Vanuatu: A BUCKET LIST FAIL.

I booked flights to Vanuatu to accomplish one bucket list item: Stay in an overwater villa. I failed in achieving this but in the best way.

I knew nothing about Vanuatu except they hosted an early season of Survivor. I had impulse booked a very cheap trip to Fiji and somehow that evolved into Vanuatu as well, and retrospectively it's one of the best impulse decisions I've made! I thrive on affordable travel, so what did it all cost me? Price info at the end!

I wasn't even planning on going to Vanuatu, but once I had booked flights to Fiji, I figured this was my opportunity to stay in an overwater villa. I wanted to have my Trisha Paytas on vacation moment. My Instagram moment. My secretly rich flashy cash moment. My #aristohobo moment (Aristocrat taste, hobo budget). The chances of me actually RELAXING in one of these villas like there was no care in the world like the marketing makes you believe, would be zero. However, I would enjoy it in my own 'I feel guilty that people wait on me' way. The problem came in when I couldn't find a Fiji overwater bungalow that wouldn't be more than $1,000 CAD a night. Even in my bougie dream life bliss, 3-4 nights at this price really was more than I could justify, no matter how good the high contrast over saturated aquamarine Instagram picture would be! Vanuatu Enters the Chat Thankfully I was not travelling solo and on this trip, my travel buddy did some googling and found there was a HOLIDAY INN with overwater villas a short 2.5-hour flight from Vanuatu. A HOLIDAY INN. The one Howard Earl Bailey Jr. spoke about.

Crunching the numbers 3 nights at these overwater Villa / bungalows (under $400 CAD a night) and two flights (~$400 CAD even full price) meant that we could be spending less and be getting the opportunity to see a whole other country since we were already in the south pacific. BOOKED.

About 6 days before we were going to leave Canada I got an email that informed me that due to 2 back to back-to-back hurricanes ravaging the area, the underwater villas were damaged and they could not honour our booking.

So what now? We had flights to Vanuatu already booked, and no place to stay. With Booking.com and Expedia as my friendly guides, I found a very much NOT overwater, but still cute villa we could stay in that was $58 CAD a night. The reviews were good. The pictures were good. Prices were suspiciously low. I was in a gambling mood and booked it - Vila Chaumières. I'm from Canada. Everything sounds fancier when it's in French.

How I Got Around

Once we landed in Port Villa, we exchanged our money at the airport from Fijian dollars to Vatu. The conversion was easy to compare prices to home - one Vatu is worth around 1 cent. 100 Vatu ~$1 Canadian Dollar. We took a cab to Vila Chaumières as we had essentially been travelling nonstop for about 50 hours and were ready to crash. A cab for a 15-minute drive was over $30 CAD so we noted that so we could find alternatives for the rest of the trip. After chatting with a fellow guest at our accommodations, we were able to figure out the local private-public transportation system to get around Port Villa. There was not a bus system but there were a series of private minivan owners that would travel established routes. You could flag down these drivers, let them know where you were headed, and if it aligned with their route, you would catch a ride. If their route doesn't match your destination, you say thanks and wait for the next one to pass by. Using these cost 150 Vatu and it was considerate to have exact change, but I did see them make change for some as required. I believe children were less (100 Vatu?). Depending on your destination you may need to take two rides, but many routes intersected. For example, we had to take 2 rides to get from Villa Chaumieres to the airport, and we were required to pay each driver as they were not actually associated with each other. It was still a steal at ~$3 per person instead of $30 for a cab. To get further out from the city you could rent a car to see the sights, but we chose to simply catch a tour as it was only 1 day of our trip and welcomed the opportunity to not drive or navigate travelling. Where I Slept We were happy to get to the resort (hotel? motel? [not] holiday innnnn....?🎵 ) and see the employees and owner were super welcome and friendly. It was 6-8 bungalows/villas and rooms total with the staff or owner living on site and was clean and comfortable. We happily crashed into our $58 villa.

When we woke, we headed out to the overwater porch for breakfast after checking out our spot. Each bungalow had a mini fridge, a microwave and a kettle along with a kitchen sink unit and a few dishes. The space was open concept except for the bathroom and had its own heat pump/AC unit, a king bed with a mosquito net (which we never needed), and a pullout couch so you could sleep 4 if you wanted to. In our case, we used the pullout as we slept 1 per bed. The pullout mattress was not very comfortable but the staff gave me an extra mattress to stack on top of it once they knew we were using it. If you were staying more than a few days, you could make this place very comfortable and not have to eat out.

One difference between the website and reviews to what was reality was that they no longer offered an onsite restaurant. We were given a basic breakfast in the morning on the porch as promised, but there was no option to have food at lunch or supper. Breakfast consisted of instant coffee or tea, freshly made pancakes and toast and sometimes an egg. What to See I was very content to spend most of the time wandering around the city of Port Villa and just doing the normal stuff people do - we checked out the product market, saw what a grocery store is like (my FAVORITE travel activity), had a nice lunch and walk the downtown core. We also visited the National Museum of Vanuatu on the second day. Vanuatu is under 320,000 people and Port Vila is only 50,000 people therefore the museum isn't as large as other countries may have for a national museum, but it was well worth the small entrance fee and gave me the most education about Vanuatu, it's culture, and it's people compared to what I had read before my visit and what I was exposed to on the trip.

One thing I did want to see on the usual tourist top 5 was the Blue Lagoon. Look, these pictures are not a great representation of how vibrant and cool this place is, but it was so wonderful, I tried to be present and all influencer-y, focusing on enjoying the experience.

The easiest way to get there was to take a day tour that included Blue Lagoon, a sea turtle sanctuary, and Eden on the River (a private spot with a series of cascades/waterfalls) through Yumi Tours- one of the bigger tour providers in the area. I'm not a fan of visiting zoos, aquariums, or sanctuaries but I played along to see the turtle sanctuary on this tour, Eden on the River was nice, but not something I would personally go out of my way to visit unless I could spend longer there and hike, which wasn't an opportunity on this tour. The staff were friendly and chatty, happy to answer all my weird 'what is normal life like' questions.

Communication Most people we encountered in Port Villa spoke some level of English. Some others spoke French and Bislama (English-based Creole language) and/or an indigenous language. Communicating with people did not ever become a problem for me as I speak both English and French, and such accommodating locals were able to switch as needed. I had one delighted tour guide on our day tour who was happy to chat with me in French to escape the ear of the rather..... boundary-less Australian family on the tour with us.

What we ate Food was hit or miss on our trip. I think most of this was because we were travelling in a lower tourist season and there weren't as many options available. However, we found really good Thai food in Port Villa, completely acceptable and familiar food at an Italian restaurant, and some.... errr, interesting option at one of the resorts nearby.

Overall

There was no over-water villa, the only reason we even planned this journey, but it was still a great visit.

I kept saying 'Where are all the people?!?'. Port Villa gets a lot of cruise ships, but we lucked out and were visiting during days when there were no ships in. Everywhere was easy to navigate and people were very friendly.

While we only got a sample of Vanuatu, I found I never really had to be hyper-cautious or experience the feeling like anyone was hustling me. This may be a weird perspective, but as a solo lady traveller, I find in many tourist-heavy places, this has to be my default state. Employees at all the stores and restaurants we entered were patient and friendly and any conversations someone started with us on the streets would end with me feeling guilty that it was actually one started out of sincerity to chat, not to try to sell us something. Even the van/bus transportation system drivers, who in many countries often have quite a brusque demeanour, were always friendly. I was regretful we didn't have time to explore more of Vanuatu given the time and budget we had but I was extremely glad we stumbled upon visiting Vanuatu, and highly recommend you visit if you are given the opportunity!

What Did It Cost? $ 773.36 CAD Per person when sharing accommodation for 4 days and 3 nights in Port Villa, Vanuatu. Yes, I know you can't get to Vanuatu from Canada for $400 but we already were booked to travel to Fiji, which we got on a super good sale for $800. Lodging - $ 103 Villa Chaumieres was a great price even for the local market. It wasn't a 5 start resort but was clean and welcoming and a great price ($206 total, split by 2). Transport - $ 35 One $35 cab(split by 2)and the rest was cheap bus rides making transport super affordable. Entertainment - $ 140 The National Museum was $5 (? I think) and our Yumi tour was $130. Normally I shy away from tours that cost so much when the DIY option would be at minimum half as much but in this case, I wanted something easy to do and didn't require a lot of work on my part (go to get a rental car, figure out maps, pay entrance fees, find lunch, etc). Food and Water $ 90

Bottled water, although probably not as necessary as in some other countries, was a choice I personally made and was roughly $1 per 1L bottle, which was the largest size I saw in most stores. Food prices were similar to Canada, but small snacks were much cheaper. Quick service food like our Thai meal was ~$8 per person and our sit-down meals in restaurants were $15-20. THANKS FOR READING! Stay tuned for Fiji blogs and let me know what you'd like to know! If you want to support my travels and info, feel free to buy me a coffee here. Check out my latest deals here.

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