French Polynesia Discovery Guide

French Polynesia is 118 islands scattered across an area of the Pacific the size of western Europe, and the water is the reason to come.

Bora Bora is the image everyone carries — a volcanic peak inside a turquoise lagoon ringed by a reef, with overwater bungalows invented here in the 1960s. It is expensive and it does deliver.

Moorea, an hour by ferry from Tahiti, is the better-value version: jagged green peaks, two deep bays, and a lagoon you can snorkel from the shore.

Beyond the Society Islands the country changes completely. The Tuamotu atolls are rings of coral with no mountain at all, and Fakarava and Rangiroa offer some of the best drift diving in the world through passes thick with sharks. The Marquesas, far to the north-east, are steep, wild and almost lagoon-less, and are the cultural heart of the territory.

• Thaiti

The easy combination

Moorea and one more island. Moorea has the scenery of Bora Bora at a fraction of the price, a ferry from Tahiti, Belvedere lookout over Cook’s and Opunohu bays, and stingrays and blacktip sharks in shallow water.

Bora Bora

The lagoon is the point rather than the island: a boat tour around the motus, snorkelling the coral gardens, and Mount Otemanu rising out of it. Book the bungalow or stay in a pension on the main island and take boats out.

Diving the atolls

Fakarava’s southern pass holds a wall of several hundred grey reef sharks, and is a UNESCO biosphere reserve. Rangiroa’s Tiputa pass has dolphins and drift dives. These are advanced conditions and among the best dives anywhere.

The Marquesas

Reached by a long flight or the Aranui, a working cargo ship that carries passengers on a two-week round trip. Vertical green islands, huge stone tiki, and the graves of Paul Gauguin and Jacques Brel on Hiva Oa.

Tahiti itself

Usually rushed through. The Papeete market at dawn, the black-sand north coast, the Teahupo’o wave in the south, and the interior valleys are all worth a day or two.

French Polynesia is Polynesian, overlaid with a century and a half of French administration, and the relationship between those two things is live.

A cultural revival

Missionaries suppressed dance, tattooing and the language in the nineteenth century, and much was nearly lost. Since the 1980s there has been a deliberate and largely successful revival: ori Tahiti dance is competed at seriously, traditional tattooing has been reconstructed — the word tattoo entered English from Tahitian tatau — and Polynesian navigation by stars, swell and birds has been relearned and practised on long ocean voyages.

French and Polynesian

The territory is an overseas collectivity of France with substantial autonomy. Independence is a real political current, and the legacy of nuclear testing — 193 tests at Moruroa and Fangataufa between 1966 and 1996 — is a live grievance, with compensation and health consequences still being argued over.

Family and church

Extended family is the unit, Protestant and Catholic churches are well attended, and Sunday singing is worth going to hear.

Mana and the marae

Stone temple platforms, some UNESCO-listed, remain spiritually significant rather than archaeological.

Pace

Things happen when they happen. Aita pea pea — not to worry.

Almost everything here is imported and everything is fragile, so the ordinary courtesies count for more than usual.

The lagoons are the asset. Never touch or stand on coral, use reef-safe sunscreen — the chemical kind is a documented problem in enclosed lagoons — and never chase, touch or feed marine life. Shark and ray feeding is offered in places and changes animal behaviour; the better operators have stopped.

Stay in pensions de famille, the family-run guesthouses, at least for part of a trip. They cost a fraction of the resorts and the money stays in the islands rather than leaving with an international chain.

Water on atolls is rainwater catchment and is genuinely limited. Short showers matter, and so does refusing daily linen changes.

Waste leaves by ship or not at all. Take packaging back to Tahiti, and refuse single-use plastic.

Ask before photographing people or marae, which are sacred sites and not backdrops.

May to October is the dry season and the best window: days around 26 to 29°C, lower humidity, steady trade winds, less rain and the clearest water. July and August are busiest and dearest, partly because of the Heiva festival.

The Heiva i Tahiti in July is the major event of the year — weeks of dance and drumming competition, outrigger canoe racing and traditional sports. If you have any flexibility, time a trip to it.

November to April is the wet season, hotter and humid, with heavy downpours and some cyclone risk, though French Polynesia is struck far less often than Fiji or Vanuatu. Prices fall and the islands are green.

Humpback whales pass between roughly July and November, and Rurutu in the Austral Islands is one of the few places in the world where swimming with them is permitted under strict rules.

Diving is good year round; the Fakarava shark aggregations peak around June and July.

What a day costs, by how you travel

Relative cost across the country

French Polynesia is expensive — among the priciest destinations in the Pacific. Nearly everything is shipped from France or New Zealand, and internal flights are the cost that most often breaks a budget. A pass covering several islands is much cheaper than separate tickets.