la Orana from Bora Bora!

We read that Bora Bora is known as one of the world’s most beautiful places so it hit our early list of places to visit. The downside is that it is also one of the most expensive places to visit. Accommodations at many of the hotels can run $1,000 per night… seriously! You also have to take a flight from Tahiti to Bora Bora which never changes in price since they have a monopoly on the route.

Needless to say this was not exactly in our trip budget, but my co-worker Jessica K who has been to Bora Bora said we had to go here because it’s literally amazing. 🙂

We also wanted to fit it in because flights to French Polynesia are often 40% of the cost of an entire Round the World airline ticket (if you can get it to work). This flight alone really proves the value of the RTW ticket, but the airlines make you work for it!

The Adventure of Booking & Arriving in Bora Bora
We spent hours and hours working through the flight patterns to fit in flights from Auckland – Tahiti – Easter Island – Chile. Most RTW tickets tend to go from Sydney to South America which makes stopping in New Zealand, Tahiti, and Easter Island very tricky. We found one special type of Round the World ticket that lets you stop here – One World Global Explorer. After hours of research, looking at travel blogs, and deciphering flight schedules (for example, some of the flights we are taking happen only 1 time per week), we finally got it to work!

With the flights set, we then had to find accommodations that were both nice and economical. I let Emily take this one! 😉

After ruling out hotel after hotel either due to cost or poor reviews, she turned to Vacation Rental By Owner (VRBO) which we have used for prior skiing vacations. There were very few VRBO options on the island (3-4 in total), but one was a studio and was within our budget. It also met Emily’s picky standards. 😉

Given our rather Type A personalities (ok… maybe Super Type A :)), the one part that made us nervous was getting to the condo. It is located in one of the most picturesque areas of the island that’s known to have amazing sunsets, but it’s a 15 min drive from the main town.

The condo owner arranged the logistics – but the logistics simply said… a guy named Bruno who only speaks French will be waiting at the dock when your plane arrives. We decided it was worth a shot since it was savings hundreds/thousands of dollars and was a stop for us vs. our full vacation. Thankfully, Bruno was waiting there with a sign in hand and was very nice! He drove us back to the condo and hooked us up with a car that Emily had arranged with the condo owner (getting a car here is another work of art! There are almost no rentals so ours was a 15 year old Ford Escort :)) The only surprise was that the car had a manual transmission. I was really glad that Emily knew how to drive a manual thanks to her mom and dad!

The Island
What makes Bora Bora so unique is that it is comprised of motus. There is a main island that is about 12 km around. Surrounding this main island is a ring of little individual islands called motus. In between the motus and the main island is beautiful turquise water. The water is incredibly calm and beautiful because the sand is white and the motus break the water coming from the ocean. While motus exist in a few other areas of the world, Bora Bora has some of the most in the world. The area is absolutely beautiful!

The Four Seasons!
One of the nicest restaurants in Bora Bora is at the The Four Seasons hotel, which is known to be one of the best hotels in the world! I found that it had a breakfast buffet that was supposed to be amazing so we emailed for reservations.

The only tricky part was getting to the motu. The Four Seasons runs a shuttle but not until the afternoon. To get to the motu, Emily spent almost a month working every couple of days emailing and calling to secure a taxi boat. Since we’re not fluent in the local Polynesian language or French, this was a fun task! Emily finally found a boat that picked us up at the dock at sunrise (6 AM!) to head to The Four Seasons.

Here is the view from breakfast:

Stargazing

We set up our camera to do some extended shots of the Milky Way – pretty cool!

Relaxing from the condo and a little American football
On our off days from hanging out the resorts, we enjoyed relaxing at our condo and doing some activities around the island.

Our condo had absolutely beautiful sunsets and views. We acutally found out that Frank Sinatra and Marlon Brando used to live in the huts right by our condo!

We even enjoyed watching the OSU vs. Wisconsin football game from the deck! Since we crossed the international dateline between Auckland and Tahiti, we went from 16 hours ahead to 6 hours behind… which made the OSU night game on during our Saturday afternoon. It finished at sunset. Great timing!

Dinner at La Villa Mahana
I had heard about a French chef who opened what is considered the top restaurant in Bora Bora. This of course interested me! It only has 7 tables so we made reservations over 6 months out. The dinner was a neat mix of polynesian and french cuisine – here are a few shots:

Jet Skiing
We also had a great time taking out jet skis one afternoon. We went around the whole island!

We also stopped at a motu that the tour guide’s family owned (seriously… he lived there!). He opened up coconuts that had fallen to the ground, and we had coconut milk and slices!

Exploring the Island
Since we had a car (which most people who come to the main island don’t have), we got to explore the island. Lots of people who visit Bora Bora take an ATV, bus, or van tour around the island… but we could just drive ourselves which worked well.

We also experienced the local life firsthand as when we stopped at the local grocery store. To save some money (and calories), we made about 2/3rds of our meals in the condo which worked out very well!

Next stop – the most remotely inhabited island in the world…