French Polynesia

Covid is over…….so everyone says.

We had been hunkered down on Maui for approximately 2.5 years during one of the strangest times of my life. I have seen my share of strange shit during my 58 years on this planet, but never could I have imagined essentially the closure of the entire world from travel and the sudden halt to our RTW journey.

Barbie and I felt fortunate to experience Maui during the Covid pandemic with basically zero tourists on the island. The beaches were completely empty. I remember turning to Barbie, when we were the only two people sitting on Kaanapali Beach, Maui’s most renowned and tourist visited beach.
I said, “we must really take this in and appreciate this….cause we will never, ever experience this sight again in our lifetimes.” (being the only two humans on this beautiful beach)

As the vaccines slowly rolled out and the life threatening dangers of Covid began to mitigate, it was time to say our goodbye to Maui and hit the road again on our RTW travels. Everybody said Covid was over but we were still a bit cautious about everybody’s optimism. Consequently, for our first step out of isolation, we chose to re-enter society and normal life in a place with beautiful open spaces. We elected to resume our worldwide travels in a country with a similar tropical island lifestyle that we have grown to really appreciate.

French Polynesia, in the middle of the South Pacific fit the bill perfectly. We had two full months available before we needed to head to Florida for my nephew’s wedding. Our two months in French Polynesia was spent in several beautiful Airbnb’s on the islands of Tahiti, Moorea and Bora Bora. We lived in two (2) Airbnb’s in Tahiti, three (3) in Mo’orea and two (2) in Bora Bora. By moving around to different Airbnb’s, it enabled us to experience local life in different parts of each island, each having a slightly different feel to them.

Upon arrival in Tahiti, it was a huge sense of relief not seeing a single local wearing a mask. That was our sign it was time to get busy living, put the over protective covid way of life to bed and resume our world journey.

This was our third extended visit to the islands of French Polynesia. In the past, whenever Barbie and I felt a sign of burnout from our RTW journey, we used the island of Maui as a home base to hunker down and re-energize before resuming our travels. I think going forward, we may transition to a new home base in Mo’orea, French Polynesia. We find that Mo’orea is much less developed than Maui and has retained the true Polynesian culture that Maui has slowly lost due to the influx of the US mainlanders over the years. The only issue we would need to overcome is the maximum three month visa stay that is imposed on American citizens. There is always a workaround these issues by doing a visa run after 90 days. We can always fly to the nearby Cook Islands, Fiji or even New Zealand for a brief stay and fly right back to French Polynesia and get another 90 days. Not the most convenient but not a bad solution.

Our 2 months living on the tropical islands of Tahiti, Moorea & Bora Bora in French Polynesia has sadly come to an end….way too quickly. However, we are excited to attend some family related events and will be spending two weeks in Boca Raton, West Palm Beach and Ft. Lauderdale. We are embarking on a marathon journey from Tahiti to Florida (via Los Angeles) to attend the wedding of my nephew, Cory & Alex Oringer at the Breakers Hotel in West Palm Beach, Florida.