Moorea or Bora Bora, and is Moorea right for you?

Here is how we would put it, from a family who lives on Moorea. Go to Bora Bora if the overwater bungalow is the picture in your head and the budget is there for it. That lagoon deserves its reputation. Choose Moorea if you want mountains you can walk into, warm shallow water straight off the sand, a working island rather than a resort enclave, and more days on the ground for the same money.

The short answer, and where Tahiti fits

Most people are really choosing between three islands, not two. Tahiti is the biggest and busiest, with the international airport and the markets. It is worth a day or two, but it is not a beach island. Bora Bora is the luxury one. Moorea sits between them in every sense: about thirty minutes across the water from Tahiti, with the drama of a high volcanic island and prices that let you stay longer.

If you have a week and one island in you, we would say Moorea. If you have ten days or more and the overwater bungalow matters, do both, and put Moorea at the end so the trip finishes slowly.

What Bora Bora genuinely does better

We are not going to pretend otherwise. Bora Bora's lagoon is extraordinary, a wide sheet of pale blue held inside a ring of motu, and no photograph oversells it. The overwater bungalow was more or less invented in this part of the world, and Bora Bora does it at a level Moorea does not try to match. If you are planning a honeymoon built around one perfect room over the water, then Bora Bora is the right answer and you should book it without guilt.

It is also quieter, in the sense that fewer people live there year round. Some travellers find that peaceful. Others find it a little sealed off.

What Moorea does better

Moorea is a mountain that happens to have a lagoon around it. Mount Tohiea rises to 1,207 metres, and the ridges behind our beach turn gold in the late afternoon. There is real walking here, up to passes and viewpoints, and a good deal more of it than Bora Bora has.

The coastal road runs 62 kilometres around the island, and along it are schools, bakeries, churches, fruit stalls and roughly seventeen thousand people going about an ordinary Tuesday. That matters more than it sounds. You are staying somewhere people live.

The swimming is different too. On our stretch of Haapiti the lagoon is calm and shallow, so you walk in off the sand instead of taking a boat to find water worth being in.

Cost, and how you actually get there

Getting to Moorea is the easy part. From Tahiti it is a ferry crossing of about thirty minutes, several times a day, for a modest fare. There is also a flight scheduled at roughly fifteen minutes if you would rather fly. Our arrival guide has the fares, the operators and the one timing trap to avoid.

Bora Bora needs a domestic flight of about fifty minutes from Tahiti, bought per person and paid for in both directions. Then the airport sits on Motu Mute, an islet with no road to the main island, so every arriving passenger transfers by boat. It is a beautiful way to arrive. It is also one more moving part at the end of a day you have already spent flying.

Accommodation follows the same shape. Comparable rooms on Bora Bora typically cost considerably more than they do on Moorea, which is why so many people find the same budget buys a noticeably longer trip here.

Moorea with children

Families are most of what we do, and the things that make it work are unglamorous. Water a five year old can stand up in. A kitchen in every Fare. A grocery across the road, so nobody is making a trip for milk.

Our six units sleep twenty four people in total, and the Main House has four bedrooms and its own pool, so a large family or three generations can be under one roof instead of scattered across a resort. There is a shared jacuzzi on the beach, free kayaks in front of us, air conditioning in every unit, and breakfast every morning. We show everyone how the kayaks work before their first outing, and children go out with a parent.

Grandparents tend to like it here because nothing requires a boat.

When to come, and the whale season

The drier, cooler months run from around May to October. August is usually the driest, the trade winds are steady and the water is clear. This is the busy season and it books well ahead.

November to April is warmer and more humid, with the heaviest rain around January. Rain here usually arrives hard and leaves quickly rather than settling in for a week, and the island is at its greenest. The caveat worth knowing: the South Pacific cyclone season officially runs from 1 November to 30 April. Cyclones are uncommon in these islands, but travel insurance makes sense in those months.

Humpback whales pass Moorea from August to October. They come to give birth and raise their calves in the warm water. Dolphins and turtles are around as well, though we would never promise you either.

Not sure yet? Ask us

Tell us who is coming, roughly when, and what you want out of the trip. We will tell you whether Moorea suits you, even if the answer is somewhere else. Kathy and Franck live on site and read every message, and we usually come back to you within a day. Booking direct with us means you are talking to the people who will meet you at the gate.