How to plan your trip to Fiji
Even if you are the best planner in the world, Fiji is the place where it is really hard to plan everything. So if you a traveller who likes improvising along the way, this place will be perfect for you, but for the people who like to plan and know things ahead, here are some tips you might find helpful.
A trip to Fiji and a perfectly planned trip is not the same trip. Why? Well, Fiji is really hard to plan ahead... Fiji is land of two extremes for travellers – either you stay in backpackers or in luxurious hotels. If you have chosen to stay in a high end accommodation, good for you and most likely the hotel will fully take care of you and you will not miss a thing. However for the people who are into little adventure, backpackers or hostels is the place to be, to actually enjoy the real Fiji.
Also another thought – the big expensive hotels are owned by people from other countries, but the low-end hostels are run by locals, so you can also choose towards whom to spend your money to.
When we decided to go live in New Zealand for a year, I was checking the cheapest flight options. The cheapest one was with a stop in Fiji. Mmmmmm Fiji? That sounds veeeery exotic! Just for fun I checked, what would be the price difference for the flight, if I would stay for a week at this lovely stop and then continued my flight? Bingo! The price was exactly the same. Guess what – of course we bought the ticket to New Zealand with a stop in Fiji, but the stop wasn’t just couple of hours, but 5 days! Was totally worth it and actually was so good, that at some point lying on the beach we thought – maybe let’s just stay here, who cares about New Zealand?!
Ok, we have the tickets – what’s next? And then we realised that planning a trip to Fiji was not that easy.
Back in 2010, when internet was full of different and good information, it was almost impossible to find any information on Fiji as in traveller’s perspective. Yeah, it’s changed a lot, right? I actually found only 2 little blog posts, that gave me some information, but obviously it didn’t have enough info, so we went with almost no plan, the only thing we had – was Couchsurfing host in Nadi, who sounded very friendly and promised to help us with whatever we will need.
Mainland or other islands?
Viti Levu or the mainland of Fiji is great if you want to take some tours. From here there are more possibilities than other islands. That being said, it is also very, very important to go to one or more of smaller Fiji islands. This is where the true beauty is with picture perfect.
Plan by activities
Choose the island where to stay, by what it offers. Think of the things, that you really want to see or do. Is it surfing, or diving, snorkelling or skydiving, zip lining or white water rafting, nightlife or just the beach?
Here are some of the WOW things to do/see on different Islands in Fiji:
Mamanuca Island - Malamala Beach Club - the world’s first island beach club
Vanua Levu Island - one of the world’s top 10 dive spots, the Great White Wall on Rainbow Reef
Viti Levu or the mainland of Fiji
Skydiving
Ziplining
Denarau Island –Take a Trip to Cloud 9 Floating Platform. Pizza, bar, snorkelling, great people – have fun on a bar surrounded by crystal clear water.
Snorkelling with sharks for the ones who dare.
Cloud 9 Floating Platform
Take Cultural Night Tour – experience local food cooked in the ground, drink kava, and watch a fire dance and a lot more.
Namotu Island - one of the top 10 best or most challenging waves in the world is called Cloudbreak. Of course it’s just for the advanced surfers! The location is: 5km / 3 miles south of Namotu Island in the Mamanuca Islands
Beachcomber Island – is known as the party island
Taveuni island – International Dateline - here you can experience standing between the present and past or jumping from today to yesterday and back!
Wainibau Waterfall at the end of Lavena Coastal Walk on Taveuni Island, Fiji
Safety
Fiji is a very safe country. The countries main income is tourism and they all know it, this is exactly why they are extremely friendly to tourists. Actually, I just quoted a Fijian policeman, who came up to us just to greet us, smile and assure that we are safe here. By the way, I think they have very interesting and weather appropriate uniform. Here is a photo of me and the policeman:
Food and water
Did you know that Fiji islands where known as the cannibalism islands? Yes, they have a history of over 2500 years of doing that. Luckily, the last know cannibalism act occurred in 1867. Now they do eat food just like the rest of us!
All accommodations on the smaller islands (or almost all) in Fiji offer you 3 meals per day included the price, no matter if you stay in a backpacker or high-end resort.
In bigger cities try to eat where locals eat, think markets, local cafés. All imported food will be more expensive, but will also be more familiar to your home food, as they are getting better and better in offering burgers, hotdogs etc.
Tap water is not for drinking. Buy water in bottles from supermarkets, the bigger the cheaper. Also, if leaving for a smaller island, it is advisable to take some water with you.
Visas
If you are planning to stay for less than 4 months in Fiji you are not required a visa. This makes it nice and simple!
However, there might be some exceptions. If you follow this link, http://www.immigration.gov.fj/travel-requirements/visa-exempted-countries and if the name of your country is there, you do not need a visa for Fiji.
Getting around
Depends on where you are planning to stay and what are you going to do.
Ferries and boats are a very obvious choice for getting to another island. Island hopping is very popular in Fiji and you can do that with both ferries and boats.
Rental cars are only needed if you are staying Viti Levu. It is quite expensive, but it is a great way if you want to be independent. Remember, they drive on the left side and you are allowed to use driver’s licence that is in English language.
Public Busses are a great way to experience local life. Prices are cheap. No windows in the bus, so you will not miss air conditioners. The only downsides are that they run of ‘Fijian time’, meaning forget about a schedule and sometimes you might be invited to push the bus a little for it to run again, but don’t worry if you are woman as mostly men are invited to do this. However, no volunteers will be rejected!
Taxis – affordable and fast way to get to your destination, especially good for reaching places where pubic busses do not run.
Good to know:
- Only yellow taxis are allowed to pick up passengers at the airport.
- It is very typical to agree on the price for taxi ride before the trip, instead of using the meter.
- Uber is currently unavailable in Fiji.
- Taxi drivers are very friendly and will be happy to have a conversation with you. Yes, they all speak English.
For families
Baby food, nappies and swim nappies can be found in supermarkets. However, they might not be the ones that you are used to and not for the price you are used to, as they might be more expensive. Your child might be allergic to some brands so better to take them with you. Same applies to any creams and washing soaps.
Must do Experiences in Fiji
- Participate in a cava ceremony
- Climb a palm tree
- Diving / Snorkelling
- Drink a fresh coconut
- Meet with local kids and fish with an umbrella stick (might be hard to do it but we tried)
HAVE A PRISTINE BEACH ALL TO YOURSELF
If you’ve always dreamed about having a picture-perfect beach all to yourself while experiencing your own kind of cast away moment, Fiji should be high on your travel bucket list!
Away from luxurious beach resorts and all-inclusive island cruises, the country still has many remote spots to discover. Some islands have tiny resorts that only accommodate a handful of guests so that you’ll have the beach and ocean pretty much all to yourself. If that’s not enough, it is even possible to have an entire island all to yourself when renting one of these private islands.
Just for the record:
Fiji has 333 picture perfect islands or in one word – wow! Most likely you will not visit all of them but if you do then leave a comment and message us! We will be happy to share your adventure!
March – September – They are shooting the tv show Survivor so some islands and hotels might not be available.
In Fiji you will most likely see some bats, mice and lots of dogs. Remember - it's OK. That's their home.
Locals will treat you like a friend but be careful as scams happen also in Fiji.
If you fly into Nadi or Suva airports my tip would be – not stay on this island. As locals call it – it’s the ugly island. It’s just for work. FYI – in my eyes, it was not that ugly, but when I got to Mana Island I totally got it. The rest of the islands are truly picture perfect!
I hope this helps you to understand a bit more and helps in your planning. If you need any more advice then just leave a comment or write to us an email. We will be happy to help.
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