Lonely Planet™ · Thorn Tree Forum · 2020 |

# trade with locals Country forums / Pacific Islands & Papua New Guinea / Fiji
mike017 13:19 UTC 12 Apr 2010 | with past experience in Asia we found out quite often that we should have bring with us clothing, jewel, food, etc from our country for trade, swap or gift. What are Fijians craving for ? |
Laszlo 06:15 UTC 13 Apr 2010 | What are Fijians craving for ? Money! Like all people in the World. The times when foreign visitors could bring glass beads and the like to trade with the islanders are long gone. If you want to bring some things from your country, you should do so to give them away as gifts, not to "trade". | 1
raro 06:12 UTC 15 Apr 2010 | Yes, just bring things as gifts. T-shirts and other souvenir items from your home country are also good things to people you befriend. | 2
hardnosethehighway 19:32 UTC 15 Apr 2010 | Fishing tackle while relatively cheap is difficult to obtain. Send me a PM and I'll detail what they need most. | 3
doryblue 22:41 UTC 23 Apr 2010 | Fijians have moved past the trading era and yes what they need most is money to feed and educate their families. If you do meet someone that you would like to extend a gift too then that would be acceptable but don't insult the people by trying to trade a t.shirt for a souvenier. If you plan on visiting a village then by all means take along some school or medical supplies or the like to donate to the village. | 4
Laszlo 22:51 UTC 23 Apr 2010 | Incidentally, Asia is also long past the "trading era" (longer than the Pacific, in most cases), despite OP claiming to have found they should bring things to trade there. What I sometimes found was that local peddlers in a few touristy spots offered to "trade" souvenirs for visitors' stuff just to get them interested in purchasing, but unless the tourist was stupid enough to offer something of real value they'd ask to "add some money" to the item offered for "trade", effectively selling their stuff. Like Dory, I also felt this "trade" thing is actually insulting but did not want to be the first one to say so. | 5