Fiji - 3 weeks with a kid

Hi,

We are considering a 3 weeks trip to Fiji by late March. We would travel with our nearly 4 years old daugther and we are looking for visiting some of the main islands, trying to capture the essence of the country rather than staying in a resort all the time. We are interested in hiking (nothing very serious but short 2-4 hours walks), nature in general, diving, hanging around with locals, etc..

We have been told that moving around without reservations could be quite challenging and expensive. Is that true? (We will be there in Eastern week). We plan to sleep in budget accommodation (hostels, cheap cottages - if such thing exists - 150 AUD/night?) and basically move based on improvisation. Is that reasonable? Trevalling with a kid, I cannot take big risks.

About the itenerary, world you have any recomendation? We'd like to make it in stops of 3 days minimum so we dont need to travel every day. Planning to visit mainland, Ovalau, Vanua Levu and Taveuni.

Any idea or suggestion in regards to any of these points would be higly appreciated. Thanks in advanced.

Jorge

You can easily find accommodation well within your budget,and it is absolutely NOT true that you can't move around without advance reservations.
In fact, pre-booked packages will be more expensive than going on your own, except to the top-end resorts, which you say you want to avoid.

This site lists some budget accommodation on the main island of Viti Levu:

http://www.fiji4less.com/

For info on cheaper accommodation on Ovalau, see this site:

http://www.levukafiji.com/

For more info, do buy the Lonely Planet guide to Fiji - it is far from perfect, but will still answer most of your Qs in much more detail than anyone here could.