Cost of family travel in Fiji

I'm trying to find out what it typically costs a family of 4 to travel around Fiji, so I can decide whether or not to include it as a stop on our six-month itinerary. We're happy to travel budget/backpacker-style, nothing too fancy required. Two adults & two kids. Not sure if we'd need to rent two hotel rooms everywhere, or can most places accommodate 4 in a room? I don't know if dorms are our style anymore, with kids along, but hostels with family rooms are OK. For hotel rooms, the kids are too big to squeeze into twin beds with us -- but 2 double beds in a room would be fine. I know it isn't going to be as cheap as, say, Bali -- but can it be done for $120 a day or am I dreaming? Thanks for any info!

Hi,
I would recommend the Nadi Bay Resort. Its a 15 minutes walk to the beach however the resort does have a pool. They have a 4 bed dorm which costs around FJD28.00 per person however I would have a look at other websites apart from the resort website which would offer a lower rate.

"can it be done for $120 a day'

Yes definitely all kinds of choice.

For instance look here http://www.macsnananu.com/

Lots of accommodation info on Rob Kay's site http://www.fijiguide.com/

Not sure if poster #2 has been to McDonalds recently - but even staying in their dorm that would take care of the $120/day - without boat transfers, and own food preparation. Certainly the food package would be out of the question. And having recently spent 10 days there I wouldn't recommend it anyway.

Sorry, have to disagree with #1. I stayed there in November, doesn't matter how much a room costs if you share it with fleas! Also, the beach along that stretch of coast is not wonderful. $120 per day - is that for all four of you? Food and accommodation and travel?

"And having recently spent 10 days there I wouldn't recommend it anyway."

Ah well nothing stays the same forever.

It may be possible, but I think you'll have to do some careful research. There will also be some trade-offs between costs and location. I'm assuming your $120 is $US120.

Roughly speaking, there are three ways of living on Fiji: tourism-only resorts, main towns, and settlements.

The resorts cater specifically to the (beach) vacations. These are often on small islands or otherwise removed from any sort of local infrastructure. As such, meal plans are a necessity, and this drives up the costs. Here's a link to a good quality lower end resort at Leleuvia, off Ovalau island. The prices speak for themselves - your $US120 barely covers it. The sort of accom differs widely among resorts. Leleuvia has a family bure, and has a "dorm" small enough that your family could even rent the whole dorm for yourself. But other resorts might have bigger dorms only, forcing you to rent 2 bure, which would be expensive indeed. So, in the end, you have to check the resorts one by one and see what they have - no shortcut around this.

The second option is to stay in a town of some size. It will generally be cheaper doing this. You may still have to rent two double rooms, but you will at least have a choice of restaurants and markets which will cut down food costs. The main concern for you is that not all such places are close to a good beach holiday location. So, while it can be interesting and cheap to stay in towns like Labasa or Lautoka or Suva, they'd require some daily commuting to get to a decent beach. There are some other small towns, like Matei on Taveuni, Savusavu on Vanua Levu, or Levuka on Ovalau, which are a bit closer to sea and beaches - and so easier to combine relatively cheaper town life with other activities. But they are still not beach resorts. Here's another link to a low-budget organization, having properties in both towns and beach areas. You'll see the price differences between town and beach hotels.

The third 'option' probably isn't an option at all. Outside of the main towns on Fiji, the locals live in settlements. The social structure of these places resembles more a large extended family. Public facilities and infrastructure are close to zero. A 'shop' may be in someone's house, selling noodle soup, tinned meat, biscuits, eggs. This is what makes it so difficult to self-cater even using a resort as a base, or relying on what the locals might offer in the way of accom. For example, there's a lodge at Lavena (on Taveuni) for the national park in the area. It includes a kitchen, but nowhere to buy anything (except the closet-store in a nearby house). So you end up buying meals from the locals anyway.

Thanks everyone. It doesn't look promising -- I think we'd need a bigger budget to do this properly. Yep, we're stuck with $120 a day for all four of us, for everything except flights and pre-departure costs (so that budget needs to cover hotels, food, transport, souvenirs, entrance fees, everything). We figure this is very do-able where well be spending most of our time (Southeast Asia and India). I was just looking around to see if Fiji might be something we could incorporate into our half-year trip, since it does figure on some round-the-world tickets, with the flights not costing too much extra. Oh well!

definitely. I met a family just like that on our trip to the yasawas. I would highly recommend the Island hopping on the yasawas with your family and staying at local bures (not the blue lagoon resort types). You wont regret it and quite memorable.

Edited by: drgreenthumb