Traveling the Pacific Islands

Hi there guys,

Just wanted a little bit of advice from any of you guys who have done the Pacific before. I have been searching it up but it seems a lot more difficult to sort a route out that in previous countries i have visited.

Basically is the plan is below:

We are currently working in Australia but want to take a quick trip out to visit New Caledonia and Vanuatu and get out of the country for a while. Then come back and work a bit more to travel the rest of the islands again.

We were thinking of flying into Fiji and then head onto Tonga, Nuie, Cook Islands, French Polynesia, Tahiti. I really want to go to Easter Island but think it may be to expensive, Then onto Samoa, Wallis & Futuna, maybe Tuvalu and Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Fed States of Micronesia, down to the Solomons and then into Puapa New Guinea.

We have no real time limit on what we want to do but we are keep divers so want to fit in as much of that as possible - mainly all the WW2 wrecks.

Any suggestions would be most appreciated

Thanks guys,

Sam

Assuming that you are not a troll and that you are independently wealthy to afford a ton of expensive flights on different air carriers, please see http://www.lonelyplanet.com/thorntree/thread.jspa?threadID=1991371 regarding logistical difficulties of traveling around the Pacific. In particular, you cannot get to the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, or Palau (which isn't on your list but should be if you are divers) without passing through Guam and taking the expensive Continental flight. When you list FSM, I assume you are interested in Chuuk, which involves the expensive Continental Island Hopper flight.

Yes, given that OP needs to work in AU and thus apparently isn't a millionaire, a reality check is needed here. Even if he can afford to get to all the countries listed, the itinerary outlined is a totally illogical way of connecting them. Why one would go from west to east, back to west, up north and then back down southwest kind of mystifies me.
I'd suggest studying airlines' route maps, especially those of Air Pacific, Pacific Blue, Air Tahiti Nui and Continental as well as Air New Zealand and Air Niugini first.

tilos, one could also reach the FSM from the South Pacific by flying from Kiribati to the Marshalls (not cheap either, but there is a direct flight on Air Marshall Islands) and then moving westwards from there on Continental.

Laszlo: I am constantly learning new things on this board. Which airline connects Kiribati to the Marshall Islands? I think I'll post to the FAQ a list of airlines and where in the Pacific they go.

I'm surprised there is no Fiji-Guam link. That would be the obvious way to connect many of the islands.

ETA: Are you sure you aren't thinking of the now defunct Air Nauru flight?

Edited by: tilos

The South Pacific islands are connected in discrete groups by different airlines and the hardest part is connectng the groups. For example, Air New Zealand connects Tonga and Samoa. Air New Zealand also flies to the Cooks, but you can't connect the Cooks to Tonga or Samoa on Air New Zealand without flying all the way to LA and back. Doing a circular trip around the islands will typically require you to stop in LA, Honolulu and/or Auckland. It is possible to fly Air New Zealand from Auckland to the Cooks, then fly Air Rarotonga to Tahiti and back, then continue on Air New Zealand to LA, then ANZ down to Samoa and Tonga and back to Auckland. While in Samoa you can do a side trip to American Samoa, and from there you can get to Niue and back. That's a lot of flights, and a lot of money.

If you want a central hub as a base to fly out to the islands in 'spokes' Air Pacific based in Fiji offers the best option. Air Pacific will allow you to visit many melanesian islands.

To get to the North Pacific from the South Pacific, you can use Inter Island Air (which is based in Pago Pago, AS) to get from Tonga to Niue and American Samoa. You could then do a side trip to independent Samoa and then fly Hawaiian air from Pago Pago to Honolulu and catch the Continental flight to FSM. This would be a very expensive way to island hop to the North Pacific.

An alternative is to fly from Fiji to Papua New Guinea to Manila and out to FSM from there.

miketelemark: I will add Air Rarotonga to FAQ #29

Also just to clarify, the Air Rarotonga flight to Tahiti is purchased from Air Rarotonga but operated in both directions by Air Tahiti.

-Mike

Hi guys,

Thanks for the info, even if it is a little blunt! Why are you calling me a troll tho?!? I only wanted a little advice... :/

Right so I can see where you guys are coming from with this. I have had a look at the map again and i was thinking of it in the way I usually travel which is over borders so was just looking for the simplest route from A - B. After looking at it again i am thinking it may be better to do things in a number of smaller trips and work inbetween.

So this is what I am now thinking:

Trip 1 (From Australia): Fiji > Tonga > Niue > American Samoa > Wallis & Futuna > Fiji

Trip 2 (From NZ): Cook Islands > French Polynesia (Tahiti)

I would love to get over to Easter Island but as I said in my first post i think it would just be far to expensive.

Trip 3 (From Australia or NZ): New Caledonia > Vanuatu > Solomon Islands > Puapa New Guinea

This trip above would be our final trip from Australia or New Zealand after all our Visas have expired. The plan after we get to Puapa New Guinea is to travel back along all the Indonesian islands, through East Timor to Sumatra, Then hop over the straight of Malaka and fly out of either Singapore or KL to Borneo. From there onto the Phillipines where i think it would be best to do the rest like this:

Trip 3 (From Phillipines): Guam > Federated States of Micronesia > Marshall Islands > Palau

I still have to check that all the flights etc wil allow me to do this and where all the dive spots are exactly located that we want to do.

Do you guys think that this is a better way of piecing it all together and off the top of your heads is there anything that you feel i have missed out in getting the ultimate South Pacific experience.

Thanks again for all your help :)

Sam

PS - I havent put either Tokelau, Tuvalu, Kiribati or Nauru onto the list as tbh i just dont know enough about them. I have heard of Kiribati as a cool place to go. Would you guys recomend taking the time out to check those places aswell and would you maybe drop any of the others i have listed to go there if cash was tight?

Cheers

Sam

Samfaction: You are probably a troll, because you are proposing a trip involving non-existent routes, on a budget, having done no research.

If you are real, kindly read FAQ 29 (http://www.lonelyplanet.com/thorntree/thread.jspa?threadID=726510&messageID=17903558#17903558) and observe how many of the air links you are imagining do not exist (i.e. Tonga to Nuie, American Samoa to Wallis). Then check how ridiculously expensive all these flights are.

Our "side trip" to American Samoa in the Samoan archipelago was the best choice we made. We found the rain forest hike on the forum. Unbelievable. Fours day of activity, experience and education. With great night life and karaoke. Cheap food and lots of it.

BC

Your idea of splitting the travel into three trips makes mores sense to me. The routes look OK, although I would make sure that Inter Island Air is actually flying to Niue, Tonga, Wallis and Futuna. They say those flights will begin in 2010, but they haven't updated the website recently. The new flights to Wallis and Futuna were announced in a recent press release but they haven't started them yet and i doubt they will be available for at least a year. They still show a flight from Tutuila to Ofu Island (one of the most beautiful in the South Pacific), but that was discontinued a year ago.

If you want to get to Ofu, you fly Inter Island Air to Ta'u and then take a fishing boat across a short stretch of open sea to Ofu. Ofu is my favorite island in all the south pacific.

I don't know much about Kiribati, Tuvalu or Tokelau.

When you go to Tonga, make sure you spend a day at the blow holes on Nuku'alofa and I highly recommend Hapa'ai islands, especially if you can time the trip to snorkel with the migrating humpbacks.

In Papua New Guinea, I can highly recommend Tsoi Lik guesthouse in New Ireland Province.

The Solomon Islands are my second favorite place in the South Pacific. Tons to explore there! The diving around Uepi Island is breathtaking.

@Tilos - Surely thats what the forum is for to ask all these things? But nevermind I wasnt trying to be a troll, just get some useful information. I didnt even think that there would be no flights to some places. I thought as reasonably big tourist destinations they would all be pretty well linked. I am researching using your FAQ at the moment and thank you for pointing me in that direction.

@Miketelemark - Big thanks for your help mate, looking into some different routes now :) The Inter Island site hasnt been updated in ages so i am going to see if I can ring them and get a proper idea of all the routes they are doing. I will try my best to post the info I find out here.

After spending all afternoon at work looking through various things I think you can do something that would work out quite well - what do you guys think?

Trip 1:
Fiji > Tonga > Samoa (Air Pacific)

These 3 legs of the trip seem to be available using the Air Pacific Bula Pass: http://www.airpacific.com/Pacific-Destinations/Pacific-Bula-Pass</a>

However I need to ring them I think to confirm what is actually possible with the pass.

From there I am hoping to get over to the Cook Islands although I cant see anything available for that route at the moment so from here its up in the air. With the Bula Pass I could get up to Kiribati as well probably for a buit cheaper as its part of the pass but ideally I would like to get out to the cooks and Tahiti etc.

So the plan would be either:

Australia/NZ > Fiji > Tonga > Samoa & American Samoa > Cook Islands > Tahiti > Australia/NZ

or

Australia/NZ > > Fiji > Tonga > Samoa & American Samoa > Kiribati > Fiji > Australia/NZ

@Tilos - You may also want to update your little FAQ a little bit to mention that the Aircalin flight from Fiji to Wallis no longer seems to operate. You can now only fly to Wallis from the capital of New Caledonia I think. I was looking into it as an option to just get a return flight from Fiji. I am working on some possible other routes at the moment as well so will post them all up in the hope of aiding someone else in my position.

Cheers all,

Sam

Sam, If you want to travel to the Melanesian islands, you would be wiser to do it from Australia rather than New Zealand, as they are much closer to Australia. New Zealand is part of Polynesia, and closer to those countries.
There are 7 x3-hour flights a week, between Brisbane and Honiara (4 Solomon Airlines, 2 Pacific Blue and 1 Our Airline.) Solomon Islands is famous for its WWII wreck dives.

Sam, I do apologize. It is clear from all of your posts and research that you have a legitimate interest in planning a N/S Pacific trip. There have been several first-time posters on this board with posts along the lines of "I want to visit 10 island-countries in 3 weeks" in the troll category.

It is probably worth a FAQ in itself, but the reason direct connections don't exist is because tourism is an afterthought for many of these islands, and they have no way of attracting a major carrier to the island (and can't afford their own national carrier). Also, if you think about where the locals are traveling, it's to places where their relatives immigrated, such as Australia and New Zealand, or places with education opportunities (Fiji and Guam). Even then, these flights are too expensive for many locals.

Others don't share my pessimism, but I would personally do the Continental leg of your trip sooner rather than later. Who knows what will happen once Continental is fully integrated with United?

tilos:

I put the Tarawa-Majuro airline's name in my 1st post.
Continental flies from Guam to Fiji.

I've asked Aircalin about Nadi-Wallis flights very recently and was given a booking for this time period so unless that flight ceased very suddenly, it still exists.

Sam, note that if you use Air Pacific, you must return to Fiji between trips to any other country, eg between Tonga and Samoa, Samoa and Kiribati etc.

Hi Laszlo,

Sorry, I missed your mention of Air Marshall Islands; I thought you were referring to the old flight (I thought Air Marshall Islands was purely domestic--they don't list their flights on their website). I didn't mean to claim that the list was exhaustive; I just visited all the websites for all the airlines that I was aware of and checked where they claimed to fly. It is possible that some websites listed routes that have been discontinued.

Unfortunately, I can't edit the post anymore now that it has been replied to, but if it gets too out of date, I'll just repost it.

ETA: What we really need is a wiki for the who flies where list.

You can PM a moderator and ask them to replace the current post with an updated version.
They can do this for you (they CAN edit any post, any time) IF they can be bothered.

Look back at my Kiribati post and you will see I mentioned AMI flying to Tarawa there.
I saw their plane in Tarawa with my own eyes! :-)

Laszlo: Awesome, I will try to figure out who our moderator is and then will edit to take into account the two missing airlines.

ETA: Okay, I'm dense. I can't figure out who the relevant moderator for this branch is. Does anyone know?

Edited by: tilos

Unfortunately the only one whom I knew to be responsive has left.
Try Andreas first, then docbrown, and if you still have no luck, send me a PM.
I do know another one for backup whom I'd rather not recommend here.

FYI, the moderators are listed on the right side of the page, roughly halfway down, under the advert pic, when viewing the full South Pacific forum (the list of threads, not just a particular thread like this).

Any one of us will be happy to help, tilos. Send me a PM with an update at any time, or send an email to community@lonelyplanet.com - whichever you prefer. Updating FAQs is still very manual, but we're happy to help keep them as up to date as possible.

Oh, and take note of my comment about Air Vanuatu not flying to PNG, too.

Laszlo--I tried to run a draft by you, but your account won't accept a PM. So I went ahead and sent it to the moderator with your changes.

Yea i was thinking that we would have to return to Fiji inbetween each flight. Its a pain but if the Bula air pass from them actually exists it will easilly be the cheapest option. I am going to ring them after work today and see what the crack is. will let you guys know if i get some decent info back.

Either way cheers for you help guys, especially Laszlo and Tilos. Looks like we are just going to go for the 3 groups of islands (Fiji, tonga, Samoa) first and do it properly then maybe head over to Kiribati if you can get it nice and cheap through the Bula pass.

will let you know anyway, cheers guys!

Sam

I would not recommend going to more than 2 counties besides Fiji on the Bula Pass due to the 30 day limit. I'd suggest that you consider Tonga and Melanesian Vanuatu instead of Samoa to provide more diversity.
I did meet a German guy who went to 4 countries plus Fiji in 30 days, but to me that sounds little more than passport stamp collecting.

tilos, only those in my contacts list can PM me.
I will now add you, but because docbrown had already promised to help you, I didn't think you'd need it.

Just one more thing: Correct the spelling of the Aussie carrier or they will doubt your knowledge.
And once the update is there, delete the then unnecessary corrective posts by OG and me.
Looks like I am off to Tuvalu for Xms and New Year around Saturday so may not be able to keep checking much longer...

@Laszlo re Kiribati to Marshalls on AMI. There is an island called Tarawa (on the atoll of Maloelap) in the Marshall Islands so if you see a flight advertised on AMI's site etc that is Maj to Tarawa, it's most likely a domestic flight within the RMI.

The local newspaper sometimes has people advertising to fly to Tarawa, Kiribati and if enough people are interested then an AMI flight gets organised from Maj to Tarawa. But at the moment it's not a regular AMI route.

Oh dear.
Please, believe me I do know which country I saw the Air Marshalls plane in (as per #18)!
It was the capital of Kiribati which I visited a few months ago.
The main local travel agent in town said the flight ran fortnightly, and even told me the fare (quite high).
It may or may not run presently, but when I wrote about it, I certainly had Tarawa in Kiribati in mind.

@Laszlo, I wasn't saying you were incorrect, I'm sure this flight did run. I definitely didn't mean to cause offence! I don't doubt what you saw, I just wanted to share my knowledge of AMI and their flights based on living in the RMI this past year...

I left the RMI in June 2010 but at that time and in the preceding year AMI flights going to Tarawa, Kiribati were very irregular and had to be especially organised.

There was a regular flight in which one stop was Tarawa, Marshall Islands (and by regular, I mean probably something like every two weeks and frequently cancelled/postponed) so although, you were not confused by this, it can be confusing for others esp. when trying to research travel online as the two places have the same name. I just wanted to clarify for people who are researching travel between Pacific nations now.

The situation may have changed since June but I would be very surprised if AMI had a regular international flight going as the three AMI planes are frequently breaking, getting stuck on outer islands etc.

I was there last October, talked to the agent on the 22nd and saw the AMI plane on the 28th.
I guess anyone planning to use that obscure link between two rather rarely visited countries should check beforehand (all the more so as one has to have onward tickets in hand even before leaving for the starting country).
On the Kiribati side, the enthusiastic young guys at the tourism office are no doubt helpful enough to check the latest - contacting them can be done via their website.

that is impressive the AMI plane made it there! thanks for the info.

for AMI flights you pretty much have to call AMI the day before and the day of your flight to check if it is going and their flights are often delayed by a couple of days so definitely don't rely on this link to be regular, and check it out with agents in the relevant country.

Just got this by email from another TTer re Majuro-Tarawa flights:

I managed to talk to their HQ in Majuro--apparently they fly the trip every other Th. http://www.flightstats.com/ confirms these flights do indeed seem to happen regularly...