The South Pacific region contains about 30,000 islands – it seems unfathomable – 30,000! So how in the world do you decide which ones to go to? I was faced with this question as I tried to plan my South Pacific Travel. One of my goals was to visit the really remote, seldom visited South Pacific islands in Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu without spending months doing it. Here’s the good news…it’s possible! Learn how you can get to 14 of the most remote islands in Melanesia in 17 days while learning about the unique culture, history, and landscape of the South Pacific.
What started as a sprinkle of rain, transitioned quickly to a downpour. I tried to cover up my camera and looked around to try to find cover. A woman in a hut was trying to get my attention as she waved her hands. Our eyes locked and she motioned for me to come inside. Once again, the South Pacific was showing its welcoming hospitality.
I ducked into the thatched hut. I was taken aback when I glanced up and noticed a whole group of village women and small children staring at me.
Safe from the rain with local women
I looked around the hut made from palm leaves, a dirt floor, no electricity, no plumbing – it was life at its most simple. All of the women were eager to ask me questions, as I was of them. We fumbled through a conversation about marriage, motherhood, and education. I was as fascinating to them as they were to me. Two very different worlds collided in that hut as the rain came down, and I was so excited to experience it.
I learned that the villagers of Loh hadn’t welcomed foreign visitors since 2016. This lack of visitors was much more than a pandemic-related absence, it was the nature of living on a very, very remote island in the South Pacific.
Remote South Pacific Travel
In this uber-connected world – it’s hard to discover places that feel truly untouched. They are often hard to get to, have limited space, and have little infrastructure – which creates a number of insurmountable hurdles for tourists who want to do South Pacific Travel.
Despite those hurdles – remote places like Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu are absolutely worth the trip. One way to overcome those hurdles is to travel to the South Pacific Islands by ship.
Heritage Adventurer – your transportation to the remote South Pacific Islands
I’m not talking about just any ship. It’s important to realize there are the typical cruise companies that cruise the South Pacific Islands, however, they go to the islands that have more infrastructure. They start from big cities like Sydney, LA, and Brisbane. And they go to the more popular tourist destinations like Tahiti or Fiji; places with airports and cruise ports. Sure – these are still small South Pacific islands, but they have the infrastructure to welcome thousands of passengers from big cruise ships.
Most South Pacific cruises don’t go to the remote, tiny islands like Loh Island. The ones with no tourism, hotels, electricity, or plumbing. And that’s exactly where I wanted to set foot…onto the South Pacific Islands that are hard (if not impossible) to get to.
Enter Heritage Expeditions who has been cruising to remote South Pacific islands for 10 years now. The small family-owned expedition cruise company actually provides expedition-type travel to places that are nearly impossible to get to. The Heritage Expeditions Secrets of Melanesia cruise will take you so far off the tourist path…there’s barely even a path at all!
What is Expedition Travel
Expedition travel is a travel niche that allows for the flexibility to respond to the environment, wildlife and other trip factors. It is often done by small ship because it’s usually the only way to get to really remote places. An expedition cruise looks sort of like a mini version of a cruise ship – but this isn’t a typical ‘cruise’. There’s no need to dress up, no theater shows, and there are no shore excursions; it’s more unpredictable and rugged in a way. An expedition ship is small enough to be able to anchor off shore in deep waters and passengers are transported by Zodiac rafts on shore to small villages or nature regions.
Getting to the remote South Pacific islands
We had a number of days where flexibility was necessary and we went way off the itinerary, changing plans due to cultural issues (warring tribes!) and weather. We traveled in some uncharted waters and went to places that the captain or the expedition leader had never been to before. On expedition travel, you let the trip take you, rather than you taking the trip.
Or as our expedition leader put it – you have to be rigidly flexible to do an expedition travel.
Listen to the Amateur Traveler Podcast where I talk about travel by expedition ship to Melanesia. Learn about what to expect and why it’s such a special region to travel to.
South Pacific Travel
The South Pacific is more than a musical – it’s an entire group of islands in the Pacific Ocean that consists of 3 regions; Micronesia, Melanesia, and Polynesia.
MAP Map provided by @Kahuroa
My South Pacific travel took me through the Melanesia region on Heritage Expeditions’ new 120-passenger Heritage Adventurer ship . This was the perfect way to travel to South Pacific remote island villages and cultures that normally get very few if any visitors.
To give you an idea of just how few people visit Melanesia Vanuatu – 121,000 annual visitors Solomon Islands – 29,000 annual visitors Papua New Guinea – 211,000 annual visitors ……………………………………………………………………….. France 218,000,000 annual visitors
Why Travel to Melanesia?
Melanesia is made up of 4 countries; Fiji, Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands, and Papua New Guinea. These countries include thousands of islands in the South Pacific overflowing with biodiversity.
It is one of the top birding destinations in the world with over 501 endemic birds and it is home to the Coral Triangle which contains at least 500 species of reef-building corals and is one of the eight major coral reef zones in the world.
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And then there’s the reason I cruised through Melanesia – the culture. It is one of the most culturally complex regions in the world. The islands have over 1000 languages! The locals reside in villages devoid of modern conveniences (except cell phones), relying on the resources of the land, traveling by canoe, preserving their history through oral traditions, fostering tight-knit communities centered around family ties and elders. They engage in trade using shells and pigs, participate in elaborate ceremonies, carry out certain unsettling rituals, and, at times, uphold the practice of a ‘bride price.’
Melanesia is one of the last places on earth where you will get to experience these things in their purest form.
South Pacific Island Culture – Like Nothing You’ve Ever Experienced Before
Travel the South Pacific and you’ll most definitely hear terrifying stories of headhunters. It is where some of the last headhunting tribes were found. Historically it was a land of warring tribes and cannibalism. Even though that doesn’t exist any longer, there are still plenty of tribal disagreements, and the warring is deeply rooted in their culture.
Experience the One-of-a-Kind Singsings
The term ‘Singsing’ refers to the elaborate festivals held throughout Melanesia, where villagers showcase theatrically choreographed dance and vocal performances. They are spectacular events with ornate costumes, dances, unusual music, and singing.
The dances and costumes represent various village events such as giving thanks for harvests, asking for a successful hunt, blessings for weddings, funerals, births and good health. There were dragon dances, frog dances, elaborate masks, headdresses made of rare feathers, and intricate piercings. Most of the time I sat and watched in disbelief and awe that this was for real.
Watch the variety of costumes, dances, music, and people of the South Pacific
The villagers encouraged us to participate in many of the singsings, which invariably resulted in them bursting into laughter and pointing at the amusing foreigners and our dance moves! I loved joining the dances, you can’t help but to be happy interacting in this ancient cultural tradition.
South Pacific Village Life is a Simple Life
“ We live a simple life with strong family ties and we are happy. We share what we have.” One of the elders said to us. It would be easy to look at how people live on these remote islands and think that this is a sad, hard, or undesireable life. This is why I love this type of travel so much, it stretched your mind and makes you value other ways people live.
After most of the singsings villagers took us around their village to share how they lived. Each village we visited was surprisingly clean and tidy, with groomed sand or dirt yards, and lots of well-maintained flowers. The homes were thatch and typically built off the ground on stilts. There was no ‘furniture’ inside. They sleep on leaf mats on the floor of the hut and cook by fire.
Typical family home
Sleeping on mats
Making sago over open flame
Tidy ‘landscaping’
Food was really basic; mainly fish, sago (a type of starch extracted from palms), yams, fruit, and lots of coconuts. You’d also find pigs on the islands which were more of a ‘special’ meal and currency people would conduct trade in.
Transportation from island to island was typically by hand-carved narrow canoes. And occasionally there were lories that hauled people from village to village, but mainly it was walking.
Family traveling by canoe
Handmade canoe traffic jam
We did see a few solar panels and people had basic cell phones for communication – but other than that life was quite rustic and simple…and happy.
South Pacific Cruise Island Hopping – Where to Go and What to Expect
Every day we stopped at different island communities and had a chance to interact with the locals. I don’t think it would be possible to visit all of these islands on your own. However, with Heritage Expeditions it was easy to traverse to these little known islands in a relatively short period of time.
Sepik River Papua New Guinea – Land of the Crocodile
As we landed our zodiacs in Kopar village the kids and villagers waved a welcome to us. The villagers performed three different dances featuring elaborate costumes: the fish dance, dragon dance, and snake dance. Locals from surrounding villages along the 700 mile long Sepik River flocked to Kopar to see the performance as well as to get a good look at us…the visitors.
Much like travel to India – you have to be comfortable with being stared at while doing South Pacific travel.
In addition to the elaborate costumes for the singsing, I was also in awe of the incredible artifacts and handicrafts that the villagers had laid out for us to admire and purchase. Once again, families traveled for days to bring their crafts to Kopar to meet (and sell to) the visitors.
A family sells crafts of the Sepik River
Manus Island Papua New Guinea – Dancing with Tree Frogs
The community of Manus Island hadn’t seen visitors for 2+ years. To make up for that they welcomed us with open arms and smiles. As our zodiacs came close to shore school-age kids lined up on the beach singing and dancing wildly with an accompaniment of a heavy drum beat.
The community even welcomed us into the village via a ceremonial ‘ribbon cutting’ (twine cutting). It was a lovely ‘Western world’ welcome to a very ancient culture. They entertained us with singsings, including a dance depicting the tree frogs that descend from the trees to feed and drink. Men wearing costumes made of trees, leaves, flowers, and shells literally dropped from the trees and hopped around leaving the entire crowd in giggles.
Men dressed as frogs ‘fall’ from the trees
Taking selfies with the dancers
New Britain Island Papua New Guinea Land of the Unexpected
I woke up this morning and looked out my cabin window and found the ship surrounded by volcanoes. One of the old volcano craters served as the anchorage for the ship! We had landed at Rabaul on New Britain Island – the land of volcanos, the land of the unexpected.
This was actually their town motto – and for good reason. The last eruption was in 1994 completely destroying 80% of the city. It has since been rebuilt, and they have a sophisticated monitoring system now. However, you can still see the bubbling hot sulfur water flowing into the ocean.
New Britain Island was one of the most ‘modern’ that we visited with a larger population and even a few tourism sites centered around the volcanos and WWII history.
Kokopo town on New Britain island is said to be the ‘cleanest town in PNG’ – an odd badge of honor to wear – but accurate. We made a stop at a favorite place of mine – the local market. They dropped us off to wander around for a while and we quickly became immersed among the locals.
We were also quite a site for the local people who likely wondered where in the world we came from. We were stared at, giggled about, and recorded on phones as we traversed the busy aisles. But of course, we did the same – I was able to get a bunch of great interactions and photos of the market and people. Plus – I was introduced to a number of new fruits and vegetables I had never seen before!
