Fiji rules supreme in the South Pacific. It has the most people (approaching one million), the largest land mass, and the most modern infrastructure.

Fiji Airlines has cleverly cornered the market as the hub for the western South Pacific region. So my July island hopping will all be via layovers in Fiji. And Fiji Airlines looks like a surprisingly modern operation with some fine new planes, and it turned out to be fairly although not entirely reliable.


Using the Fiji hub, I'll be exploring three island countries near the equator. Standby for posts from

‣ Tuvalu
‣ Nauru
‣ Kiribati and
‣ Papua New Guinea (PNG).

PNG is solidly in Melanesia. But the other new countries I'm visiting happen to be in border areas where anthropologists debate sorting Pacific islands into Polynesia, Micronesia, and Melanesia based on ethnic and cultural criteria. (See my 2014 post on travels in Micronesia.)

While I'm spending four layover nights and two afternoons in Fiji, I'm not going beyond beyond the airport vicinity. I hope to return next summer and see it more of Fiji.

More exciting journeys with cool, intrepid adventurers; another passenger in Fiji awaiting the flight to Tuvalu.