Moorea:
Beauty in the South Seas

"In the south seas, the Creator seems
to have laid himself out to show what He can do"

—Rupert Brook

If your idea of paradise is a small volcanic island in the South Pacific, covered by lush vegetation, surrounded by an aquamarine lagoon, and fringed by white beaches and wind-bent palms, then Moorea is the place for you. Sometimes referred to as Tahiti’s laid-back “little sister,” this heart-shaped piece of igneous rock is always relaxing and is the perfect day trip for visitors to Tahiti, which is only a short ferry ride away.

Moorea doesn’t have shopping malls, theme parks or rows of nightclubs, but it does have hiking trails, picturesque villages, sharp mountain ridges poking into the clouds and an impressive array of pilot whales, spinner dolphins, sharks and fish. Despite what is often claimed, it wasn’t the island that inspired James Michener’s creation of Bali Ha’i, which in turn inspired the musical South Pacific, but it might as well have been.