Certified Tahiti Specialist
Susan Tindell
La ora na! (Hello!) The crystal blue waters of the South Pacific lap the white sands of the beach just steps away from your bungalow. It's another beautiful day in paradise---Tahiti. Experience the Society Islands from a sumptuous resort or aboard a luxury cruise. Explore, swim, hike, relax...all amidst one of the most picturesque places on Earth. As a Certified Tahiti Specialist, I have experienced Tahiti and her islands numerous times and assisted my clients in creating the vacations of their dreams. This could be a romantic honeymoon with an over the water bungalow where just the two of you can watch the sunset melt into the sea, or a family beach bungalow where you and the kids can step onto the sand right outside your door. I enjoy discovering the tips, tricks and local secrets of a destination, then going above and beyond to use that first-hand knowledge in helping travelers pick the right destination and create unique, one-of-a-kind experiences for their vacations! My goal is simple: the vacations I create for my clients will expose them to people, places and things that change their reality and help them look at their everyday lives with an enriched perspective. I want to empower people to unplug from their ordinary lives and realize their travel dreams. That is the true power of travel! Haere tatou! (Let's go!)
2024 - 2025 South Pacific Brochure
including Tahiti, Fiji and the Cook Islands
Featuring the finest 4- and 5-star resorts across the South Pacific, plus Innovative Choices
including an array of exciting excursions with private options and luxury cruises.
I returned to Wisconsin from Tahiti several times, and every trip I’ve made to the South Pacific, there was a little reluctance in leaving the islands. If you’ve ever been there, you know the feeling. If you haven’t been there, well, have we got a trip for you!
The Society Islands, commonly known by the name of their largest island, Tahiti, are an archipelago in the South Pacific, an 8-hour flight from Los Angeles. It’s a long haul, but as they’re in the same time zone as Hawaii, the jet lag isn’t too bad. Unlike Hawaii, these islands are not very heavily populated, and their natural beauty almost defies description. It is truly a place that should be right at, or at least near, the top of your bucket list.
The English navigator James Cook named the island group after his first visit there in 1769. Twenty years later, the famous “Mutiny on the Bounty” occurred, when sailors aboard the British ship HMS Bounty decided to stay on Tahiti. The captain, William Bligh, disagreed, so the crew put Bligh and his officers in an open boat and said “Te mau mana'o tauturu no te haapiiraa,” which is “Good bye” in Tahitian. Bligh sailed his boat some 4,000 miles to a British naval station, while the mutineers, led by Fletcher Christian, settled in for new lives among the lush tropics—and beautiful women—of the islands. Most of the mutineers didn’t live very long, but some of their descendants are still to be found on nearby Pitcairn Island.
Arriving travelers fly into the airport of Papeete, the capital city on the “big island” of Tahiti, which offers visitors great resorts, jungle hiking and some of the best surfing in the world. Just west of Tahiti is the smaller island of Mo’orea, a popular destination for honeymooners, or for anyone who wants to enjoy spectacular tropic scenery and relax in the resorts’ famous over-the-water bungalows. Another exotic island in the group is Bora Bora, which was home to a U.S. naval base in World War II. With the cooperation of the French, who took control of the islands in 1843, our sailors pitched in to help defend the archipelago from a possible Japanese attack. However, the Japanese never bothered to go that far east, and so the 7,000 sailors and marines who manned the base had some of the safest, and certainly most pleasant, duty of the war. Only a few miles away is the island of Raiatea, the second-largest in the archipelago. The island is rich in Polynesian history; it’s thought that Polynesian navigators sailed from here as far away as Hawaii.
Many of the larger islands are surrounded by much smaller islands known as motu, which often sport fabulous beaches and resorts of their own, or at least picnic and beach areas which guests from resorts on the larger island can visit. Divers flock to the islands, too, taking advantage of their pristine waters and abundant underwater wildlife for some of the best diving in the world.
Guests can plan to stay on just one island, or move around to others by plane or boat. When my husband and I visited in 2013, we sailed out of Papeete aboard a small cruise ship, visiting several of the islands over the span of a week. And for a truly exotic and luxurious stay, I recommend a trip to Teti’aroa, a small atoll just north of Tahiti that was once the seat of Tahiti’s royalty. In 1960, the actor Marlon Brando, scouting the islands for locations to shoot a movie about the mutiny, hired fishermen to take him to the atoll, which he fell in love with. The small settlement Brando built for himself and his friends and family gave rise to the Brando Resort, an eco-friendly luxury hotel, which I visited on my trip last week. It is, without doubt, the most beautiful resort I’ve ever visited. It’s on the pricey side, but definitely worth the expense.
So, have you moved Tahiti to the top of your bucket list? Give us a call, and we’ll get you there. It’s only 8 hours from Los Angeles, but once you arrive, you’ll agree that it’s definitely worth it. Whether or not you come back, well, that’ll be up to you!