, and any operator offering a stop, slowdown or photograph opportunity along that stretch should be treated as a clear signal to choose a different operator.