Every day here starts on water.
Bora Bora’s shark and ray drifts, Mo’orea’s whale season, the 4WD climb over Tahiti’s interior and the motu lunches in between. What each one is really like, what it costs, and where to book it.
These seven fill the calendar.
A snorkel drift over the Bora Bora blacktips, a whale morning off Mo’orea, the 4WD track up to the Belvedere between the two bays, and the catamaran that gets you back in time for the sunset.
Moorea 6-Hour Snorkeling and Lunch Shared Tour
Snorkel Moorea’s lagoon with a small crew, then eat poisson cru on a motu islet with coconut prep and live music.
From $138 per person
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Vaitape to the motu, and back by four.
Otemanu stands in the middle of it and the water rings the island in about four different blues. Boats leave Vaitape after breakfast, stop where the blacktips and stingrays gather, then pull up on a motu for lunch. Half the island’s tours are a version of that one day; the differences are the boat, the group size and how long you get in the water.
The lagoon, the peaks, or Papeete?
Most trips get two islands and sometimes three, and the order matters more than the number. Here is what each one is actually for, with prices and traveller verdicts behind every option.
The lagoon
Bora Bora
from $184 · 1,423 reviews
The postcard, and it earns it. Shallow water in four blues, Otemanu behind every photograph, and a tour fleet built around one long day: shark and ray stops, a coral garden, lunch on a motu. It is the expensive island, and almost nobody comes back saying it was not worth it.
See the Bora Bora tours →
The peaks
Mo’orea
from $138 · 1,758 reviews
Thirty minutes by ferry from Papeete and a completely different island. Green ridges drop straight into the lagoon, the humpbacks arrive around August, and a 4WD or a quad will get you up to the Belvedere between Cook’s Bay and Opunohu. The best value of the three.
See the Mo’orea tours →
The main island
Tahiti
from $79 · 1,020 reviews
Where you land, and worth more than the drive to the ferry terminal. Black sand on the east coast, waterfalls and river crossings through the interior, the Teahupo’o wave down at the end of the peninsula, and the Papeete market trading before six in the morning.
See the Tahiti tours →
The last hour is the one to book.
This close to the equator the sun drops fast, and for about twenty minutes the lagoon turns whatever colour the sky is. Catamarans push out from Vaitape and Cook’s Bay to sit in it, some of them with dinner aboard, one with a telescope and a guide who knows the southern sky.
The reef does most of the work.
Blacktips are usually circling before the ladder is down. The rays come into the shallows to be fed. The coral garden between Taha’a and its motu runs warm and waist deep, and the current does the swimming for you.
The interiors are steeper than they look.
Every island here is a drowned volcano, and the tracks up them want a 4WD or a quad rather than a hire car. Pineapple terraces above Opunohu, the Papenoo river crossings on Tahiti, and a viewpoint at the end of each one.
The marae came first.
Stone platforms sitting quietly under the trees, chants that predate the first ships, vanilla pods dried on racks the same way for a hundred years. Guides on Tahiti, Mo’orea and Taha’a still walk visitors through all of it, and the good ones make the family connection plain rather than performing it.
Pick the island, then the day.
Bora Bora for the lagoon. Mo’orea for the ridgelines and the whales. Tahiti for the interior and the market. Raiatea and Taha’a for the coral garden nobody has heard of.
Choose the activity, not the island.
Twelve ways to spend a morning out here, and most of them are wet. Pick the one that sounds like you; the prices and the verdicts are waiting on the other side.
The small trips that make the week.
A boat to a sandbar with a table set on it. The coral garden between Taha’a and its motu. The road down the Tahiti peninsula until it simply stops. None of these needs a whole day.
Tahiti, Mo’orea, Bora Bora, in that order.
Long-haul flights land in Papeete near dawn and leave again late at night, so the main island bookends everything. Mo’orea is a ferry ride from there. Bora Bora is the flight you save for the end.
Leg 1
Land on Tahiti
The Papeete market is trading before six, which suits a body clock that thinks it is still yesterday. Then give the interior a day: the Papenoo crossing, the waterfalls, black sand on the east coast.
Plan the Tahiti days →
Leg 2
Ferry to Mo’orea
Thirty minutes across, then a quad or a 4WD up to the Belvedere between the two bays. Snorkel Opunohu in the afternoon, and from August the humpbacks are working the outer reef.
Plan the Mo’orea days →
Leg 3
Fly to Bora Bora
One long lagoon day covers most of the island: sharks and rays, a coral garden, lunch on a motu, back before the light goes. Book it early in your stay so the weather has somewhere to move to.
Plan the Bora Bora days →
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