My husband and I spent two wonderful weeks in the gorgeous islands of French Polynesia for our honeymoon in May and June 2024. I’ve included our full itinerary and logistics in case you are planning a similar trip! Be sure to check out my blog posts on each island for more details on our stay.

Itinerary

Day 0

We flew from Atlanta to Los Angeles to Tahiti on our first day. Our second flight was an overnight flight, so we woke up in Tahiti the next morning.

Day 1

We landed in Tahiti around 5:30 this morning. We picked up our rental car, grabbed breakfast at Urban Cafe in town, and then headed to our hotel (Ninamu Pearl Guest House). It was still too early to check in, but they were nice enough to let us relax by their pool until check in time later that afternoon. Mike didn’t sleep on the flight, so he napped for a couple hours on a pool chair.

After we were a little more rested, we headed back into town to do a little exploring. We walked around and shopped at the Marche de Papeete. Cafe Maeva, a popular restaurant, is located inside the market. We got lunch there and then spent the rest of the day lounging around our hotel since we were so tired. There was a small restaurant at our hotel, so we ate there for dinner. 

Day 2

Our second day on Tahiti was spent exploring the island. We had breakfast on our balcony while watching the sunrise before heading out. 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.

Highlights from the day included a beautiful black sand beach at Pointe Venus, an epic waterfall in Faarumai Valley, lunch with our toes in the sand at La Plage de Maui, seeing a famous surfing spot called Teahupo’o, and Taharuu, another black sand beach. After we completed our road trip, we spent the afternoon in our private pool at our hotel. 

Read about our two days in Tahiti here.

Day 3

Mike and I headed to the airport for our 10:30am flight to Moorea, the next island over. The flight is a super-quick, 15-minute ride. We picked up our rental car at Avis and then grabbed a few groceries at the Champion nearby. Then, we headed to Allo Pizza for lunch.

At this point, we were able to check into our Airbnb, where we would be for the next four nights. We unpacked our bags and got changed for our fun evening ahead. One of our favorite experiences of the trip came next: a private sunset sail with Voila Moorea! The sail was about 2.5 hours long and took us to some beautiful spots in northern Moorea. 

After the sunset, we ate dinner at Rudy’s, a popular restaurant among tourists and locals. Dinner was excellent!

Day 4

I was excited to get a hike in since this island is so mountainous and rugged. We hiked Three Pines Pass, which leads you to a big swing at the top overlooking the bays. It was fun to swing on! To reward ourselves (and cool off), we stopped at Iaoranasmoothie, a little smoothie/acai shop on the side of the road. Yum!

From the smoothie shop, we visited Les Tipaniers Beach for lunch and rented a boat to go out to a popular snorkeling spot. The lunch at the hotel restaurant was fantastic and snorkeling with the stingrays and sharks was so much fun! We spent the rest of the day at our Airbnb, which was located right on the beach.

Read about our time in Moorea here.

Day 5

Mike and I have been loving taking ATV tours on our last few trips together, and Moorea was the perfect place to do this. We took a tour with Moorea Activities Center starting that morning. It was a small group of six of us. They took us to several spots around the island we wouldn’t have been able to get to with a car. 

After the tour, we stopped at the Rotui Juice Factory, which makes a lot of the juice in French Polynesia. I did a free juice tasting here. We picked up lunch from the Kasdal Food Truck on our way back to our Airbnb. We spent the afternoon snorkeling in the lagoon here.

Day 6

The water was so peaceful on our morning kayak from our Airbnb. Our plan for the day was to take a boat to Cocobeach, a private island off the northwest coast of the main island. They offer a shuttle boat that leaves every 30 minutes. The island has a nice restaurant, and the snorkeling is supposed to be amazing. The boat ride was very nice, and the food and drinks were great! After lunch, we attempted snorkeling, but the current was so strong that we reached the end of the beach about five minutes after getting in the water. We didn’t last long in the water.

On our way back to our Airbnb, we stopped at Opunohu Beach to lay out for a while. It was a nice spot! The rest of the evening was spent at our Airbnb. We really liked cooking there since it was so dark at night, and we didn’t have to drive anywhere.

Day 7

On our last day in Moorea, we had a leisurely morning at our Airbnb and packed up our stuff. After we checked out, we did some souvenir shopping and then ate lunch at Tama Hau Opunohu’s Bay.

We spent the rest of the day flying to Bora Bora, getting to our Airbnb on the main island near Matira Beach, and then had a fantastic dinner at Lucky House.

Day 8

This day was our favorite day of the trip! We are both animal lovers, so taking a shark and stingray snorkeling tour was extra special to us. We were gone most of the day and the tour made four stops around the island. I highly recommend taking this tour with Lagoon Services! We had dinner near our Airbnb at Bora Bora Beach Club.

Read about our three days on the main island of Bora Bora here.

Day 9

We were planning to take our Airbnb’s bikes around the entire island this day. However, we had some issues with the bikes and that didn’t happen. Instead, we took a taxi into Vaitape, the main town. We had lunch at Aloe Cafe and did some souvenir shopping. These shops were actually really good compared to the shops we had experienced thus far on our trip.

After our time in town, we took advantage of our Airbnb’s location right on Matira Beach. The ocean was perfect for swimming, and we were able to get some sun on the chairs at our house. We ate dinner at our Airbnb this night.

Day 10

We had our taxi driver who brought us to our Airbnb a couple days prior pick us up and drop us at the Le Bora Bora shuttle pickup location. I’d arranged a shuttle boat pickup ahead of time with the resort. We were picked up around 11am and made the short trip to the resort. We weren’t able to check in right away, but we got lunch and lounged by the pool until our overwater bungalow was ready.

The overwater bungalows were awesome! We spent the afternoon lounging on the bungalow’s back deck to get some sun. We had dinner at one of the resort’s restaurants.

Day 11

This full day was spent at the resort. The weather was beautiful in the morning and then we had some rain showers in the afternoon. Fortunately, we had booked a couples’ massage with the spa during the rain!

That night, there was a Polynesian show at the resort’s main restaurant. We enjoyed this experience.

Read about our stay at Le Bora Bora here.

Day 12

This was a long travel day. The resort shuttle took us directly to the airport, and we had two flights to get to Raiatea, with a long layover in between. Once we landed in Raiatea, we took a water taxi to the next island, Taha’a. Our Airbnb host met us at the taxi drop off to take us to our home for two nights. It was dark by the time we got there!

Day 13

We only had one full day to see the main island of Taha’a. We spent the morning kayaking around the Airbnb and then took bikes out to explore the island and get lunch. Our afternoon was spent lounging and getting some sun at the Airbnb. 

Read about our time in Taha’a here.

Day 14

The next morning, our host dropped us at Le Taha’a by Pearl Resorts’ shuttle pickup location. The boat picked us up and took us to the resort. We were able to check into our overwater bungalow when we arrived at 12pm. 

After getting lunch at the resort’s restaurant, we explored the resort and went swimming from our bungalow. We ended the day watching the sunset from a pretty spot on the opposite side of the island.

Day 15

After an amazing and filling breakfast buffet at the resort, we had a lazy day lounging by the pool and swimming in the ocean. At this point in our trip, we were exhausted, and it felt so nice to have no real plans!

Day 16

Our last full day was rainy, so we lounged around our overwater bungalow. Our flight did not take off until around 7:30pm, so we were really lucky that the resort let us stay at our bungalow until 5:30pm. The shuttle took us directly to the airport and we flew back to Tahiti. We found a taxi (they’re all lined up outside the airport) and had them take us to our airport hotel, which was close but not very walkable with luggage. We organized our luggage for our flight the next day and called it an early night.

Day 17 

That morning we had a taxi arranged to pick us up early (the hotel arranged it the prior night). Our flight from French Polynesia to Los Angeles left around 7:30am and then we made it back to Atlanta the next morning after an overnight flight.

Tips & Notes 

-Getting gas at gas stations was very easy. There is an attendant at the pump for you and you can pay with a card at the window. Some do have a minimum of $20 (USD) if paying by card.

-There were dogs and chickens everywhere on Tahiti and Moorea. We didn’t see this as much on other islands. Just something to keep in mind if you are driving.

-All the grocery stores we visited took American cards except for the tiny grocery store in Taha’a. 

-A lot of places took US cash, so once we ran out of our local currency, we just paid with US dollars.

-I did not feel like it was necessary to bring a float for the overwater bungalows. We only used it at our resort in Taha’a.

-I found that joining a French Polynesia Facebook group while planning for this trip was helpful. Lots of people post their tips and suggestions that they learned on their trips.

Renting a Car in French Polynesia

Renting a car in Tahiti and Moorea was very easy. Make sure to note whether the rental includes unlimited mileage. Hertz in Tahiti did not include unlimited mileage. It ended up costing us about $120 USD in mileage in addition to the fee we paid for the rental car. Avis in Moorea did include unlimited mileage, so that wasn’t a concern there. It was easy to navigate around the islands with Google Maps.

Costs (in 2024 USD)

Our costs per person for a 17-day trip to French Polynesia are listed below. I broke out the lodging into two categories: overwater bungalows and everywhere else to show that a trip here doesn’t have to be extremely expensive if you avoid the fancy resorts! We splurged because it was our honeymoon, but if we were to go back, I don’t think we would pay this hefty price to stay at the resorts again.

International flight to Tahiti: $1,110

Inter-island flights: $525

Lodging, overwater bungalows (4 nights): $2,960

Lodging, everywhere else (12 nights): $1,810

Rental cars (including mileage): $305

Gas: $20

Taxis, parking, and other transportation: $255

Activities: $875

Food and drinks: $1,160

Travel insurance: $160

TOTAL: $9,175

Overall, French Polynesia is a magical place. I highly recommend visiting these gorgeous islands, and I hope to be back someday!

You may also be interested in:

48 Hours on the Island of Tahiti
Four-Day Itinerary for Moorea, French Polynesia
How to Spend Three Days on the Main Island of Bora Bora
Staying at Le Bora Bora by Pearl Resorts
Four Days in Taha’a, French Polynesia