Essential Guide to the South Pacific Islands: Plan Your Enchanting Dream Escape!
Dreaming of paradise? The South Pacific Islands offer a breathtaking escape to turquoise waters, lush landscapes, and vibrant cultures.
I know a special kind of travelers who only seek an island for a holiday. They don’t prefer cities, hill stations, or farmlands for spending their vacation.
Their reasons for preferring islands and islets include:
- Appetite for the freshest seafood
- Like to try exotic dishes that include very rare meat of marine creatures, unknown fruits, and vegetables
- Locally brewed drinks
- Unique culture
- Strange customs, and beliefs
- Warm, and sunny weather but at the same time, cooler evenings
Different clusters of islands:
When it comes to choosing an island for the upcoming holidays, the major groups of islands are:
- The Caribbean Islands (mainly, the Americans prefer to go here)
- Greek Islands
- Italian Islands
- Central Pacific Islands (Hawaii)
- Islands in the Indian Ocean (African Islands)
- Indonesian Islands
- South Pacific Islands
Of course, thousands of islands belong to Sweden, Croatia, and Denmark. They are the least visited islands in the world due to the cold climate.
Among these island groups, choosing a floating land from the South Pacific Ocean is the toughest mission because of the diverse culture, food, remote locations, and limited accessibility.
Essential Guide to the South Pacific Islands: Plan Your Dream Escape!
In this blog post, I have decided to give you a handy guide to the islands that are located in the South Pacific Ocean.
Groups of South Pacific Islands:
These islands are further divided into the following clusters:
- Micronesia
- Polynesia
- Melanesia
Oceania as a continent
These are collectively known as Oceania. Please note that the bigger individual islands of Papua New Guinea, Australia, and New Zealand are also part of Oceania.
Do you know that Oceania is considered a continent out of which, Australia is also an individual continent due to its large size?
Generally speaking, even ardent island lovers prefer to visit only tropical islands due to the warm weather and diverse cuisine.
Even under the 3 major South Pacific Islands, there are several archipelagos that are headed by a larger and more popular island.
Example: Fiji Island.
Fiji island archipelago that is placed under Melanesia consists of a staggering number of 330 islands and about 500 islets!
Let us now look at the major three groups of South Pacific Islands, and the islands that are placed under these three groups.
Melanesia:
Melanesia Islands are floating in the western part of the South Pacific Ocean.
The most visited islands in Melanesia include:
If you have a desire to visit this part of the South Pacific, you can plan a trip covering the three highly popular but truly different from each other.
- The Fiji to Vanuatu distance is 1200 km
- Vanuatu to Solomon Islands distance is 975 km
The accessibility between each of them is possible by flight.
Suva, the capital city of Fiji, has an international airport. Tourists usually reach Fiji first and then move on to Vanuatu, and the Solomon Islands.
Port Vila, the capital city of Vanuatu, has an international airport. Fiji also serves Vanuatu by flights.
Honiara City is the capital of the Solomon Islands. You can reach Honiara from Fiji, and Vanuatu, apart from international destinations that include Brisbane, (Australia), Wellington and Auckland (New Zealand), and Kuala Lumpur.
English is generally spoken in the cities of these three Melanesian Islands.
The western part of the South Pacific Islands will steal your heart with breathtaking sceneries, incredible wildlife, and fantastic cruise tours.
I think once you land on Fiji Island, you may not like to visit any other islands that are located in other oceans, and seas.
Micronesia
Micronesia is situated in the northwest part of the South Pacific Ocean. In the map of the South Pacific Islands, Micronesia might appear smaller than the other two groups of islands but it comprises over 2000 islands and islets!
However, our interest is focused only on the following larger islands.
These islands are overall called the Federal States of Micronesia, for which Palitkir is the capital.
Let me not confuse you with too much information. Let us see how we reach each of these 4 major archipelagos.
Kiribati
It has not one but two international airports. Kiribati comprises 20 inhabited islands and 13 islands where no one lives.
Marshal Islands
The distance between Kiribati and Marshal Islands is 665 km, north of Kiribati.
There are about 1200 islands, islets, and atolls. The 200+ atolls are precariously located just a few feet above the ocean.
The capital city Majuro is internationally connected by flights. It also receives flights from Kiribati. The flight duration is 90 minutes.
As a matter of fact, these 4 major archipelagos are conveniently interconnected by various airways.
Caroline Islands
This archipelago consists of exactly 1000 floating lands of which just 33 are atolls.
It has more than one international airport. It even receives flights from Hawaii’s capital, Honolulu.
As mentioned earlier, it operates passenger aircraft to other Micronesia islands too.
The islands and atolls numbering 1000 of this archipelago are widely spread over 3500 km in the South Pacific Ocean.
Mariana Islands
Only 14 islands make up the Mariana Islands. There is an international airport on Saipan Island, one of the islands in the Mariana Islands.
Guam
Apart from the four major groups in Micronesia, Guam is an individual island and is administered by the United States.
It is aerially connected with Hawaii, the Philippines, and Malaysia.
For its gorgeous beaches that wear white sand drapes, Guam is known as the jewel of Micronesia.
Despite being a U.S. territory, the local culture, and cuisine are predominantly influenced by the natives known as Chamorro.
I doubt the Americans would take the pains of undertaking a long journey to go to Guam. Since Hawaii is the gateway to Guam for the Americans, why would they leave a paradise that is closer to them geographically, and also culturally?
I read that Koreans are the major tourists to Guam. I am bewildered by this fact!
Polynesia.
The major islands in Polynesia apart from Hawaii, which occupies the northernmost of Polynesia on the map of the South Pacific Islands, the following islands are the pick of the international tourists.
- Bora Bora, French Polynesia
- Cook Islands
- Tonga Island
- Tuvalu Islands
- Marquesas Islands
- Society Islands
- Samoa Islands
- Tuamotu Island
- Gambier Island
These islands in the eastern part of the South Pacific Ocean are easily accessible between themselves, both by flight and sea passage
Since there are more islands to see in Polynesia, with diverse cultures, strange wildlife, and different spectacular attractions, you cannot plan an overall tour of Polynesia.
Oh, you can, but that might involve more than a month to tour around. Bora Boa, Samoa, Tuvalu, and Marquesas are the more popular islands among tourists.
The majority of the tourists arrive from Australia, New Zealand, and France.
Basically, this sums up the handy guide to all the groups of islands that are placed in the South Pacific Ocean.
The total ocean area that is covered by these three major subdivisions of the South Pacific Ocean Islands is nearly 80 million sq.km!
Just to remind you, these tropical islands with unique geography, new species of birds, and marine creatures are located between Hawaii, and Australia.
If you are not living in South East Asia, Australia, and New Zealand, you need to search for all-inclusive tour package providers to the incredibly beautiful tropical islands in the above-mentioned three large regions.
Maybe you can find some tour operators in Honolulu also.
