From Hawaii to Tahiti: Chasing a Childhood Dream Across the Pacific

My 1993 trip to Hawaii did something dangerous to me.

It did not calm my travel fever. It made it worse.

Hawaii had opened a door, and behind that door was the South Pacific — that endless blue world I had dreamed about since childhood. Suddenly, all those old images came back to me: the silhouette of mysterious islands, the stories of Captain Cook, and of course the Mutiny on the Bounty movies.

I had first seen that dreamlike island world as a child in the old Hollywood movie with Marlon Brando. Later came the newer version with Mel Gibson and Anthony Hopkins, and even later a mini-series about the voyages and discoveries of James Cook in the South Pacific.

Tahiti. Moorea. Bora Bora.

Names that sounded less like real places and more like magic spells.

After Hawaii, they suddenly felt a little closer. Not close, of course. This was still the Pacific Ocean, not a weekend trip to the Bavarian Alps. But they were in the same ocean as Hawaii, about 5,000 kilometres farther south.

“Only” 5,000 kilometres.

The Pacific has a funny way of making distances look harmless on a map.

I wanted to go to French Polynesia.

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Planning a South Pacific Dream Before the Internet

Today, planning such a trip would be easy. You open your laptop, compare flights, read hotel reviews, watch videos, check maps, and after a few hours you know more about a place than some people who actually live there.

But this was the early 1990s.

There was no internet as we know it today. No booking platforms. No travel blogs. No online hotel reviews. No street view. No quick messages to guesthouses on the other side of the world.

So I bought travel guides.

Lonely Planet was different.

Those books were colourful on the outside, but inside they were full of the things I really needed: transport, small hotels, island connections, prices, maps, warnings, and tips for people who did not want to spend their whole trip inside an expensive resort.

I also bought travel magazines, but again not the shiny luxury ones where every beach looked as if it had been polished by angels. I preferred the thinner magazines for individual travellers. Less glamour, more reality.

And somewhere inside one of those magazines, I found what I needed.

A small advertisement.

It was from a German man who lived in the Fiji Islands and organised more individual South Pacific trips for German travellers.

I wanted something more personal than a standard package tour, but I was not yet brave enough to organise every flight, island connection, and hotel completely on my own. My English was still in a rather poor condition at that time. Let’s say it existed, but it was not ready for complicated phone calls with hotels on tropical islands.

So I contacted him.

By good luck, he was in Germany at that time and even called me in Munich.

I told him what I wanted: French Polynesia. Especially Moorea.

He listened and then said something I never forgot:

“Oh Andi, Moorea is beautiful. But be careful. It can make you addicted.”

At that moment I smiled.

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The Coral Route

He also told me about a special route by Air New Zealand called the “Coral Route.”

It sounded almost unreal: French Polynesia, the Cook Islands, Fiji, and finally Hawaii again.

The German organiser asked me how much I was willing to spend on accommodation. I gave him my budget, and he said he was sure he could recommend places that would fit. Not luxury resorts, of course. I was not travelling as a honeymoon millionaire. I was travelling as a man with a childhood dream, a limited bank account, and a growing problem with island addiction.

A few days later, a letter arrived.

The whole four- to five-week trip would cost no more than 5,500 Deutsche Marks, including airfare and all accommodation.

I could hardly believe it.

That was about the same amount I had paid for my two-week Hawaii trip in 1993. Of course, the whole journey would cost more in the end. Food, local transport, small adventures, unexpected expenses — all these things have their own way of saying hello to your wallet.

I booked the offer.

And then came the hardest part.

Waiting.

One Year of Planning, Saving, and Dreaming

The planning and saving took almost one year.

A year can be very long when your mind is already sitting under a palm tree in the South Pacific, but your body still has to go to work in Germany.

Finally, at the end of April, the day arrived.

I headed to Frankfurt am Main to catch my flight to the South Pacific.

The route was familiar at first. Like on my Hawaii trip, I flew from Germany to Los Angeles. But this time, after Los Angeles, the plane would not continue west to Honolulu.

I had already spent about twelve hours in the air when I arrived in Los Angeles, and another eight hours were still ahead of me. Strangely, I was not tired at all.

Excitement is a powerful drug.

Much stronger than aeroplane coffee.

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Los Angeles Without the Ashtray Atmosphere

And then something unexpected happened.

The transit lounge was clean.

No blue clouds of cigarette smoke. No ashtray atmosphere. LAX no longer felt like a smoking room with aeroplanes attached to it.

Smoking was prohibited, and the warning signs made it very clear that huge fines were waiting for anyone who ignored the rules.

Outside, a Boeing 747-300 was waiting.

This aircraft would carry me across the ocean to Tahiti.

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Landing in Tahiti

I landed in Tahiti in the middle of the night.

I was brought to a hotel in downtown Papeete called the Prince Hinoi Hotel. I quickly understood why this hotel fitted into my travel budget, but that did not matter.

It was only for a few hours.

Papeete was not my real destination.

My destination was Moorea.

The island just across the sea, visible from Tahiti like a promise.

I hardly slept. Maybe I did not sleep at all. Tahiti is in the same time zone as Hawaii, and somewhere far away in Munich it was still early afternoon on the other day. My inner clock had probably given up and gone home.

Before sunrise, I was already standing at the dock where the ferries to Moorea departed.

And there it was.

Moorea.

Slowly appearing in the sunrise.

I stood there and watched the island come out of the darkness. The mountains, the silhouette, the colours of the early morning. It felt unreal. Like a movie scene, but this time I was not sitting in front of a television in Germany.

I was there.

I will never forget that moment.

The Salty Welcome of the Pacific

Around six o’clock, I entered the fast ferry to Moorea.

It was a catamaran, and of course I chose a seat on the top deck under the open sky. I wanted to see everything.

At that moment, I did not know I would also feel everything.

Especially the sea.

The Pacific was rough that morning, and I received a very personal demonstration that the ocean is, in fact, extremely salty.

The catamaran was almost flying over the waves. Up, down, up again, and then suddenly down into the valleys between the waves. Sometimes all I could see in front of me was water.

A lot of water.

More water than necessary, in my opinion.

The crossing took only about thirty minutes, but it felt like a small ocean adventure. Wind in my face, salt on my skin, Moorea in front of me, Tahiti behind me.

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Arrival on Moorea

And then, finally, we arrived.

I stepped off the ferry.

After years of dreaming, planning, saving, waiting, and flying halfway around the world, I put my feet on Moorea.

For me, it felt like holy land.

I was welcomed at the dock in Vaiare and brought to my hotel on the other side of the island. After a while, I reached the Moorea Village Hotel, where I would stay for the next nine nights.

The island had me.

And I had not even rented the bicycle yet.

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The South Pacific Story Has Only Just Begun

I decided not to put the whole journey into one long article, because this trip deserves more space — and honestly, nobody should have to cross half the Pacific in one single blog post.

The journey continues in Moorea: The Island That Made Me Addicted—nine nights, one bicycle and a warning that proved entirely justified.