looking for help across the pacific to chile

Looking for some help

Hi to all out there that are on the road
Me and my wife are planning the second stage of our trip across the Pacific hoping to spend about 10 to 14 days in each or less if need in each island.
We are two mid rage backpackers who have been traveling for six months now and never getting tired with the amazing places and people we meet.

At present we are in Vietnam looking to go next to Indonesia were by we will spend about 2 to 3 weeks heading over to Timor. We are looking for help in how to get from Timor to Papua New Guinea, which is the best connection and how much time / cost by air or by sea. We did see a flight for $US1200 per person which was kind of high as we are on a budget. Any help here is welcome along with route and sights to see.

After our 8 to 10 days in Papua New Guinea we plan to go to the Solomon Islands again we find that the connection is kind of backtracking for us and we wish to know if there is a direct flight or one that does not go down to Sydney. We would look to fly into Gizo if possible but if not Honiara.

Then From here cost on flights to Vanuatu – Vanuatu to new Caledonia or would it best to fly from Solomon Islands to New Caledonia then to Vanuatu?
The next place would be Fiji after here we kind of thinking which route to take, should we go to Tonga then Samoa or Samoa to Tonga. We think Christmas Island would be to far to go so we are thinking to stay on route and go to Rarotonga and the Cook islands then to Tahiti and French Polynesia island What we would like to know is there an air pass for all these islands and if so how many days and where can you go and cost.

Your help is much appreciated along with any other recommendation on routes, sights & so on as we are still planning this route ourselves.

Thank you

From Kupang in West Timor, fly or take a ship to Makassar in South Sulawesi, then another flight or boat to Jayapura.
Get a PNG visa here, then cross the land border to Vanimo.
With your very limited time, you will have to fly within PNG, which is expensive.
There are flights from Port Moresby to Honiara, but compare the fare with flying via AU!
Then fly to Vanuatu, NC and Fiji, in that order. All direct flights.
From Fiji you can fly to Tonga or Samoa but there are no flights between those two, so if you want to see both, you must go via Fiji again. If you skip one, skip Samoa, I'd say.
To fly from this region to the Cooks, you must go via New Zealand, there are no direct flights.
From Rarotonga you can fly to Tahiti, then Easter Island, then Santiago.

There are no airpasses worth speaking of, you will have to buy oneway tickets on various airlines. It won't be cheap!

Hi bodhisun,

I am doing a similar trip in June. I am in New Zealand now and will be travelling exclusively in Polynesia before ending the trip in Santiago, Chile. I wouldn't be able to tell you anything about Melanesia (PNG, Solomon, Vanuatu or New Caledonia), but New Zealand (Auckland especially) is a good base to launch yourself eastwards into the Pacific.

I myself will be travelling in this manner Auckland-Tonga-Fiji-Samoa-Auckland-Rarotonga-Tahiti-Easter Island-Santiago. This involves only one backtrack to Auckland (which is pretty good considering the poor flight network in the Pacific). Like Laszlo said, the most "direct" flight between Tonga and Samoa is via Fiji. However, I would like to point out that if you do decide to spend two weeks in Tonga, fly into Vava'u from Nadi (Fiji) instead of the capital Nuku'alofa. Then, travel south to Nuku'alofa by air or sea to catch your connecting flight to Auckland. This saves you time and money from backtracking if you really want to see Tonga from north to south. However, bear in mind that Nadi-Vava'u flights only happen on Saturdays.

If you decide to fly Port Vila (VTU) - Nadi (FJI)- Apia (SAM) - Nadi (FJI) - Vava'u (TGA), you can use the multi-city option on fijiairways.com to book your tickets. When I tried to book all my tickets with Fiji Airways last month, the multi-city option was not available, so I had to call them in NZ. It turned out to be cheaper than booking all legs separately. If the multi-city option does not work as you wish, then give them a call or email, they may be able to sort that out for you. It is probably a better idea to book all legs on the same ticket whenever possible so that if one leg is cancelled/delayed (which I was told is a norm in the Pacific), the airline has the responsibility to put you on the next connecting flight. That is probably the closest you can get to an "air pass".

Auckland to Rarotonga is a popular Kiwi route and you have several airlines like AirNZ, Virgin and Jetstar plying this trade. You may get a good bargain depending on the time of travel. Raro to Tahiti is another story. Only Air Tahiti (not to be confused with Air Tahiti Nui) serves this route on Thursdays (and sometimes Saturdays) and is code-shared with Air Rarotonga. When I bought my ticket, airtahiti.comi gives a better price at about NZ$30 cheaper than airraro.com. So, shop around and make skyscanner.com your best friend.

You will initially be surprised and think twice about your Pacific route when you realise the Pape'ete (Tahiti) - Easter Island one-way flight is going to cost you at least US$900. And even if you do a multi-city search with LAN for Pape'ete (Tahiti) - Easter Island - Santiago, you will receive a quote for US$1400. It took me almost a whole year and uncountable fruitless google searches to realise that you can slash a fair bit off the price tag by buying your tickets as such:

1. As silly as you may think, purchase a return ticket Tahiti-Easter Island-Tahiti. Put the return date on a low season. For some reason, this costed me US$380 compared to US$900. For some reason, LAN decided to only sell business class one-way tickets on this particular leg. And even if you have oneworld miles, this award flight is really rare. Travel on the outbound journey and just forget about going back to Tahiti.

2. Go to LAN.com and select your country as Chile to purchase your one-way flight from Easter Island to Santiago. If you can read Spanish, great! If not, google translate should do the job. This way, you are essentially buying a domestic flight "locally" in Chile and costs slightly cheaper than if you do the same with the US website. I don't think this pricing is exclusive to Chileans as I was asked for my nationality as I would have been if I were to use the US or NZ version of LAN.com.

With a bit of tweak, I managed to get these two legs for under US$700 which would otherwise cost me US$1400.

You will be doing a lot of flight ticket shopping and soon you will make good friends with skyscanner.com. It's a good idea to start looking at tickets now. If you're thinking of adding ferry journeys to your itinerary, be wary of the sailing times and flight departure dates as most crucial sailing routes in the Pacific like the domestic Tonga ferry or the Samoa-to-American Samoa ferry run only once a week. You don't want to be caught out arriving just after the ferry departs. Likewise, you wouldn't want to arrive back to the departure airport almost as week early to catch your onward flight.

Planning the itinerary in the Pacific had been fun and there's a lot of learn in the process. All in all the flights costed me about NZ$3000 Auckland to Santiago via the Islands. I still have to sort out the ferry and some domestic flights but as long as the crucial (international) connections are sorted, the rest can fall in place when you're there.

Hope this helps.

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