Seeing the rest of the Pacific?

What is the most affordable way for a couple living in Hawaii to see
the most of the Pacific... Tahiti, Samoa, Tonga, the Cook Islands,
Vanuatu... in a month of vacation time? Does something like a "local
resident special", a "learn about your neighbors" travel deal exist?

Thank you in advance for any helpful pointers
George

In article <1117600800-sch@news.lava.net>, Geo <mrdelurk@m>
wrote:

> What is the most affordable way for a couple living in Hawaii to see
> the most of the Pacific... Tahiti, Samoa, Tonga, the Cook Islands,
> Vanuatu... in a month of vacation time? Does something like a "local
> resident special", a "learn about your neighbors" travel deal exist?
>
> Thank you in advance for any helpful pointers
> George

wait.
You say you live in Hawaii.
and you call it a:
"local resident special"
????

> wait.
> You say you live in Hawaii.
> and you call it a:
> "local resident special"

I have to call it something, the malihinis seems to have expropriated
"kama'aina" :-)

Would you believe (as I just learned), that the first step towards
getting to Tahiti since May 23th, is having to fly everyone to the
French Consulate in San Francisco to apply for a visa in person? The
visa might be only $19, but the R/T airfare to Frisco is $375; a swell
grand and half for a single 4-member family.

On a side note, the list of documents required for a visa to Tahiti
includes 14 different items. One paper for every day of our stay. The
travel time from Honolulu to Papeetee hasn't really shortened since
airplanes replaced canoes, it's just that one now spends the two weeks
doing paperwork instead of paddling... :-)

United Polynesia this clearly ain't. Maybe that was exactly the
plan... when they removed all the borders between the EU states, they
put them over here into the Pacific. Which European state's bio-metric
Schengen visa I need to visit Vanuatu, now?

In article <1117725608-sch@news.lava.net>, Geo <mrdelurkm>
wrote:

> > wait.
> > You say you live in Hawaii.
> > and you call it a:
> > "local resident special"
>
> I have to call it something, the malihinis seems to have expropriated
> "kama'aina" :-)
>


wait a minute.
"collectively, the stranger/foreigner/newcomer or tourist has
transferred to their ownership, the word that means native born, or old
timer" ?!

A very frustrating thing is many of those places seem only affordable
if departing from LAX. You could probably go to LAX, then get a
bargain round trip to Australia with free stopovers in various islands.
Maybe finally stopover in HNL and throw away remaining tix before
returning to LAX. Sounds silly if you have nothing to do in LA, but I
hear a similar thing is done in europe where they fly a deadend segment
to Istanbul as starting point for the cheapest round the world fares.

I think there are cheap "circle pacific" airfares originating from LAX,
but you could call the Oneworld or Star airline-conglomerate desks that
handle these (I think handled only by their round-the-world
specialists) and see if HNL is allowed as gateway and if non-asian
stops are allowed (then let us know).

Or you could follow financial incentives and hope for Polynesia later.
I think only Paris and Bangkok have really good value airfares for the
mileage, at around $500 (Paris now higher for summer peak). Hong Kong
and east coast US are moderate values for about the same. CA and NV
are overpriced from HNL on a mileage basis, and HNL-> Australia /
polynesia seems positively ridiculous as far as I can tell. Someone
recently gave up trying to hop HNL->Sydney and for less money went
HNL->France and even included a Riviera cruise (totaling about $700).

[Aloha-- Please kerep this on topic for Hawaii, or take it to email. Mahalo.
--Susan, co-moderator]

Geo wrote:
> What is the most affordable way for a couple living in Hawaii to see
> the most of the Pacific... Tahiti, Samoa, Tonga, the Cook Islands,
> Vanuatu... in a month of vacation time? Does something like a "local
> resident special", a "learn about your neighbors" travel deal exist?
>
> Thank you in advance for any helpful pointers
> George

Hi George

I lived in Fiji and Vanuatu for several years and I never did find a
cheap way of getting around there. The best I managed was through Air
New Zealand, who seem to travel to most of the countries. Since I left,
Virgin Blue, the cut-price airline, started plying to one or two places
so they are worth checking out too.

The area is mostly dominated by very expensive national carriers.

Good luck

Peter Forster
Cheltenham, England