Tonga

Travelling around Tonga is difficult. There are few flights and ferries that are far between.
You need to fly into Tonga from Auckland, NZ.
Once in Nuku'alofa either fly or ferry to Ha'pai as soon as possible. I didn't like Tongatapu and suggest avoiding it bar spending a Sunday at various churches with locals.
There is a ferry schedule yet it is completely unreliable. Get to Eua yet don't rely on getting back when you plan. Its rough between Tongatapu and Eua and the ferry is subject to delays often.
Take the new ferry to Ha'pai and sleep on the decks. Be pushy and impolite to get a place and take a bed roll and rug.
the ferry goes every 8-14 days. The plane is more reliable yet a few hundred dollars more expensive.
I suggest staying anywhere but Langilangi's Guesthouse. She ripped me off $42 pa'anga in a very manipulative way and provided dirty sheets, a lumpy bed with the threat someone else would be sharing it! and a blocked toilet full of shit. She lies, manipulates and steals and thinks she is entitled to palangi money. The children next door are noisy and rascist. Stay well away!
Get Kalanoa from Taiana's Resort to pick you up T$30- stay on Uoleva with Taiana and Kalafi ($35/night)- they're a wonderful Tongan couple, Taiana is a good cook($10-$20/meal), lovely, gracious and gentle, and Kalafi is a exuberant, open, fun comedian and maverick. Its worth staying a few days with them. They'll look after you well. Try not to waste water as Kalafi has to pump it by hand with his one good arm. Head south to Uiha, for a further $30pa'anga, to a village where Taiana comes from.
I biked through villages to north Lifuka - it was the best here - around the tip of the island is an amazing coral reef. I didn't stay at the resorts, yet I would next time splurge on accomodation to be here. The Kiwi owned resort I preferred and I met their horse man, who comes from the nearby village. he's accomodating with times and has three lovely horses.
Whale Watching on Ha'pai is best value out of all the islands. its a few hundred dollars yet wealthier tourists came back euphoric from seeing whales up close.
Ferry to Vava'u and try to be crew on one of the yachts. Vava'u is best seen from the water. Kayak trips looked appealing.
I'd recommend you take as much yummy food from home as you can get through. Food is limited in Tonga and expensive. Resorts will provide the best meals, yet I found all meals wanting. The locals live on starchy root crops and Chinese tinned food - particularly corned beef. It was hard work self catering and futile. Find Inoke in Talamahu market if you want kava. He'll sort you out with a few kgs. I recommend kava for people with chronic pain - kavactones in the kava tell muscles to relax and give relief. Taken as medicine daily kava doesn't pose a drug or alcohol addiction. Its not classed as either. Its a root crop and there's no need to get 'drunk' or 'wasted' on it like local men and if you are a woman like me, when buying it say its for your man back home and drink privately. Its no ones business. Dress conservatively - lavalava and a dress that covers chest and up to elbows. South Auckland has shops with Pacific Island clothes for sale where the Tongan's get family to send over for church clothes. They dress up big time on Sundays.
Don't expect much of a tourist infrastructure in Tonga. There's poverty and bars over shops. Only Langilangi stole off me. Pita and Mone (fakaleiti) from Toni's Guesthouse were lovely - Toni can be a barking old dog but he also has a great dry sense of humour needed to survive Tongatapu.

My experiences at Langilangi's Guesthouse were most positive.
I (and the only other guest staying there at the time) thought she was a lovely old lady and the definitely simple homestay-style accommodation was great value - bearing in mind that for 15 paanga it's the cheapest in all Tonga, so obviously it's no flashy hotel.

In contrast, I thought Toni was a grumpy old (British) man with the worst-located accommodation in Nuku 'alofa, many miles out of the town proper. Moved to much better located and friendlier Sela's after 2 nights.

Comments like "Don't expect much of a tourist infrastructure in Tonga. There's poverty..."+ and +"Travelling around Tonga is difficult." make me feel OP just went to the wrong country and would have had a better time in French Polynesia or New Caledonia.
While Tonga is definitely not as developed as those 2 French territories, by South Pacific standards it is still an easy country to travel around, and apart from Fiji (where there's much tourism infrastructure but also some poverty, sorry!), just about the cheapest one.

Just to balance the above comments...

I've never been in Tonga so I can't comment about it. However; I can say that this sentence isn't true: You need to fly into Tonga from Auckland, NZ.

You can fly from Sydney too and from Los Angeles and from Nandi...

This isn't true either: There are few flights and ferries that are far between.

Flights are regular and unless a major disruption occurs, there are "ferries" to Eua and Haapai several times a week, and to Vavau at least weekly, too.

Well, maybe OP expected "ferries" in Tonga to run as frequently as between the North and South Islands of NZ...

You can fly from Sydney too and from Los Angeles and from Nandi...

This sentence is not true either. There are no more flights to and from Los. Angeles anymore, but you can get to T.onga directly from S.uva too. So its A.uckland, S.ydney, N.adi or S.uva.

@wksamoa: you're right. There was a flight Los Angeles-Apia-Samoa operated by Air New Zealand but it's not longer the case. Sorry for the misinformation, I should have verified it. Do you know when was suspended that route? I think that last year it was still running.

Monday, January 24th, 2011,was the last flight to AKL out of S.amoa, returning Wednesday, 26th. Now the S.amoa to H.onolulu connection is booming (Air Pacific) as going to LAX via New. Zealand is simply too time consuming, besides the fact that Samoan citizens would need a NZ transit visa to do this. So going through H.awaii is the easier option.

No more flights between T.onga and S.amoa anymore though - locals do hardly miss is, but tourists certainly do.

@wksamoa: Thanks for the feedback.

Note: There's a mistake (typo) on my post on #5; where it says There was a flight Los Angeles-Apia-Samoa operated by Air New Zealand but it's not longer the case+, it should say +There was a flight Los Angeles-Apia-Tongatapu operated by Air New Zealand but it's not longer the case

" Moved to much better located and friendlier Sela's after 2 nights."

While Sela's is close to downtown Nukulofa the place stunk like burning garbage-well so does the whole island much of the time.

In any case I found that while Tonga can be tough to travel in and some locals are stupid and avaricious they are far outnumbered by people of quality, integrity and goodwill.

PrincepescaPuss, thanks for the opinions and I'll see if I print this out and of course, compare with my own opinions.
However this topic looks a bit weird, who's OP after all? It looks like someone posted a question here which was subsequently deleted (???)

"However this topic looks a bit weird, who's OP after all? It looks like someone posted a question here which was subsequently deleted (???)"

Not at all-OP is something of a poorly written whinging excuse for a travel report.

Indeed.

And as this is OP's first ever contribution to TT, I guess it was inspired by his/her disappointment with Tonga which didn't exactly turn out to be a straightforward holiday paradise like Hawaii or Tahiti, and a desire to warn others off.

oh, so OP and PrincepescaPuss are the same person? Got it.

@Alex_Carioca: OP=Original Poster or, sometimes, Original Post.

P.S.: I recommend you to read the FAQs. You'll find the answer to more questions like this.

oops... noted. Thanks a lot!