{"id":207072,"date":"2025-12-29T18:20:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-29T18:20:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/207072\/"},"modified":"2025-12-29T18:20:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-29T18:20:10","slug":"tips-tricks-and-mistakes-to-avoid-when-booking-a-south-pacific-holiday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/207072\/","title":{"rendered":"Tips, tricks and mistakes to avoid when booking a South Pacific holiday"},"content":{"rendered":"

On this episode of Trip Notes<\/a>, the NZ Herald\u2019s travel podcast, host Lorna Riley is talking what you need to know about the Pacific Islands with Jo Coolen, the owner-operator of House of Travel K\u0101piti Coast.<\/p>\n

She recommends that people look at seven to 10 days for their holiday, particularly if you want to explore more than one island.<\/p>\n

And there are some specific times to look at if you want to save money.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor Kiwis, we like to escape our winter. If you go in our summer, it\u2019s the rainy season, which a lot of people thinks \u2018meh\u2019, but there\u2019s less people. It might have a big shower and then warm up again straight away, so not too bad at all. Your prices might be a little bit better too.<\/p>\n

And the busiest season?<\/p>\n

\u201cDefinitely school holidays. School holidays are tricky.\u201d<\/p>\n

With so many islands on our doorstep to choose from, you might think you can do it without seeing your travel agent, but Coolen said that people can sometimes make mistakes when booking.<\/p>\n

\u201cProbably one of the biggest mistakes we see people make with the time zone for the Cook Islands, so people have got their flight arriving and they haven\u2019t gotten anywhere to sleep. Or you might book an extra night at the other end not realising, so it is tricky.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know our places inside out and I think it\u2019s about matching the right island to the right customer. We\u2019re not gonna send somebody that\u2019s looking for Gucci shopping for example to Samoa.<\/p>\n

\"PhotoPhoto \/ Samoa Tourism Authority<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve just got to qualify your customers and understand what it is they\u2019re really after. And sometimes they don\u2019t know themselves because they don\u2019t know the options. They keep going back to the same place, because that\u2019s what they know.\u201d<\/p>\n

Throughout the podcast, Coolen shared her tips for visiting some of the islands in the South Pacific:<\/p>\n

Niue: \u201c\u200aIf you are wanting a nice golden sandy beach holiday, it\u2019s not the place to go. But if you\u2019re wanting beautiful caves, gin, clear water. You know, lots of seafood, lots of fishing, swimming with whales, swimming with dolphins, all that sort of stuff, it\u2019s your place. Very laid back mindset.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"SwimSwim in crystal-clear waters, snorkel with dolphins, and try fresh island cuisine. Photo \/ Niue Tourism<\/p>\n

Samoa: \u201c\u200aI would say it\u2019s probably like the Cook Islands was 20, 50 years ago. The infrastructure\u2019s not quite as good or as busy as perhaps the Cook Islands.<\/p>\n

\u201c[We\u2019re] sending people out to Savai\u2019i, which is the outer island, which is quite popular and it\u2019s just a step back again in busyness. so you can go and flop and drop.<\/p>\n

Vanuatu: \u201cThey had the big earthquake in December and they\u2019re just sort of rebuilding, but they are welcoming visitors with open arms, so we are really excited to see that back.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u200aI think like anywhere, just go with the flow, get friendly with the locals. One thing I always say to people, try and learn a little bit of a local saying \u2013 try and learn something that\u2019s a little bit more local and you win friends.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"VanuatuVanuatu is a great spot for Kiwi travellers. Photo \/ 123rf<\/p>\n

Fiji: \u201cThere\u2019s heaps of adventure stuff starting in Fiji now. Towards the Coral Coast, you\u2019ve got some zip lining, you\u2019ve got jet boating on the Sigatoka River.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think one of a really lovely thing to do is either a Blue Lagoon cruise. or island hopping around the Yasawas. So they\u2019re about a four-hour ferry ride from the mainland.\u201d<\/p>\n

Listen to the full Trip Notes episode<\/a> for more advice and tips for travel in the South Pacific.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On this episode of Trip Notes, the NZ Herald\u2019s travel podcast, host Lorna Riley is talking what you…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":207073,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[9331,836,95,17094,1863,31650,1068,22397,13800,16773,305,42,189,263,13457,5978,14771,48016,3025,43,13572,10903,1111,544,1240,6182,4758,3765,61,40,38,41,39,28377,3608,1316],"class_list":["post-207072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-chance","tag-836","tag-and","tag-avoid","tag-back","tag-booking","tag-catch","tag-favourite","tag-giving","tag-great","tag-have","tag-headlines","tag-holiday","tag-lifestyle","tag-look","tag-might","tag-missed","tag-mistakes","tag-most","tag-news","tag-pacific","tag-popular","tag-reading","tag-some","tag-south","tag-stories","tag-taking","tag-tips","tag-to","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-tricks","tag-were","tag-when"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207072"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207072\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/207073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}