Camping in French Polynesia

Hi All,

I recently got back from a month long budget camping trip around French Polynesia and wanted to share the somewhat hard to find info I have.

There is camping on most of the frequently visited islands, but not all.

The best-known camping on the Society Islands is probably Camping Nelson on Moorea. This is a decent campsite but as construction is ongoing there are no common areas, no kitchen areas and no electrical outlets to charge anything. It has a nice waterfront and pleasant but mosquito infested grassy sites. It has very good free wifi and the showers and toilets are moderately clean. There is great snorkeling right off the beach. This campground is very far from the ferry terminal and airport and should probably only be used if you have a car or motorcycle. A car gives you a place to secure your gear, and a place to go in the evening to get away from the mosquitoes. If you are looking for rugged camping you might be able to find some poor but free sites on the numerous trails that start at the Belvedere overlook parking lot. The government has recently (like within the last couple of months) installed shiny new trail signs and color coded trail blaze markers up and down the valley trails. If you wanted to try to camp out here it would be unofficial and purely wild rugged camping. I did a fair amount of hiking and there are wide spots and flat areas along various trails that would support a couple of tents. This would require a car to get to the Belvedere. The other Moorea commercial campgrounds that you find mentioned on various sites are all closed now.

Huahine has an excellent campground on Huahine Iti, which is the smaller island to the south. This campground is doable without a car. The friendly owners will provide a transfer and have bicycles and motorbikes for rent. This location is rather remote so you need to bring supplies, although basic food is available from a little shop across the road. There is great snorkeling right off the beautiful beach and the owners are a wealth of hospitality and information. They have pay wifi and a pretty good kitchen and shelter building.

Maupiti has commercial camping available on the motus (surrounding islets). There are supposedly two campgrounds here but I could not find info about either in advance so showed up with no booking. I had a fall back plan—other backpackers had told me that it is possible to camp on the trail to the summit of the central mountain. I did not try this so not sure if you can but you can search for directions to the trail head. I asked around on the island and got in touch with Pension Auria, also called Pension Edna or Chez Edna. This is a very rough and basic campground in a fabulous location, incredible views of the mountain and great swimming and snorkeling right off the beach. No car or bike is needed for Maupiti.

Tahiti does not have any easy to use camping. There are camping shelters on the summit hike to Mt. Aorai, but I did not hike this as everyone I talked to about this hike said it was cold, wet and over rated. There is a commercial campground on Tahiti Iti but you can not get to it by car. It is possible to sleep in the open-air airport terminal for free.

Raiatea has a fabulous commercial campground at Sunset Beach Motel, this is the best place to camp I found anywhere in FP. Great facilities and rates. They provide free airport transfers, or you can walk from the airport or the yacht marina.

Arriving in Hiva Oa by air, you can probably hitch a ride but you will have to walk out a kilometer or so from the airport to the main cross-island road to see any cars. It might be better to arrange a transfer and your first night in one of the budget pensions in Atuona, which is the place you want to go to stock up on supplies. Camping in Atuona is not great, although an internet search will show examples of people doing it. The beach park is somewhat quiet and spacious but there are random kids and drunks around. This would be best for a late arrival and early departure. Puamau, on the other side of the island, has a good camping area in the public beach park which stretched all along the harbor. There are rustic cold outside showers and tap water along the beach and a shelter area with proper showers and toilets but these are often locked. There is a shop that most travelers and locals stop in at nearby, this is a great place to hitch a ride. The tiny village of Nahoe has a small rocky beach park with a nice shelter that has a payphone, a bathroom with a toilet and a shower, this is a pretty good place to camp and reasonably good for hitching rides as everyone has to pass by it. The yacht harbor town of Hanapaaoa has very good camping. I spent a couple of days here in heavy rain and stayed dry in the large shelter building in the public waterfront park. There are showers and toilets here, a decent beach, and two shelter buildings. Yacht often use the showers and shelter at the end of the beach and yachties might have some useful travel info, books and supplies to trade, etc.

If you arrive on Nuku Hiva by air, you will not be able to hitch a ride from the very remote airport. You have to pay, or have a pension arrange transport. There is a large government forest reserve in the mountains, as you pass through this on your paid trip into the main town of Taiohae, you can check this out and see the various open places amidst the trees that would work for camping. In Taiohae, there are various budget pensions in the 60-80 dollar range, or a nicer motel in the 100 range. Any of these places can put you in touch with professional guides who can take you to hikes, waterfalls, and remote campsites. If you are very low budget, your best bet for a place to stay here is on a boat. There is a small shop, restaurant and yacht service business right on the pier where you could post a note or ask around for anyone with room. If you get desperate for a place and have a tent, there are hiking trails that leave out from both ends of town that could pass for a night of roughing it, but you might encounter other hikers. One route is to walk south along the harbor, turn inland at the motel and hike up around above it up to the pass until the gate, and turn left down to the rocky beach. The other route is to walk north until you are on the road looking down over the large dock and gas station. Keep walking past until the road turns into a trail in the woods. Follow it a couple of kilometers up to the open area on the headland where there is a spectacular view of the harbor, and a crumbling shelter shed and rocky flat area you could pitch a tent.

Hope this helps budget travelers in French Polynesia!

Great info!

RangerChris,

Thanks for posting this. Loads of great information, I really appreciate it.

Where you have talked about just camping on hiking trails was this fairly easy? Did anyone give you any hassle for just being camped in public areas? Did you ever camp on beaches on some of the more far out islands? what would you say is the average cost of a campsite?

Open camping off of hiking trails on most of the islands is generally not easy or doable except in limited areas. Internet searches will also show a scattering of blogs of people camping at various locations around FP, but most of these are in French. I don't speak any French so my experiences were interacting with people just in English. Never once during the entire month did anyone ever hassle me except for panhandlers in the city of Papeetee, and many times both native Polynesians and French expats went out of the way to welcome me, offer me food, etc.

On Tahiti itself, I did not attempt to camp on the hiking trails above the Belvedere on Tahiti but from what I understand this is straightforward inside a couple of shelter camping areas. There are a couple of longer hiking trails on the island of Tahiti that have limited areas that would work, but these hikes are often done with a guide. I asked some budget guesthouses if they would allow camping but all said no due to insurance issues. I would say that I would stay at the three backpacker type places (Fifi across from the airport which has inexpensive, airless dorm beds, the hostel downtown which is in a poor area but has a range of services, or the first rate but somewhat remote Te Miti hostel) as my first choice on Tahiti, and if cost was absolutely critical then sleep on the hard benches in the open air domestic terminal at the main airport (unless you have a car, parking would cost more than a hostel bed.) I did this twice and it works really well if you are truly hard core budget and have an early flight. You probably won't sleep much but it is free.

Wikitravel Papeetee has sometimes listed a free campsite inside the city limits--I think this would be highly unwise.

It is reasonably easy to find places high up on the island of Nuku Hiva. This is a pretty and cool place and as far as I can tell all government land (but you need a car or motorcycle to get up there, all of which are costly. Pretty much everywhere else in the entire Marquesas is accessible to hitch hikers or on foot). On foot from the main harbor on Nuku Hiva, there are a few areas you could look into. For a proper camping holiday with cooking and full campsite, hire one of the commonly available boat guide who can take you to the waterfall hike, which can be extended to a camping trip. If you are looking to camp as a way to save money and just slip in and out with a low impact campsite, my first suggestion would be to walk out of the south side of town and up the long and slightly confusing road that eventually leads up to the crest, and then take the branch to the left and hike down to the rocky beach. There are people living in the area but there are open places along the beach and I did not see anyone there. Very scenic and lots of places to explore but also no-nos and mosquitoes and no fresh water. Numerous people told me that you could take the path to the right and hike miles and miles out towards the waterfall but I did not do this myself so can not say for sure but I would imagine there are places to camp on this path. Heading out of town the other direction, you will have to search and maybe wander around a bit to find the path out to the viewpoint. Basically you want to end up heading out above the main pier, past a helipad and grazing horses, and the road will narrow to a path then a hiking trail through the woods. Be advised that this seems deserted and quiet during the day but is frequented by exercising locals in the cooler evening hours. I would not set up a camp here until you were comfortable that the evening foot traffic was mostly over. I found a spectacular place to set up in a sort of abandoned shelter high up on the overlook. The view from here is stupendous and the scenery world class for a campsite. Downsides here are the heavy foot traffic and possible windy exposure. There are fewer bugs here. I got ahold of a map from a local guesthouse owner that showed a trail that connected to this one, and headed up the adjacent mountain supposedly passing some waterfalls and viewpoints but could not for the life of me find this trail so it may be all grown over.

Hiva Oa is quite easy to camp on, but in the locations described above rather than off of hiking trails. I searched around trails on this island including places like the Smiling Tiki and some of the more obscure archaeological sites. I hiked partway up to the hidden beach (well known by local and yachties and signed but somewhat hard to find) heading out over the mountain from Hanaiapa but honestly found it too hot, humid and overgrown so just camped in the beach park. There are many archaeological sites and short trails and scenic overlooks that I investigated. Camping in these overgrown, buggy areas would be highly difficult and unpleasant. In short stay at the developed park camping areas. These are all free on Hiva Oa.

Maupiti in theory could have rough camping off of the summit trail but I am not sure this is prudent as people live nearby and I found limited English speakers, but the commercial campground on the motu is reasonably cheap and has great snorkeling and views.

I heard second hand info mainly from young boat-sitters that many of the smaller off the beaten path islands are easier to camp on.

Moorea has limited camping possibilities off of trails leading from the Belvedere viewpoint. I found these to be scenic but tiresomely humid and buggy. You can look at the trail map once there and see that you can head in various directions, and I avoided all of the paths heading down and toward development. I hiked up to Three Coconuts Pass, which has a viewpoint area that may or may not work depending on how recently it was mowed. If not recently then the jungle will grow up and more or less limit your ability to secure a tent. I was lucky and had a cleared area. There are some possible places to camp between the pass and the parking lot but they tend to be wet. The best choice seems to be the nearest viewpoint, just a couple hundred meters from the car park. This was freshly mowed and had moderately flat-ish space that looked good although I just ate a meal and did not camp overnight here. For the record I never asked anyone regarding rough camping on Moorea and suspect that it is frowned upon. I also worried excessively about my rental car parked at the Belvedere car park although no one bothered it. If I was to go back I would probably rent a motorcycle or car and stay at Camping Nelson and drive around from there. The campground is a tad remote and the construction is irksome but the wifi is free and the shower and bathroom and beach access are worth a lot.

All rough camping in the country involves great heat and humidity in excess of places like Hawai'i and Rapa Nui. Bugs are very bad throughout French Polynesia. Consider this particularly for your evening hours--bugs drive you into your tent but the stifling air drives you back out. Access to fresh water is an issue, and trails seem to grow so fast that a place that is perfect now might be utterly unreachable next year.

Overall I would suggest to anyone looking for camping sites that are exclusively off of hiking trails probably will not enjoy French Polynesia as much as Hawai'i or places like Australia, Canada, Chile, etc. It is a great place, just not exactly in this manner.

If you are a budget traveler specifically headed to French Polynesia for a good vacation I would mix up wild camping in the Marquesas with developed camping in the Society Islands, budget dorm beds on Tahiti, and on the more space-restricted atolls budget for pensions.

If you really desire a tropical camping experience where you can hike and set up a campsite off of a trail, check into Kaua'i, Queensland or similar places.

Hope this helps!

Thank you for all your detailed and up to date info!
How`s the eating chapter in FP? I heard a simple baguette is 10€...
So I guess we will be self catering.
Did you carry your own cooking gear?
Do you have any recommendations regarding the mozzies/heat problem?

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