Places

Cellular Jail National MemorialHeritageSouth Andaman

Built between 1896 and 1906 as seven wings radiating from a central tower, on Bentham's panopticon principle — each wing faced the back of the next, so no prisoner could see or signal another. It held 696 single cells, each about 4.5 by 2.7 metres with a ventilator set three metres up. Three wings and the tower survive; the rest were demolished after independence. It became a national memorial in 1979.

Best time: Year round; the evening sound-and-light show runs in the dry season.

Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose Dweep (Ross Island)HeritageSouth Andaman

The administrative headquarters of the penal settlement — church, ballroom, bakery, tennis court — abandoned after the 1941 earthquake and the Japanese occupation, and now held together by the roots of the banyans growing through it. A twenty-minute boat ride from Port Blair.

Swaraj Dweep (Havelock) and Radhanagar BeachBeachSouth Andaman

The islands' tourism centre, and the beach most often named the best in India. Also the base for the diving industry, which is where much of the local reef monitoring data actually comes from.

Getting there: Government and private ferries from Port Blair, about 1.5 to 2.5 hours.

Shaheed Dweep (Neil)BeachSouth Andaman

Smaller and flatter than Swaraj Dweep, with a natural rock bridge at low tide and a working agricultural population — one of the few tourist islands that still grows vegetables for Port Blair.

Baratang — mud volcanoes and limestone cavesNatureSouth Andaman

Cold grey cones a metre or two high, where gas pushes liquid clay to the surface, and a limestone cave system reached by creek boat through mangrove. The land route from Port Blair runs through the Jarawa reserve on the Andaman Trunk Road, in convoy, and the Supreme Court's 2013 interim order on tourist traffic through that reserve is the reason the rules on the road are what they are.

Getting there: Convoy on the Andaman Trunk Road from Port Blair, then boat through the creek.

Mount Manipur (Mount Harriet)HillSouth Andaman

The highest point in South Andaman, with a national park on it. Renamed Mount Manipur in October 2021 for the Manipuri king and courtiers exiled here after the Anglo-Manipur war of 1891. It is also where Sher Ali Afridi, a convict, killed the Viceroy Lord Mayo in 1872 — the only assassination of a serving Viceroy of India.

Chidiya TapuWildlifeSouth Andaman

The southern tip of South Andaman, forest running down to the sea, and the standard birding site on the islands — Andaman endemics including the Andaman woodpecker and the Andaman serpent eagle are seen here.

Best time: Early morning, December–March.

Mahatma Gandhi Marine National Park, WandoorWildlifeSouth Andaman

A protected group of islands and reefs west of Port Blair, with glass-bottom boat access to Jolly Buoy and Red Skin, which are opened alternately by season so the reef gets a rest.

Barren IslandNatureNorth and Middle Andaman

India's only active volcano, about 135 km north-east of Port Blair — a three-kilometre island that is entirely a cone. Its first recorded eruption was in 1787; it was quiet for most of the twentieth century and became active again in 1991, with lava reaching the sea. Uninhabited, and visited only by boat, without landing.

Saddle Peak National Park, DiglipurHillNorth and Middle Andaman

The territory's highest point at 732 metres, in evergreen rainforest, with a climbable trail from Kalipur. Nearby Ross and Smith Islands are joined by a sand bar at low tide, and the Kalipur beaches are turtle nesting grounds where four species come ashore.

Best time: December–March; turtle nesting December–February.

Webi and the Karen villagesHeritageNorth and Middle Andaman

Villages settled by Karen families brought from Burma in the 1920s as forest workers, still Karen-speaking and largely Baptist. The only community in the Andamans whose ancestry is Southeast Asian rather than Indian.

Little Andaman (Hut Bay)NatureSouth Andaman

A flat forested island reached by ship from Port Blair, with waterfalls, a surf coast and an oil-palm plantation history. Much of the island is the Onge reserve and closed; the settled part is not a tourist circuit and access is limited.

North Sentinel IslandNatureSouth Andaman

Home of the Sentinelese, who have had no sustained contact with the outside world. The island and the waters around it are closed under law, approach is prohibited, and this entry exists to say so. It cannot be visited and should not be attempted; people have died trying.