Lonely Planet™ · Thorn Tree Forum · 2020

French Polynesia: is this too much? / airpass

Country forums / Pacific Islands & Papua New Guinea / Tahiti & French Polynesia

Hey guys and girls,

we're going to FP in august and are deciding on buying an air tahiti airpass.
We've got 10 days and would like to see a fair bit, so our choice was the bora bora pass.
We'll be doing Mo'orea, Huahine, Bora Bora and Maupiti.

With only 10 days in FP, this means roughly 2 days per island...and skipping Tahiti itself.

Is this realistic/enjoyable, or would a simple air pass (with just Mo'orea/Huahine/Tahiti) be more sensible?

2 days on each island is not much for lazing, we know, but we're coming from Fiji, and we've been lazing there for a month, so we don't mind being a bit more active.

Thanks for yr advice!

Jan en Sofie

That's a lot for ten days.
I'd pick Bora Bora for two days, Moorea for maybe four or five. Then a day on Tahiti at the beginning and/or end, which may be needed for your flights.

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I think you can make it. I was in a similar situation some years ago. Since I'm not interested to laze around on beaches for several days, it took me eleven days visiting Ra'iatea, Huahine, Bora Bora and Mo'orea. In my opinion, one full day for Bora Bora is enough - it's tiny (I toured it by bicycle) and the best of the island is the view from the air (I still can't understand why it's so popular with high-budget travellers). Huahine and Ra'iatea took me three days each (by car), but I visited many of the archeological sites - that's time consuming. The rest was for Mo'orea (just a nice place, much better than Bora Bora, in my opinion), where I really didn't do anything else than hanging around (should you be there on a Sunday, go for an umu lunch to Painapo Beach!!!).

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I stayed in Bora Bora 1 day and half, my flight was at 11.30, enough. I enjoied too much Maupiti very quite and I was alone on the beach
sorry, I don't speak English

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Because we felt we might never get the chance to get back to FP we did 5 islands in 14 days and were very pleased with our trip. It is a lot of getting on and off airplanes but we didn't waste as much time waiting in airports as we thought. We spent 3 nights on Tahiti - one would have been plenty. The lagoon is the best place in Bora Bora - do try to get a boat trip out on it - the water colors will stay with you forever. Huahine and Bora Bora were our favorites.

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