Tahiti

Scale 1:100,000 and 1:10,000,000. Size 27"x39". International Travel Maps edition.

Anyone who has visited Tahiti retains fond memories of a wonderful Polynesian paradise. This map shows the major islands of French Polynesia as a series of large insets on Side 1. An overall inset map showing the many islands is also shown, but for showing detail, one must expand the individual islands. The largest one is the volcanic Tahiti Nui, with the capital city of Pape’ete (or Papeete in English), for which a detailed inset map is included.

Most visitors stay in the vicinity of Papeete, along the coast. We show several popular resorts. There is a good circular road around the island’s shoreline, but no roads in the interior. The island is joined to another, called Tahiti Iti, or Little Tahiti, and roads extend partway around this less-developed part of the combined island.

Most of the other islands are rarely visited, although they have resorts, beaches, and a lifestyle of their own. Names like Huahine, Riatea, Tahaa, and Maiao may not be as familiar as they should be, but all can be reached by inter-island transportation. Moorea and Bora Bora are much better known, with numerous resorts along the coastline. Being a French Overseas Possession, Tahiti uses the Euro as a currency, so expect European prices!

Tahiti is also a popular destination stop for cruise ships. The second side of the map covers a part of the world impossible to map well. The region known alternatively as Polynesia and as the South Pacific consists of a vast amount of water, dotted with small islands that are little more than the tips of mountains resting far below the surface.

This map shows Hawaii at the upper edge and the northern tip of New Zealand at the bottom. The Queensland coast of Australia is at the far left, and the very isolated Pitcairn Islands at the eastern edge. In between are Cook Islands, Tahiti, Samoa, Fiji, the Solomons, Nauru, Kiribati, Micronesia, and the Marshall Islands.

This vast expanse of ocean is becoming increasingly attractive as a cruise ship area, simply because it is the only way most of us could ever visit this region affordably. This map is especially interesting, because it shows undersea mountain chains and names dozens of islands we’ve probably heard of and dreamed of visiting. Where exactly is Niue, for instance, or Fanning Island?

Did you know that the USA has island colonial possessions all over the Pacific? Samoa is well known, but how about Palmyra Atoll, Howland Island, the Bakers, or Swains Atoll? This is really an enticing and interesting map; the more one looks at it in detail, the more one starts making travel plans in one’s head!