Hotels in Samoa

Samoa is two main volcanic islands in the central South Pacific, Upolu and the larger, wilder Savai'i, where the road runs past villages of open-sided fale houses and the interior rises into rainforest and lava fields. This is the heart of Polynesia, and fa'a Samoa, the Samoan way, still governs daily life through village councils, Sunday church and extended family.

The set pieces are genuinely spectacular: the To Sua Ocean Trench, a swimming hole in a collapsed lava tube reached by a near-vertical ladder; Lalomanu and Return to Paradise beaches on Upolu's south coast; the Alofaaga blowholes on Savai'i, where waves fire spray thirty metres into the air. Accommodation ranges from open beach fales on the sand for a few tala a night to a handful of proper resorts near Apia.

Samoa sits just west of the International Date Line, having jumped forward a day in 2011 to align with Australia and New Zealand, its main trading partners and the source of most visitors. It is markedly cheaper than Fiji or French Polynesia and much less developed for tourism, which is precisely the appeal.