1 week in Tahiti on a low budget

Hello

Need some guidance if you're able to help!

We (sadly) only have 1 week in Tahiti and are on a low budget so realisitically are looking at campsites/backpackers or cheap pensions.

Both absolutely love snorkelling and kayaking. Would like to just chill out on a beautiful beach somewhere (with decent snorkelling) off the beaten track and also have opportunity to mix with the locals. I have pretty much concluded that Bora Bora is out of our budget and might be too over developed for our liking...

Am tossing up between 2 plans. We arrive Papetee late night so will need to spend the first night on Tahiti, plus Papetee sounds like its worth a look around, so here are the 2 options I have come up with:

Plan 1: 1st night Papetee, spend following morning / early afternoon looking round Papetee, then catch a flight to Huahine where we would spend the rest of the week snorkelling, chilling out and hopefully getting to know some Polynesians! On last day catch flight back to Papetee 1st thing in the monring to connect with our international flight which leaves mid afternoon.

Plan 2: 1st night Papetee, then fly to Huahine for 3 nights, then Moorea for 3 nights before getting ferry from Moorea to Tahiti on the morning of our last day

We dont want to do lots of rushing around, but I feel like if we spent most of our time on Huahine we would be missing out on something, are my suspicions correct?! Or is there another island we should also consider instead of Huahine considering our budget and travel preferences?

Any thoughts welcome!

Thanks so much :)

Lolly

Edited by: Little Lolly

I wasn't aware of any great beaches on Huahine. If you just want to sit and chill etc., I'd just go to Moorea for the whole time, except for PPT at the beginning and end.

We actually did not find many great beaches in FP except out on the motus. But that being said there is a beach at Fare, the main town. If you are into biking,(not sure where you get them as ours came with our accomodation) you can get to the lovely beach at the closed Sofitel Hotel(may be reopened but there is public access) where there is some great snorkeling. You can also walk south from Fare Beach along the shore for about 10 minutes and find some great snorkeling just offshore. I would imagine someone would be renting kayaks and there are also boat trips you can avail of, if your budget allows. For an inexpensive place to stay, check out Chez Gynette in Fare. Fare has a nice supermarket where you can pick up items for breakfast and lunch and then you can eat inexpensively at the roulottes that set up on the dock in the evenings. We had 3 nights there and wished we had allotted more time. We also visited Moorea but really enjoyed the slower, more homey feeling of Huahine. If you would like more information on Huahine you can send me a PM. Hope this helps!

Agree with Raro. Never been to Huahine, bit Moorea is very nice and a great place to just slow down and take life easy. PPT and Tahiti is worth a day or two.

If you are on a strict budget I would just head to Moorea, there are a number of budget choices. Moorea and Nelson camping had the best beach area(didn't stay there though) I stayed at Pension Motu Iti (dorm) for a few days- nice sunset & Sunrises and swimming. Also stayed at Marks place, further from beach, but also nice. I did love my visit to Huahine, stayed at Chez Guynette. So if your budget allows, go with plan B. If you arrive on a Sat night, be aware everything in Papeete is closed on Sunday. Look for Silvanocats blog in the first section, lots of good advise. Joan

I second (third) going straight from PPT to Moorea... We stayed at Moorea Camping for about a week and I really recommend it, cheap, clean, self catered (which makes it even cheaper IYKWIM) and great beach... You can do little trips to the motus which are beautiful or just do some snorklling around the camp area. Really beautiful. It was a while ago when I was there, but at the time it was only a few dollars more expensive to fly the return trip from Moorea than it was to take the ferry, and so worth the extra bucks!

Thanks for the replies everyone, really helpful!

Little Lolly,

Just saw your post. Don't discount Bora Bora if you're that close to visiting. Try search guest cabins/properties in the locale of Matira Beach. Also, not sure but Vaitape may have various room options for the casual visitor willing to spend a day or two.

The outer-lying motu is where the budget will deplete...

Dustbrother.