Matira Beach, Bora Bora
Coral Garden, Tahaa
Baie de Faaroa, Raiatea
Avea Bay, Huahine
Onoiau Pass, Maupiti
Climb Mount Otemanu’s lower slopes for a lagoon panorama
Drift snorkel Tahaa’s coral garden
Visit the Taputapuatea marae on Raiatea
Tour a vanilla plantation on Tahaa
Snorkel with stingrays and blacktip sharks, Bora Bora
Bora Bora
Taputapuatea, Raiatea
Maeva archaeological village, Huahine
Tahaa vanilla plantations
Maupiti
May to October is the dry season, with steady southeast trade winds, lower humidity and the clearest lagoon visibility, making it the preferred window for both sailing and diving. November to April is warmer and more humid, with occasional squalls and a small chance of a tropical system, though direct hits on the Society Islands are uncommon. July and August bring the busiest resort traffic on Bora Bora, so shoulder months either side are quieter without losing the good weather.
Faa’a International Airport in Papeete, Tahiti, is the region’s only long-haul gateway, with onward domestic flights to Bora Bora, Raiatea and Huahine, each roughly 45 minutes to an hour away by air. Most charters begin with a boat transfer from Raiatea’s Marina Apooiti or a short flight direct to Bora Bora, whose own airport sits on a motu and requires a further boat transfer to reach the main island.
Matira Beach on Bora Bora’s southern tip offers calm, current-free water and easy access to the sandbank stingray sites just offshore. Tahaa’s coral garden channel is better suited to a drift snorkel stop than an overnight stay, while Baie de Faaroa on Raiatea, the only true fjord-like bay in French Polynesia, cuts deep into the island and gives shelter regardless of wind direction.
A week to ten days covers Bora Bora, Raiatea and Tahaa comfortably, since the shared reef around Raiatea and Tahaa keeps that leg short and sheltered. Adding Huahine or Maupiti extends the itinerary by two or three days each, given the longer open-water crossings between them, so a two-week charter is a more realistic timeframe for covering all five main islands without rushing.
Yes. In 1967, three American expatriates known locally as the Bali Hai Boys built the first stilted rooms over a reef on Raiatea, a solution to a hotel site that had calm water but no beach. The idea spread quickly through the group and became closely associated with Bora Bora in particular, whose resorts turned it into the global symbol of tropical luxury it is today, well before the format reached the rest of the world.
