48 Hours on the Island of Tahiti

Australia & Oceania, Beaches, French Polynesia, Road Trip, Travel

I spent two days in Tahiti with my HUSBAND on our honeymoon in May! This was the beginning of our 17-day trip in French Polynesia, where we got to explore four different islands. Tahiti was the perfect island to start our trip and beat the jet lag.

Day One

We landed in the Faa’a Airport, just outside of the main city of Papeete, around 5:30 that morning. It had been a long day of travel coming from Atlanta. We started with a five-hour flight to Los Angeles, followed by an eight-hour flight to Papeete. I had read that customs can take a long time, so we rushed to make sure we weren’t at the back of the line. The customs line for Europeans moved fairly quickly, with three open booths, but everyone else was stuck with only two customs officers stamping passports. Fortunately, we had locals singing and playing ukuleles while we waited! It took us about 30 minutes to get through the line, and there were lots of people behind us that probably waited for up to an hour.

We picked up our rental car from Hertz, loaded up our car, and drove straight to breakfast at Urban Cafe. I had made a reservation, having read that it can get very busy, but there was no wait when we arrived at 7:30am. We had the best fresh-squeezed OJ of our trip here. I had the English muffin sandwich and Mike had an omelet. Both were delicious!!

After breakfast, we drove to our hotel, the Ninamu Pearl Guest House. When we arrived, the reception office wasn’t yet open for the day, but one of the maids let us into their “transit room”, which had a shower and place to store our luggage until our room was ready later. The hotel has a nice pool with chairs overlooking the ocean and the next island over, Moorea. We sat there and enjoyed the gorgeous weather for a couple hours to rest.

Exploring Papeete

We started getting hungry around lunch time, and the chef at the hotel offered to make us lunch. However, we wanted to visit downtown Papeete and try a restaurant there. We parked at the Aorai parking deck, which was very affordable (about $2/hour) and centrally located. We’d parked there for breakfast (and Urban Cafe validated our parking). We walked to the Marche de Papeete, a large market that has anything from fresh fruit and meats to souvenirs. A very popular restaurant called Cafe Maeva was located inside on the top floor. We went straight to the restaurant for lunch. I tried the poisson cru, which is a popular local dish similar to ceviche. We both enjoyed our meal.

After lunch, we walked around and explored the souvenir shops and then went down the street to Iorana Gelato. We were starting to drag and felt like we had seen enough of the town, so we made the drive back to our hotel, stopping at a grocery store along the way to grab some food for breakfast the next two mornings.

When we returned to our hotel around 2pm, they let us check into our room. We had a gorgeous suite that overlooked the ocean. We also had a private pool on our balcony that we could walk out into through the bathroom. The room definitely had Santorini vibes. I would recommend staying here! After unpacking our things, we swam in the pool and watched the sunset from our balcony. We had dinner at the hotel restaurant, which was so good but a little pricey. We called it an early night to try and catch up on sleep from the previous night. It was a great first day of the trip!

Day Two

We woke up at sunrise and had breakfast on our balcony. The hotel room was equipped with a full kitchen, and it was so nice to not have to leave the room to get breakfast. Our second day on Tahiti would be spent exploring the island. There is one main road that goes around the perimeter of the island. We drove clockwise around the whole island, making stops along the way.

The hotel we were staying at is located south of the airport, so we drove north and through the city of Papeete first. After we were outside of Papeete, our first stop was only another 15 minutes east.

Pointe Venus

We stopped at Pointe Venus, the northernmost point of Tahiti. There is a beautiful black sand beach here, along with a lighthouse and park. We were there in the morning, and it was so peaceful and relaxing. There were guys playing their ukuleles and a team practicing rowing on their outrigger. It really felt like we were in French Polynesia! We walked along the beach a bit before heading to our next stop.

Drive time to next stop: 20 minutes

Arahoho Blowhole

The Arahoho Blowhole is an interesting natural phenomenon that blows water when the ocean swells are large enough. There is an underwater cave that creates noise and air pressure when the ocean enters into it, spitting the water back out violently. As we approached the blowhole, we were greeted by a loud burst of air leaving the cave in an opening in the rock along the pathway. It startled us a bit but was interesting! We then saw the blowhole in action a few times on the edge of the water. This was a nice quick stop on the drive around the island.

Drive time to next stop: 5 minutes

Faarumai Valley

An epic waterfall should be on your bucket list when visiting the island of Tahiti. The main waterfall in Faarumai Valley is very easy to get to and it is quite impressive. The road that leads from the main road to the valley dead ends in a small parking lot. We’d had sunny skies since we arrived the previous day, but as we got out of our car, it started lightly raining. That really added to the feeling like we were walking into a rainforest. From the parking lot, we crossed a bridge over the river leading into the lush jungle. It’s only about a five-minute walk to the base of the waterfall. We loved walking around the pool at the bottom of the falls and feeling the mist on our faces. It was quite magical!

Drive time to next stop: 50 minutes

La Plage de Maui

From the waterfall, we ventured over to Tahiti-Iti, the peninsula off the southeastern side of the main island. Tahiti-Iti is known for its excellent surfing and beaches. We had lunch at La Plage de Maui, a restaurant that overlooks the lagoon. We enjoyed our seafood while watching the fish swimming below us. This is one of the only white sand beaches on the island of Tahiti, and I thought it was fun that the tables were right in the sand. I thought this was worth the extra drive from the main island.

Drive time to next stop: 10 minutes

Teahupo’o

If you want to check out a famous surfing spot, head another 10 minutes south to Teahupo’o, the surfing location of the 2024 Olympics. There was a competition that day, so we thought we’d try to check it out. However, as we were driving, we noticed that the surf breaks really far from the shore, so it would be almost impossible to watch the surfers from the beach (without binoculars). Taking a boat out to watch the surfers from the water seems to be a popular activity there. Since there was a competition that day, there was only paid parking, so we ended up turning around and continuing our drive around the island. If we’d had more time, I would’ve loved to take a boat out to see the surfers on the giant waves!

Drive time to next stop: 45 minutes

Taharuu Beach

Our last stop of the road trip was to a beautiful black sand beach on the southern side of the island. Taharuu seemed to be a popular beach with the locals. There were plenty of people there chilling in the shade and lots of kids surfing out on the smaller waves. We walked around and then headed back to our hotel. On our way back, we picked up an easy meal to cook in our hotel room to have a night in.

Afternoon at the hotel

We spent the rest of our daylight hours having drinks at our private balcony pool and then watching the epic sunset. It was a fantastic day. The next day we would be flying to the island of Moorea!