The Fiji & Samoa itinerary is only the second I’ve created for a destination I’ve never been to. Fortunately Fiji has a simple bus system with an online timetable. Planning for travellers who can afford to hire a car is, thanks to Google Maps, a breeze.
I have been fortunate enough to visit the Cook Islands, but what appealed about Fiji and Samoa was their relative proximity to one another. Like the Cook Islands they seem to burst with culture, beautiful interiors and, of course, some of the most perfect beaches you’ll ever see.
This is the only itinerary where the budget traveller visits very different places to the luxury and mid-range travellers. Why? Because it’s so expensive to fly to and from Samoa. I took a look at freighter routes between the two countries, but these aren’t cheap, they seem uncomfortable and they take a long time. For the sake of visiting a new country it didn’t seem worth it, and so the budget travellers get to visit Fiji’s Yasawas Islands instead.
One last note about this itinerary; the Octopus Resort which features on the budget itinerary is a luxury beach resort on a remote (but easily reachable) island. They do, however, have a building with comfortable and cheap dorm accommodation. Their reason for this is so that there are a mix of guests on the resort, not just older, wealthy folk. This seems like a brilliant idea and I hope that other establishments follow suit.
A Plan To Go 