Tahiti and Moorea on the Cheap - The Affordable Side to French Polynesia

body">oppor­tu­nity are usu­ally Lan Chile (fly­ing from
How to make your trip to French Poly­ne­siato San­ti­ago with yet another stopover in Easter
affordableIsland) and Air Tahiti Nui, with flights from/to New
I'm sure that like me, you always thought that theZealand and Aus­tralia to/from the west coast of
islands fea­tured in spec­tac­u­lar pho­tos youthe USA. The sec­ond option was our case, with a
have found yourself star­ing at are onlyflight with Air Tahiti Nui from Auck­land to Los
acces­si­ble to the extremely wealthy andAnge­les. Ini­tially we thought about spend­ing
cer­tainly out of reach for the bud­getonly two days, but after look­ing for info about the
con­scious, right? Wrong! Sure, Frenchislands online we decided to our bet­ter judgmental
Poly­ne­sia can be as expen­sive as you wantto extend our stay to 7 days. There is no cost
and more, but the good news is that there is a veryinvolved by the way when you extend a stopover.
afford­able side to it that not many trav­ellers areStep 2 and per­haps what keeps most trav­ellers
aware of. We spent a week in Tahiti and Moorea,away is accom­mo­da­tion. In Tahiti there is
and not only was I glad we did not give it a miss butnoth­ing for under 60 USD/ night unless you a)
were rewarded with some of the best scenery Icouch­ surf or b) go camp­ing. And this is what
have ever wit­nessed, as sim­ple as that. This iswe did, with very good results. We ini­tially spent
how we did and how your trip to Tahiti can be atwo nights couch ­surf­ing in Papeete, the
reality.cap­i­tal city of Tahiti. It is a busy, unap­peal­ing
Like any jour­ney (or most of them) it all beginsmetrop­o­lis with all the com­merce and
with a flight, and in the case of Tahiti it becomes agov­ern­ment build­ings of the nation. Dur­ing
require­ment (sure, there are a few cruises thatthe day we spent there we climbed to the top of
stop there, but then if you were join­ing one ofthe high­est moun­tain in the area with a Pol­ish
those you wold not be read­ing this right?). Theretrav­eller we had met, while wait­ing for my
are two ways to get to Tahiti by air: fly­ing roundsis­ter who would arrive later that night, and did get
trip from wher­ever you are or mak­ing asome nice views of Moorea and enjoyed the walk.
stopover in a trans-Pacific flight. The sec­ond optionThe fol­low­ing morn­ing we woke up early to
is usu­ally the cheap­est and can be achieved ifcatch the 11 am ferry to Moorea (15 USD/person),
you pur­chase your ticket though a travel agent,the clos­est island to Tahiti and appar­ently one of
not online. The cheap­est air­lines with thisthe most beautiful in French Poly­ne­sia.