Travelling around
the
Yasawa's in Fiji
In this "Destinations" section we take you on a tour around the Yasawa's, Fiji.
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As with all our long term travels, we could easily write a book on each destination travelled to but we try to give easy reading for experienced ideas, tips and advice for travelling to specific areas of the world that you might like to visit, are already planning or including to your bucket list for a must go to destination.
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We take you to the Yasawa's to experience real bliss in an unspoiled world of paradise. A hidden gem for travellers to explore, lose themselves and collect memories that will last a lifetime.
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There are "walkabout videos" throughout all the resorts at each island, "internal videos" of the rooms and accommodation you might like to stay at, together with "photo galleries" of the islands and activities you are most likely to want to take part in.
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Alternatively, you might just like to cruise around, relax, chill out but most of all be mesmerised by what you are about to embark on, around the Yasawa's Fiji.
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Click on the photos below to take you directly to the specific area or island of your choice, or read under all about our travelling experiences, tips and advice on these travels.
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With all our destination sections, we endeavour to identify the "7 main areas" of our experiences right from our initial planning and research, timings, the travel methods, budgets, why we chose our routes, to what was taken as luggage, do's and don'ts, places to see and what fellow travellers reasons were for travelling their way.
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1. Areas/countries covered.
Location of travels taken for one specific trip
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There are 9 separate island groups that make up the well known archipelago of Fiji. 332 individual islands in total and the Yasawa Islands all 20 of them, are probably the most unspoiled of them all.
Many people have heard of or been to the Mamanuca Islands, set off the northwest coast of the largest island Viti Levu, home of the capital Suva but venture further afield and you continue on to the real unspoiled Fiji that time has still forgot.
This area of Fiji is often mistaken as too far and too expensive to get to but you might be wrong. We show how easy it is to get about and how to Backpack, Flashpack 5 Star or even (Crashpack), our new term at Getoutgotravel.
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2. Planning and research
The bucket list of destinations, the routes to pick and how to get around.
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We always draw a map (Tip 0330) of the area/countries we intend to travel to, as an initial part of our planning and research. This gives us a greater understanding of the area, size and distance to travel and you can read more about this in our tip.
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For the purpose of this trip we wanted to explore as much of the Yasawa's in Fiji as possible in a relatively short time, being 10 days only.
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We wanted to see if it really is difficult to get to and as expensive as we were lead to believe.
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Looking at our drawing we started to ask ourselves, this is a relativity small archipelago of the main 20 Islands that make up the Yasawa's and not too far from the main island of Viti Levu Fiji. Surely this can't be difficult to get to or navigate around.
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The main airport of Fiji is Nadi. This is on the northwestern side of Viti Levu and quite close to the beginning of the Yasawa's. Yes the Mamanuca Islands are even closer and slightly more to the west but this trip seems very doable and well within our time frame.
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Having been to Fiji before, many travellers we come across, opt for a stay on the main island and are happy to day trip out from their resorts for a taster of Fijian lifestyle but is this all Fiji has to offer?
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We found very quickly that there are many companies offering transfers to and around the islands and we opted to explore the two main but differing carriers, being "Awesome Adventures" and "Turtle Airways."
We chose these two for variety and affordability and talk more about these great transfer companies later on.
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3. Timings
In this we mean amount of time to travel and time of year to travel.
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On the one hand we wanted to cruise around a bit and savour being out in the South Pacific ocean but we also wanted to explore the advantages of views from the air of this amazing archipelago and the fringing reefs around each island together with the speed of travel and getting to your destination in time for cocktails on the beach watching the sun setting over the horizon. What a dilemma I hear you say!
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Obviously this had a lot to do with our timings and as said before we planned to travel around the Yasawa's over a ten day period and combining these two transfer companies, gave us enough flexibility to obtain our goal.
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With regards to the time of year to travel to or visit this area of the world, we had a fair bit to consider.
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Fiji being in the South Pacific and on the same latitude as Townsville to Cairns in Queensland Australia, the temperature is reasonably good all year round and has a similar tourism season. Having said that there is still a low season during their rainy summer between end of January to end of March.
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Living in Queensland we know all about cyclonic weather fronts to our northeast and booking a trip far in advance you really need to study up on how the weather performs generally to avoid disappointment but if you look to book relatively nearer the time of departure you can mostly get a good idea of when and when not to go.
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Generally if you are heading to any archipelago that is not weather protected by a nearing continent, then you really are at the mercy of the gods when booking well in advance.
Which brings us nicely onto budgeting for this trip.
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4. Budget
How much you intend to spend, or would like to spend on your trip.
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As part of this exercise for our travels, we wanted to see if we could do this trip on varying budgets. After much research we could see that there are many ways of travelling to and around the Yasawa's
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Of course if you want to travel 5 star and cost is not important, then this is easy to work out and you might like to just book a luxurious package deal and be done with it. There is a down side to this and you probably will only see a small part of the real Fiji.
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Wanting to see if the Yasawa's is accessible to the traveller of more meager budgets we research further and found that you can actually go to the opposite extreme and backpack or even "Crashpack" your way in the Yasawa's.
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Yes there is something for all budgets, many resorts have dormitories that are more than affordable and they are nothing like some of the Dorms we have seen around the world. Some have air conditioning, their own ensuites and even better views than the more lavish accommodation.
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However we do of course have to mention in this budgeting section, the issues of possible stop overs on the main island of Viti Levu and this is where as we always say, "Planning and Research" is your best friend when it comes to budgeting your travels.
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Of course if you pick a more affordable flight in, you will invariably end up getting in late and missing daytime transfers and the same goes for flights out as well but if you factor this in to your planning this can be part of your holiday and work out a very cost effective way of travelling around.
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We review two of the many different types of accommodation on the main island of Viti Lavu being "Nadi Bay Resort" and the "Tanoa International Hotel" later on but this is a great option to have for a more stress free and relaxing time when travelling the Yasawa's.
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Getting about and around or even island hopping can also be a good chunk of your budget but there are pros and cons for each way of getting about and we discuss this in more detail later in this section.
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All in all with regards to your budget, basically you can do the Yasawa's many different ways and on many different budgets.
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5. Luggage
What, why and how much to take.
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How long is a piece of string. It does depend on the type of travelling you intend doing and of course how long your are planning to be in the Yasawa's, or indeed if this is part of a continuation of your travels.
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One thing you will have to consider is and we mention this all the time. CHECK with your transfer provider how much weight you can take!
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6. The Journey
The actual trip and where we went
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We will take you in an order that we feel is most comfortable and doable than we actually went, as we had several staggered meetings to attend whilst travelling.
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Look out for our trademark "WALKABOUT VIDEOS" of all the resorts and internal accommodation.
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There are many ways to do the Yasawa's and we share just three ideas.
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1, Base yourself at one resort and travel around from there, ideally in the middle of the Yasawa's
2. Island hop and work your way around, we advise in a clockwise direction.
3. Or fly as far north to Yasawa-i-Rara and work your way back to Viti Levu
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We will show you main island VIti Levu stop overs, transfer companies and of course the delightful resorts and islands of
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The Yasawa's Fiji !!!!
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For those of you that get in early enough to Nadi Airport to take a transfer out to the Yasawa's we take you first to Naqalia Lodge.
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Naqalia Lodge
Naqalia Lodge on Wayasewa Island
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Your unique slice of paradise.
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As you head off toward the Yasawa's, Wayasewa Island is the first island you see slightly to the right of Kuata Island and as with all islands in Fiji, you will be welcomed by the family on the beach with song and a big BULA!
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There is much to tell and we do not want to spoil the experience for you, so we will just give you a little of our experience of staying with the family at Naqalia Lodge.
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We really must say that this was a massive buzz for us and a real sense of Fijian life and hospitality. Run purely by local Fijians we instantly felt that we were living the Fijian dream lifestyle.
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As with all these islands, there is as much or as little as you want to do and at Naqalia Lodge this is no exception.
You can laze away the day on the calming beach, stroll around the manicured gardens or sip a glass of vino as you watch the stars appear one by one after the sun sets.
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Alternatively you can hike the island, play volleyball with the family, go for a snorkel in the crystal clear waters, watch some spearfishing for your supper or go on a shark snorkeling activity that will be the thrill of a lifetime and will leave lasting memories.
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We guarantee you will not leave Naqalia Lodge without happy memories.
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Getoutgotravel top tip! Do the "Shark Snorkeling" activity.
"WALKABOUT VIDEOS"
Let us take you on a walkabout tour through the entire resort and the accommodation
WALKABOUT VIDEO
of the resort
WALKABOUT VIDEO
of the accommodation
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