Lonely Planet™ · Thorn Tree Forum · 2020

Planning a trip of most the UN countries in September

Country forums / Pacific Islands & Papua New Guinea

Anyone else doing something similar at that time ? I will also do PnG probably at the end .
Any tips on how to plan this cheaply would be greatly appreciated !

There are 193 UN countries and PNG is one of them, or do you mean the Un countries just in the the pacific islands.

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I put it in the south Pacific thread .Yes the south pacific UN countries starting from palau and finishing from solomon islands to PnG :)

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It would be nice to be able to do all of these "cheaply"but unfortunately I don't think it's possible.

Anyway someone who knows the region well...Laszlo for example...may be able to give you some advice or suggestions....

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For Polynesia / Southern Melanesia, what I would do is using Fiji as a base, going and coming back there, because Fiji Airways is relatively cheap and Fiji Airports are connected to everywhere.

One thing you might want to look at is also connection via Auckland, because, even if it's much further than Fiji, Air New Zealand works as a real airline in a market with competitors; so, sometimes, let's say, to go from Tonga to Vanuatu, you might find that a stopover in Auckland is cheaper than a stopover in Nadi.

Regarding Micronesia, it was until recently the unavoidably expensive part of Oceania; but luckily a year ago Air Niugini started a service to both Chuuk and Pohnpei from Port Moresby. Air Niugini is reasonably cheap.

You can do this: start in Palau (connected to the world either with Philippine Airways, or Cathay Pacific, or Korean Airlines).

Then, I would avoid as hell the United Airlines flights connecting FSM, they are super expensive, and try instead the local Micronesian Airlines flight Palau - Yap - Pohnpei.

Then, Pohnpei - Port Moresby - Honiara - Port Vila using Air Niugini (Honiara - Port Vila is served by Air Niugini besides Solomon Airlines; this is not super evident when you look for flights in skyscanner, depending on dates it seems that Solomon Airlines is the only (super expensive) option; search well and don't give up at the first attempt.

Then, Port Vila - Nadi, and from Nadi go around to Tonga, Samoa, Tuvalu, coming back to Fiji; as said, look for possible stopovers in Auckland if they are cheaper; also, be aware that the Fiji Airlines website sometimes is brokenish, and sometimes offers much higher prices for single flights in comparison to multi flights. Try always to select "multi-city" and to bundle together all your flights, in some cases I turned out paying even 400 USD less than buying single flights.

Finally, from Nadi, head north to Tarawa, Nauru, Majuro; depending on how you want to leave Oceania, you can go back from Nauru to Nadi (Nadi - Tarawa - Majuro - Nauru - Nadi), or do it in a different order and fly Majuro - Honolulu or Majuro - Brisbane.

Finally, as a person who is obsessed by the Pacific, I slightly disapprove that you'll only visit the main island of each archipelago :-) if you allocate a week more or so, I suggest to visit at least one outer island of Kiribati, flights are cheap and relatively easy to book in Air Kiribati office in Bairiki

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dude that amazing thank you soo much wow , completely different from the plan i had .... going in the natural order on paper .I will study it and see if that would work better -Thanks alot !

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I thought you were going to visit every country in the world in September, haha!

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The rate people r doing it these days ,that wouldn't be out of the question haha
Sorry I thought being in the pacific islands thread it made sence :)

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