Lonely Planet™ · Thorn Tree Forum · 2020 |

# Where do i start? Country forums / Pacific Islands & Papua New Guinea
dannoble82 11:49 UTC 30 Jun 2010 | I have been back 2 days from a 5 month trip around south east asia ...and already i have the bug to go again! This time we are looking to go further east to melanesia, micronesia & polynesia (well hopefully all 3 if we can afford it) i was just after some advise ie. easiest way to get there as we would be coming there from indonesia. Also is it expensive for accomodation as we will just be backpacking and how easy / cheap is it to island hop. Also any other tips on good islands or any advise you think i will need would be greatly appreciated as i wanna start planning and get out of the country ASAP!! Thanks in advance of your comments.... |
ozziegiraffe 11:16 UTC 03 Jul 2010 | From Indonesia, probably the safest way would be either flying through Papua New Guinea or Brisbane in Australia. Solomon Islands is a predominantly Melanesian culture, but also has distinct communities of both Polynesian and Micronesian people. i think it is the only Pacific country which has all 3. It is relatively easy to island hop within a country, but definitely not between countries. You can travel Solomon Islands quite cheaply if you go between islands by "ship", the inter-island ferries used as local transport. You can travel internally on some islands by truck or tractor, again, used by the locals and cheap. However, you need plenty of time to do this. There are quite a lot of budget-level accommodation options, and if you eat local food, it is quite cheap. (Anything imported is not). | 1
tilos 22:08 UTC 03 Jul 2010 | I highly recommend Palau (which is micronesian) but you would need to fly through Manilla or Guam, and flights can be quite pricey. Continental and PacifcFlier are your two options. Independent Samoa (which is polynesian) is a great place for budget travel (although see warning posts about the feral dog situation). I got there by way of Fiji on Air Pacific. | 2