About the country
| French Polynesia (French) | Polynésie française |
| French Polynesia (Tahitian) | Pōrīnetia Farāni |
| Capital | Papeete |
| Currency | CFP Franc |
Look at the map, at all the dots. Yes, that’s all French Polynesia. However, you might wonder how big the area is which the islands cover. Air Tahiti offers a map with the islands distributed across the area of Europe, to get a feeling for the true distances we’re talking about. Indeed, that’s huge! I wouldn’t even consider a cruise there as you would be mostly on the boat, not seeing any land, and the trip to reach the outer islands would take multiple days.
In contrast to New Caledonia, French Polynesia is very international and open to like-minded travelers. Nobody expects you to speak any French, both French and English are used interchangeably. This might be due to the many American tourists traveling to French Polynesia, it seems to be their favorite pacific country apart from their own state of Hawaii. Indeed, Tahiti is the turnstile of the eastern Pacific for all the big long-distance planes. Its representative of the western Pacific is Fiji (Suva or Nadi). This is mostly because both islands Viti Levu (Fiji) and Tahiti (French Polynesia) are big enough to offer enough space for longer runways and bigger airports.
During my time in French Polynesia, I explored the islands Tahiti (Tahiti-Nui and Tahiti-Iti), Bora Bora, and Moorea. Within my posts, I will share some insights about what to do and what to consider for traveling around.
Since I started the blog not too long before my Sabbatical leave, it might take a while until I manage to write up everything.