Samoa

Apia — a small, unhurried capital of 36,000 people on the north coast of Upolu — with the Apia Market (the social hub of the city, every Saturday morning, with fresh fish, taro, coconut cream, handwoven fine mats and the finest oka (raw fish) in the Pacific), the Robert Louis Stevenson Museum (Vailima, the Victorian mansion where Stevenson lived from 1890 until his death in 1894) and Palolo Deep Marine Reserve.

💡 Robert Louis Stevenson (author of Treasure Island, Kidnapped and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde) moved to Samoa in 1890 at age 39, seeking a warm climate for his tuberculosis. He fell in love with Samoa, learned basic Samoan, and was given the honorific name “Tusitala” (“teller of tales”). He died of a cerebral haemorrhage at Vailima in 1894; 60 Samoans carried his body to the summit of Mount Vaea.

1h30 from Apia. To Sua Ocean Trench — a 30m-deep, 15m-wide natural swimming hole on the south coast of Upolu, accessible via a wooden ladder descending the cliff, connected to the sea by an underground lava tube (visible during big swells when water surges through). The electric turquoise water is sheltered, warm and completely clear.

💡 To Sua means “giant swimming hole” in Samoan. The trench was formed when a coastal lava tube collapsed inward, creating a circular opening connected to the sea at depth but sheltered on the surface. The turquoise colour comes from the depth and the absence of sediment — the water is entirely clear to the bottom. It is widely considered one of the most unusual natural swimming sites on earth.

45 min from To Sua. Lalomanu — a 1km beach of white sand and clear turquoise water on the southeast tip of Upolu, with a fringing reef visible from the beach, local fale (open-sided beach huts) for overnight stays and the offshore Aleipata Islands in the distance — is consistently described as the finest beach in the Pacific by those who have visited widely.

💡 Lalomanu’s fale accommodation — open-sided, palm-thatched beach huts with a sleeping mat, mosquito net and meals cooked by the family — is the most authentic beach experience in the Pacific, costing WST 80–150/night (approximately US$30–55), including breakfast and dinner of freshly caught fish, taro and coconut cream prepared by the host family.

2h30 ferry from Mulifanua to Salelologa. Savai’i — the largest island in Polynesia outside Hawaii and New Zealand (1,700km²), with fewer than 45,000 inhabitants, no traffic lights, active lava fields from the 1905–1911 eruption of Mount Matavanu (which buried villages under 5–15m of lava and dammed rivers, creating new lakes) and the Pulemele’s ancient star mound.

💡 The 1905–1911 eruption of Mount Matavanu on Savai’i was one of the largest volcanic events in Polynesia in the 20th century — the lava flow lasted 6 years, covered 50km², buried 3 villages and the Catholic Mission church (still partially visible), dammed three rivers and added 5km² of new land to the north coast. 3,000 villagers were displaced.

The Alofaaga Blowholes (Pe’ape’a, the south coast of Savai’i) — lava tubes where the sea pressure builds and releases through narrow rock openings, projecting columns of seawater 20–30m into the air — are the most dramatic coastal spectacle in Samoa. The Saleaula Lava Fields (the 1905 flow, now hardened into a black lunar landscape with the ghost church and a buried village visible at the edge).

💡 The Alofaaga Blowholes work on the principle of a natural hydraulic pump — each incoming wave compresses air and water in the lava tube and forces it through the narrowing exit at pressure. The height of the spout depends entirely on wave size and tube geometry; in a strong south swell, the spouts reach 30m. Locals throw coconuts into the intake and watch them launched skyward.

The Afu Aau Waterfall (Olemoe Falls, a tiered waterfall in the highland rainforest of central Savai’i, falling into a natural cold freshwater pool) and the Dwarf’s Cave (Pe’ape’a Cave — a lava tube cave accessible by torchlight, named for the swiftlets (pe’ape’a, the Samoan name) that nest inside and navigate by echolocation like bats).

💡 The Samoan swiftlet (Aerodramus sawtelli) nests in the Pe’ape’a Cave and is one of only four cave-nesting bird species that use echolocation for navigation in the dark — the others are the edible-nest swiftlet (whose nests are used in bird’s nest soup), the oilbird of Trinidad, and the cave swiftlet. The Samoan swiftlet makes a small clicking sound audible to the human ear in the cave.

Ferry back to Upolu and the Apia Saturday night — a fiafia (a traditional Samoan cultural performance of fire dancing, slit drum, siva Samoa and the final fire knife dance, performed at resorts but with genuine technical skill) and the Apia waterfront at night, when the fish market vendors set up barbecues. Fly from Faleolo (APW).

💡 The umu (earth oven — heated volcanic stones lined in a pit, covered with banana leaves and taro, breadfruit, fish and pork, sealed and left to slow-cook for 3–4 hours) is the central cooking method of Samoan culture and is still prepared every Sunday morning for the family meal that follows church — which runs from 9am to 12pm in most Samoan villages.