NORTH AND SOUTH PACIFIC

The South Pacific is probably one the closest regions to that mythical sense of paradise that we will ever get to on the planet Earth. The area is quite spread out covering thousands of miles.

The more interesting islands are in a band extending approximately 30degrees north of the equator to 30 degrees south of the equator and also include New Zealand and Australia which extend just past 45 degrees south.

In terms of longitude again most of the islands extend from approximately 135 degrees to the International dateline at 180 degrees and as far east as 125 degrees west to the western tip of Australia a combined distance of over 100 degrees of longitude. An easy conversion on the equator is 1 degree of longitude equals approximately 69.2 miles so 100 degrees is about 6920 miles. As you can easily see this is a mind boggling amount of ocean with a few islands sprinkled in groups and only two large land masses; New Zealand and Australia. 

 

For many of us that have visited Islands in the Pacific Hawaii has been the vacation spot of choice. They are set up for the tourist trade and have regular and relatively affordable transportation by air and lots of accommodations for tourists.   I have been lucky to visit Oahu twice and would love to go back. It is a wonderful area to visit with beautiful ocean beaches, lush vegetation, interesting geography, friendly people, and a great climate.

Other areas of the Pacific are much less traveled and some require surface transportation on either a cruise ship or smaller vessel to visit. Some islands can only be visited by small vessel.

Your first step is to decide where in the North and South Pacific you wish to visit. As I mentioned it is a huge area and somehow you need to focus in a lot to find a specific travel area or areas to visit. Your main variables are available time and money and health and interests. 

My suggestion is to try Hawaii for a first visit to an island in the Pacific. I have never talked to anyone who has visited there and whined about it. And it seems that people who visit there often go back which is the best indicator that a place is worth visiting. Other 'high points" would be French Polynesia, New Zealand and Australia. After that there are hundreds of Islands to visit but again you need the time and resources. 

Links

Surfer's Village surf reports in Australia with webcams, weather and wave info

Hawaii Web Cams - all the major hotels and lots of other locations in Hawaii -a great way of checking out the sites you will see when you visit

Web Cams in French Polynesia and other locations around the world