a few questions - budget, itinerary, expenses, real Tahiti

Hi fellas,
as a solo traveler heading out to FP for 18 days im wondering whether you can go over a few questions of mine:

1) My preliminary itinerary: Tahiti (2 nights) - by air Bora Bora (3 nights) - by boat Huahine (2 nights) - by boat Tahiti (1 night) - by ferry Moorea (3 nights) - by ferry Tahiti (1 night) - by plane Maupiti (? nights) - by air Tahiti.

Any opinions? Is it realistic?

2) how much could a budget (roughly) for one day be?
I'll try to keep me expenses as down as possible, trying to save on accommodation as im solo and not too sophisticated in this regard. Please quote CPX if possible - only food and berth.

3) Even so, im gonna do some activities too. Definitely Manta Ray and sharks snorkeling and feeding. As I understand this is available only in Bora Bora and Moorea. Where is it better and where cheaper?

4) Finally, is anywhere in French Polynesia (especially in above islands) an option to stay in home-stay accommodation or village type accommodation as its in some other parts in Pacific?
Catching up with real Tahitians, getting know their traditions etc. All without the classic starchy tourist hype. It might be only my naive romantic idea...

your call, thanks

Aside from the Moorea ferry, I'm not sure the other boat trips are totally reliable as far as schedules.
You might check on an RT airfare to BOB (or Maupiti) from PPT with stops at Huahine and Moorea on the way back, It may not be much more than the boats when added up, and it will give you more time on land.

The 2nd of these passes might be worth considering.

sorry guys, in the first point it was meant to be Tikehau, not Maupiti. I wanna fly out from island Tahiti to Tikehau and then back again by plane. Its quite a major mistake I made. It changes everything and your comments are thus irrelevant.

thanks anyway

any other opinion welcome

p.s.: after all it looks like Im gonna purchase one of the air-passes (BORA BORA - TUAMOTU PASS)

Edited by: Jirikoo

Jirikoo - if you haven't already done so, you should check out the forums at www.tahiti-explorer.com. I found it to be the best source of information for our trip in 2006. I wish I could help you out with the costs but I just have a vague recollection of what things cost. I remember eating out was expensive but the roulottes had food for around 1000CPF. We self catered and bought groceries so breakfasts and lunches were not too expensive. We did a shark feeding/manta ray tour with Ranuii on Bora Bora that was 10000CPF per person but I recall seeing something on tahiti-explorer about a tour run by a budget campground on Moorea that was 2500CPF. Some budget places offer a campground option. Hope this helps! FP is just beautiful - Huahine was our favorite island!

Regardless of uit not being Maupiti, you still might want to check out an RT air ticket to BOB and back, with stops in Huahine and Moorea.

Raro, he has decided to get a 10 islands pass.
Which looks great value for money, except that he would have 1.8 days on each island - and that does not even include Tahiti itself.
Hope he does NOT try and get maximum value out of the pass by flying to ALL 10 places!

Laszlo, i dont wanna visit all islands included in the pass. Or do i have to with that type of pass?

my itinerary: Tahiti (2 nights) - by air Bora Bora (3 nights) - by boat Huahine (2 nights) - by boat Tahiti (1 night) - by ferry Moorea (3 nights) - by ferry Tahiti (1 night) - by plane Tikehau.

The thing is once im on Huahine i do not wanna solely rely on the boat to get to Tahiti I thought of plane as alternative route directly to Moorea (if something goes wrong with me or boat).

Furthermore, the cost of the pass is similar to purchasing three point-to-point fares (Tahiti - Bora Bora; Tahiti to Tikehau and Tikehau to Tahiti).

On the other side I plead ignorance on thorough conditions of the carrier. I may catch up on it.

I don't think you will HAVE TO visit all islands, though you may have to pass through some unwanted ones in transit due to routings.
I do agree that the passes are great value even if you don't visit all possible islands - that's why I linked to them.
So I guess you no longer want take all those boats if buying the pass.