tahiti

Growing up in Hawai’i has given me an innate and unrivaled love for the Polynesian culture. There are so many places in the world to see but I would come back to French Polynesia again and again.

Tahiti and her islands are expensive but worth every penny.

things to bring 

Intova Underwater Camera

Snorkel gear (US Divers)

Floatie raft

You may want to bring a floatie raft (a blow-up innertube donuts is fine too) and rope if you you stay in an overwater bungalow. Buy something cheap and lightweight. Amazon might not be cheapest - check Daiso, World Market, Dollar Store, Ralph's. 

Other smaller items: (items in bold contain links) 

• fruit peeler (if you plan to buy any pitted fruit from the store) Amazon might not be cheapest - check DAISO, Ross, World Market, Ikea, Dollar Store

• poncho (if going during a rainy season) Amazon might not be cheapest - check DAISO, Dollar Store, any kind of Price Buster's type of store

• Reusable water bottle (you can fill up at the fitness center at your resort)

• small knife and cutting board (I got a set for $4 at Ross)

• utensils (1 set per person)

Food to Pack

• macadamia nuts

• instant coffee (there will be instant coffee and tea bags in your hotel as well, along with a kettle)

• Quest Bars or RX Bars (a clean bar, low sugar, that won’t melt)

• tuna packets (not cans – those are too heavy) on sale you can get them for $1/packet at Ralph’s

• crackers

• Trader Joe’s salami and beef ($4.50 each. Watch sneaky sugar and preservative content though)

• plastic squeeze bottle of mayo (for the tuna and/or sandwiches)

• nori aka dried seaweed (as an alternative to bread and crackers for the tuna)

• buy alcohol at Duty Free before you leave the US! Booze is expensive at the hotels in Tahiti so this will totally cut down your alcohol tab

Food to buy at the grocery store 

• baguette (super cheap - maybe $2 for a loaf? You’ll see locals biking home with a handful of baguette not even in a bag, often just carrying it by hand)

• French cheese (about $4 for a decent block)

• Hinano beer, soda, juice (cheaper at the market than resort prices)

• fruit (tangerines were cheapest when we went in January. Not sure how seasonal the fruit is, but tangerines were easy to peel and we didn’t have a peeler for fruit like mango)

where we ate (tahiti) 

Le Retro (downtown Pape’ete)

Roulotte Val (right past Papeari on our way back to Pape’ete) about $40 for two of us for steak frites and poisson cru)

Les Roulettes (food trucks in downtown Pape’ete) street parking

Where we ate (Mo'orea) 

Restaurant reservations can be arranged with the hotel concierge upon check-in. Plan out where you’d like to eat and make reservations/ride accommodations early on before availability books up.

Snack Coco D’isle (free taxi pick up from hotel)

Le Mayflower ($5 taxi pick up from hotel)

Tiahura Chez Irene (free taxi pick up from hotel)

Snack Mahana (we walked there from the Intercontinental Mo’orea, ~20 minutes)

Intercontinental Mo’orea pool bar (go during Happy HouR)

what we did 

Rental Car (Pacific Rental) & island drive around Tahiti

I believe most car rentals for the day comes out to 12,500 xpf or about $110 USD for an automatic SUV. The hotel concierge had suggested this company since they deliver the car directly to the hotel at 7:30 am and pick it up the next day for you (you get a full 24-hours!). I had the concierge Intercontinental Tahiti coordinate the reservation for Pacific Rental as this is a French company and literally French-speaking only. (I had emailed multiple times but didn’t get a reply back, presumably because they could not understand English). Intercontinental Tahiti lets you park the car overnight for free which is awesome!

*One side note: Pacific Rental did try to charge a $30 additional fee on my credit card (not sure what the charge was for, all I know is that it wasn’t disclosed on the receipt agreement I signed) – so be sure to check your monthly statement. You should be checking anyways, but just a reminder.

Island Drive around Tahiti

A total must-do. We drove all the way around the island, including visting the famous surf spot Teahupo’o. An important thing to note is that between lunch and dinner, all the roadside restaurants and food trucks will be closed. On our drive from the slimmest part of the island (Taravao) down to the famous tip of Teahupo’o we could not find anywhere to eat between 2 - 5 pm! We had to rely on the limited bread, crackers, cheese and fruit we packed that morning to keep us alive (we didn’t bring a lot because we didn’t anticipate restaurants being closed). Even places like Teahupo’o where you think is bound to have food options open because it’s such a famous surf spot/tourist attraction, think again. There are very modest and small mini-markets (like gas station markets) that are open, but they only have things like baguette which we weren’t in the mood for. We were completely starving and trying to live off the little amount of snacks we had until we found Roulotte Val on the side of the road shortly after passing through Papeari on our way back to Pape’ete. It was around 5 pm, when everyone’s starting to get ready for and actually serve dinner.

Municipal Market, Downtown Pape’ete (Tahiti)

We had the concierge call us the transport van to downtown Pape’ete (maybe a 20 minute drive from the Intercontinental). $10 round trip per person. Prices for gift items are cheapest in downtown Pape’ete at the Municipal Market, so do your shopping here (jewelry, mono’i oil, vanilla). Do be careful of the all the cheaper pareos on the sidewalk outskirts surrounding the market, they are cheaper because they are made in Indonesia, not Tahiti. Always ask, the vendors will usually tell. The market has two stories, the bottom level selling produce, a few grab and go restaurants, crafts, souvenir gifts and flowers. Upstairs is filled with jewelry, clothing, a tiny cafe, wood work, pareos. Peruse both levels of the market first before circling back around to actually start buying gifts.

Fautau’a Valley Hike (Tahiti)  

One of the ladies at the concierge desk mentioned that most people don’t do this hike without a local or some tour guide, but because we are from Hawai’i, we felt comfortable with the Polynesian terrain so we went for it! The maps of Tahiti in the travel brochures at the resort are not very detailed at all, so have the concierge give you VERY explicit directions on how to get into the valley and all the way to the trailhead. (For this trip we also elected to not switch out SIM cards so we were really off the grid, only having access to cell data when on the resort premises using WiFi. This meant no GPS and competely old-school map reading).

This hike took us 4 hours 15 minutes round trip, including the time we spent at the waterfalls. There are two natural water slides. The water is really cold! The bugs will also attack you, so don’t play around and pack ENDLESS BUG SPRAY.

We had packed water and a few snacks from the hotel and also stopped by a gas station beforehand (to get coffee, some kind of coconut rice cake and some kind of pizza baguette). We took this with us on the hike in our backpack.

Bonus: if you have to pee, accept that you’re going to have to be one with nature and pop a squat.

Ferry from Island to Island

The best way to travel between Tahiti and Mo’orea, because of its proximity, is just to go by ferry (that way you don’t have to wait at the airport and you don’t have to pay for luggage weight). The two ferry companies are Aremiti and Terevau. We took Terevau but both are decent options. It takes about 30 minutes by ferry to go between Tahiti and Mo’orea.

There is a restaurant at the ferry port in Tahiti and fresh package fruit (mango, coconut, etc) at the ferry port in Mo'orea. Inside the ferries the seats are very spacious and comfortable.

ATV Mo’orea (Mo’orea)

What an incredible experience! If you’re staying at the Intercontinental Mo’orea, it is literally right across the street, you can walk there. There is also a small gift shop right next to the location, great to check out after your tour. Our tour guide was high-energy and completely awesome (they keep the group small, there were only four couples on our tour including us). There are plenty of opportunities to get out and take photos, get introduced to the different plants, scenic points and history of the island.

Tour highlights include the coconut stand where a vendor cuts open the top of the fresh coconut so that you can drink the coconut water. After you drink the water he allows you to bring the coconut back and so he can hack open the inside of it so you can eat all the coconut meat. Soo refreshing. We also got to try various jellies at one stop on the tour.

ATV Mo’orea snaps photos throughout the tour and will send you all the tour photos via email at the end for no additional charge, which is an awesome touch.

If you pre-book you can receive a discount of 10% at ATV Mo'orea 

Snorkeling 

We bought our gear on Amazon Prime from US Divers. Great quality mask, mouth piece and fins, complete with a breathable bag) all for $30 for each set. (see above under "Things to Bring" section). There are shops in Tahiti that sell cheaper snorkel masks and pieces or you can rent the hotels snorkel gear. I just have a germ complex, so I elected to buy and bring my own.

Free Watersport Rentals 

Free kayak and stand-up paddle rentals are available at the Intercontinental Mo’orea – you can rent each item for an hour everyday. They don’t watch the time critically so even if you’re a few minutes over, don’t stress, it’s fine.

overwater bungalow

You came all the way to French Polynesia, getting an overwater bungalow for at least one night (preferably your last night, since it’s hard to downgrade after this) is A MUST! I priced out the upgrade for a night through both the travel agency and directly with the resort and it was cheaper just to do it directly through the resort. (Arrange the upgrade ahead of time before you go so you’re not subject to increased prices due to limited availability).

The overwater bungalows at the Intercontinental Mo’orea are not necessarily deep enough to do a lot of diving off of. It’s pretty shallow, your best bet for diving is maybe to get one of the premium overwater bungalows rather than the standard since the premium ones have more of a view of the ocean and are a little further out. The overwater bunaglows are more shallow at the Intercontinental Mo’orea and Tahiti, I think on some of the other islands like Bora Bora the water off the balcony is deeper.

The Intercontinental Mo’orea was very kind to us and did approve our request for a late checkout out of our overwater bungalow since it was the last day of our stay. There was a few hours between check out and the time the transfer was scheduled to get us to take us back to the ferry port so we were able to leave our luggage in a storage area during that period so that we could explore offsite.

Le Petit Village (mo'orea) 

Small markets, restaurants, gift shops. We walked here from the Intercontinental (about a 30 minute walk) and picked up some last-minute gift items here (more mono’i oil, earrings for $10/each) and a handful of groceries (cheese, Hinano beer bottles, crackers, Tahitian cola) to go with our remaining food in the bunaglow. The markets had a few prepared food items (some kind of chicken spring roll, mini breakfast pizza) that was much cheaper than having a breakfast at the resort.

There’s a shop upstairs at Le Petit Village called “Creativ”.  It’s more expensive than the other souvenir shops, but filled with beautiful artisan pieces and a whole gallery of Polynesian handmade wood sculptures and fine jewelry. The best thing is most of the crafts being sold here are made in Tahiti. We brought back a few Polynesian soap/candy dishes.

How We Saved 

• Bringing shelf stable food to Tahiti and eating a few meals in hotel room (with our market purchases and the food we brought)

• Snacking on apples from the gym (complimentary)

• Filling up water bottles in the hotel fitness center (bring your reusable water bottle)

• Happy Hour at the pool bar

• Taking advantage of free offerings like the resort watersport rentals

• Booking tours ahead of time (ATV Mo’orea)

• Walking everywhere (to Snack Mahana from the Intercontinental Mo’orea ~20 minute walk, to Le Petit Village from the Intercontinental ~30 min walk, to Carrefour Supermarket in Pape’ete from InterContinental ~25 minute walk)

• Packing light (do NOT overpack, you’ll be spending so much time at the beach anyways, you don’t need a ridiculous amount of clothes). Especially if you are doing inter island flights, they will weigh everything and surcharge you if your bag is overweight. If you’re catching a ferry between islands, the weight of your luggage is not that important, but traveling is just more inconvenient if overweight

• Advanced booking for the overwater bungalow upgrade (if you booked the accomodations through a travel site, compare who will give a better upgrade rate - the travel agency or direct with the resort).

OTHER THINGS TO KNOW

• The food at the airport in Tahiti wasn’t totally unreasonable. We had a bit of franc left so we were able to split a burger and steak frites. There are a few small dining options right outside the airport premises. If you choose to venture offsite, you can pay for the airport to hold your luggage until you’re back. There is free WiFi that you can use for an hour (it will kick you off after you've reached the limit). 

• For the weather, before you go, check out the trends on Accuweather for the satellite feed. And trust that the tropics just have that extra layer of magic - even when it rains, it doesn't rain all day so you'll still have pockets of sunshine. 

Best Gifts to Bring Back from Tahiti 

• Vanilla

• Mono’i oil

• Jewelry (earrings and necklaces)

Another thing that I would've LOVED to do in Tahiti if there was more time was get a tattoo using traditional Polynesian methods. Did you know that the word "tattoo" originates from the Tahitian word "tatau"? You can get a tattoo on Mo'orea with the master James Samuela of Mo'orea Tattoo. 

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