Lonely Planet™ · Thorn Tree Forum · 2020

Cheap place to stay

Country forums / Pacific Islands & Papua New Guinea / Tonga

Hello,

I have booked a flight to Tonga on the 23rd of June and was after a cheap place to stay for a week and if you could also tell me what to do there. I'm intrerested in whale watching and a bit of treking.

Many Thanks in advance.

Not much "trekking" on Tongatapu, pretty flat, and populated. Not sure if the whales will be in full force by June, but could be.

If you can afford to get to Ha'apai or Vava'u (both are by plane if you only have a few days), then they are both interesting destinations for a few days rather than spending all your time on Tongatapu.

Haapai has no trekking, just some islets. Vavau has a few hills, but not real "trekking".

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Oops, forgot to mention cheap places to stay. On Tongatapu, Tony's is a favorite of a lot of TTers. On Vavau, check out Adventure Backpackers, or Port Wine guest house.

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Nerima Lodge is very good and great value.

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Best place for trekking would be Eua, off Tongatapu. Great limestone country with lots of caves. Don,t think you can fly there at the moment but the ferry is reasonable. "Hideaway" is a great place to stay and they have all the info on walks on the island. Enjoy, Gavin

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Forgot to mention Hideaway have a whale watching platform on the reef in front of their restaurant, we got to see whales breaching offshore while we ate our meals. They also had a motor catamaran they took people out whale watching in. That was 2006, not sure if their boat is still running. Gavin

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