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◆ Country guide · Polynesia

Samoa, two islands and a Sunday

Two big islands an hour apart by ferry, a swimming hole reached down a ladder, and beaches you sleep on in an open-sided fale. Samoa is the Polynesia you can drive around, and the culture is not a show put on for you.

206K

People

Main islands

1962

Independent since

Region

Best months

May · Jun · Sep

Ideal length

7–10 days

Budget / day

$70–160

Language

Samoan & English

Getting around

Rental car

When to visit Samoa

Two seasons, and the dry one is the one you want.

Full month guide →

Jan

Feb

Mar

Apr

May

Jun

Jul

Aug

Sep

Oct

Nov

Dec

Best: May, June, September and October, dry and outside the cyclone window Peak: July, August and December, when school holidays and returning families fill the beds Good: April and November, the shoulders either side of the dry season Wettest: January to March, the height of the cyclone season

Quick answer · where to go in Samoa

Land at Faleolo on Upolu, minutes from the Savai'i ferry wharf. Upolu is the base: Apia's market and harbour, Stevenson's house at Vailima, and a ring road you can drive in a day. Go south for To Sua ocean trench, a lava tube you climb into by ladder, and east to Aleipata for the beach fales at Lalomanu. Savai'i is bigger, quieter and volcanic: lava fields, blowholes, falls and a canopy walk. Four nights covers Upolu, a week both. Plan around Sunday, which belongs to church and family.

Jump toMap Fun fact Stereotypes Famous faces Food FAQ

1 Samoa city guide

The country layer comes first here. Island guides follow it.

Apia

Oceania · 10 picks

Fun fact

One number worth knowing

Samoa deleted 30 December 2011. It had sat east of the International Date Line since 1892, almost a day behind Australia and New Zealand and two working days a week out of step. At the end of Thursday 29 December the clocks jumped from UTC-11 to UTC+13, and the country woke on Saturday the 31st.

Stereotypes, sorted out

The clichés you have heard, what is actually true, and how to behave once you land.

"Samoa is a resort holiday with a culture show at dinner."

The realityFa'a Samoa, the Samoan way, is how the country runs. Families hold land under matai title and villages set their own rules, and a visitor lives inside that all week: the custom fee at the waterfall, the pause for dusk prayer, Sunday's shut shops. The fire-knife dancing is the smallest part of it.

"Samoa and American Samoa are much the same place."

The realityThey share a language, an ocean and an origin, and little else that affects a trip. Samoa, independent since 1962, has about 205,000 people, its own currency and left-hand traffic. American Samoa is a US territory of under 50,000 on the dollar, driving right, a day behind across the Date Line.

"You need to island-hop by plane, like the rest of Polynesia."

The realityThis is the Polynesian country you can drive. Upolu and Savai'i hold almost everyone and almost everything a visitor wants, both have a sealed ring road, and a vehicle ferry joins them. The itinerary is a rental car and one wharf, with no chain of airport transfers.

"Beach fales are camping, so they are a compromise."

The realityA fale is an open-sided hut on the sand with a mattress, a mosquito net and roll-down blinds, usually run by the village that owns the beach, meals included. It is what Samoans book themselves, the money stays in the village, and a week costs what a long weekend does elsewhere in Polynesia.

Sunday closures are a formalityA tatau as a holiday souvenirA stopover on the way elsewhereThe umu is a show for guestsFa'afafine as a curiositySamoa only exports rugby players

How to get it right

Land is family land, including beaches, waterfalls and tracks. Ask before you cross and expect a small custom fee at anything that looks like a natural attraction. It is rent paid to the owners.
When the bell rings for sa at dusk, stop. Get out of the car if you are driving through a village, stand in silence, and wait for the second bell. It takes about ten minutes.
Cover up away from the water. Shoulders and knees in a village, a shop or an office, swimwear only at the beach, and something over your legs at church.
Do not stand up inside a fale while others are seated, and do not point your feet at anyone when you sit cross-legged on the mat. Both read as rudeness and neither is obvious to a visitor.
Ask the matai or the family before staying in, photographing or walking through a village, and pay for the bed and the meal you are offered. Introducing yourself first is most of the protocol.
Open with talofa and close with fa'afetai. Both languages are official, so nobody needs you to speak Samoan, which is exactly why the effort registers.

Famous Samoan faces

The names behind Samoan politics, writing, art and sport. Pick a field.

Fiame Naomi Mata'afa

Samoa's first woman Prime Minister, 2021 to 2025, and daughter of the first one.

Malietoa Tanumafili II

Head of State from 1962 until his death in 2007, by then the oldest serving in the world.

Albert Wendt

Novelist and poet whose Sons for the Return Home (1973) was the first Samoan novel.

Sia Figiel

Novelist whose Where We Once Belonged won a 1997 Commonwealth Writers' Prize.

Yuki Kihara

First Pasifika and fa'afafine artist to represent New Zealand at Venice, in 2022.

Aggie Grey

Opened Aggie Grey's in Apia in 1933, the best-known hotel address in the South Pacific.

Lani Wendt Young

Author of the Telesa series, who took Samoan fiction global through digital publishing.

Tuimaleali'ifano Va'aleto'a Sualauvi II

Head of State since 21 July 2017, a lawyer, and a Tama Aiga titleholder since 1977.

Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi

Prime Minister from 1998 to 2021, who moved Samoa across the Date Line and to the left.

Ele Opeloge

Weightlifter, Samoa's first Olympic medallist: a Beijing 2008 silver, awarded in 2016.

Brian Lima

The Chiropractor. Most-capped player, top try scorer, and first to play five World Cups.

Must-try Samoan food

Coconut cream, taro leaves and an earth oven. Pick a category.

Umu

An oven of hot stones under banana leaves. Most village Sunday lunches come out of one.

Palusami

Coconut cream wrapped in taro leaves and baked in the umu. Judge a kitchen on it.

Lu'au

Taro leaves cooked down in coconut cream, often with corned beef. Everyday palusami.

Oka i'a

Raw tuna cured in citrus and folded through coconut cream with onion and cucumber.

Faiai eleni

Mackerel, often tinned, baked in coconut milk with onion and taro leaf.

Grilled reef fish

The morning's reef catch, grilled over coals with lime. The default plate everywhere.

Taro

The root the country runs on, boiled or roasted beside almost everything.

Breadfruit

Roasted whole in the umu until black, then cut open hot. Denser than a potato.

Sua fa'i

Green bananas simmered in coconut cream. The comfort food Samoans abroad miss first.

Fa'ausi

Coconut bread squares drowned in caramelised coconut sauce. The celebration dessert.

Panipopo

Bread rolls baked in sweet coconut milk, sticky underneath. Sold warm across Apia.

Koko Samoa

Roasted, ground cocoa boiled thick and unsweetened. Poured over rice as koko alaisa.

Vailima

The national lager, brewed in Apia and named after Stevenson's estate. On tap everywhere.

Niu

A green drinking coconut, topped with a knife at the roadside. The cheapest thing going.

Know before you go

The essentials for planning a Samoa trip.

Currency

Samoan tala (WST)

The tala (ST$ or WS$) splits into 100 sene. Apia's hotels, tours and larger shops take cards. Markets, buses, village fales and almost all of Savai'i do not, so draw cash in Apia or Salelologa.

Language

Samoan and English

Both are official, so no phrasebook is needed. Samoan rules home, church and market. Learn talofa for hello and fa'afetai for thank you: they change how a conversation starts.

Emergency

911 for police, fire and ambulance

911 since January 2018. The main hospital is Tupua Tamasese Meaole in Motootua, above Apia. On Savai'i, the district hospital is at Tuasivi, north of Salelologa.

Visa

60-day entry permit on arrival

A free visitor permit, normally 60 days, is issued at the border and extended at immigration in Apia. Bring six months on your passport and an onward ticket, which airlines check at the gate.

Getting around

Rental car, the Savai'i ferry and village buses

Drivers need a temporary Samoan licence, arranged via the rental firm. Traffic keeps left. The Mulifanua to Salelologa ferry takes an hour or so, several times a day. Village buses are cheap and loud.

Tipping

Not customary, and not expected

No one works for tips and no bill carries a service line. Something left after a village stay or a guided trip reads as a gift, and leaving nothing is not rude.

Sunday and the evening sa

The two times the country stops

Sunday is church and to'ona'i, the family meal. Shops shut and the ferry cuts back. At dusk villages ring a bell for sa, a short evening prayer. Stop, step out of the car and wait for the second bell.

Customary land

81% of the country, and it cannot be sold

Four fifths of Samoa is customary land held under matai title, and the Constitution bars its sale. Beaches and waterfalls charge a small custom fee, which is rent to the owning village.

Cyclone season

November to April

The wet and cyclone seasons coincide, with the risk peaking January to March. Rain mostly comes as afternoon downpours. Take insurance seriously and keep a spare day around ferries.

Samoa travel FAQ

Do you need a visa for Samoa?+

Most visitors do not. Samoa issues a free visitor permit on arrival, normally valid for 60 days, and extensions are applied for at the immigration office in Apia. You need a passport with at least six months of validity and a confirmed return or onward ticket, which the airline will check before it lets you board. Check your own nationality against the immigration department's current list before booking anything unusual.

When is the best time to visit Samoa?+

May, June, September and October. The dry season runs from May to October, and those four months sit outside both the cyclone window and the July and August school holidays that fill the resorts. November to April is hot, wet and the cyclone season, with the risk concentrated between January and March. Two dates are worth planning around either way: Independence celebrations in Apia at the start of June, and the Teuila Festival, the country's biggest cultural week, in early September.

How do you get between Upolu and Savai'i?+

By vehicle ferry across the Apolima Strait, from Mulifanua on Upolu's western tip to Salelologa on Savai'i. The crossing takes roughly an hour to an hour and a half and runs several times a day, with a reduced Sunday service. Mulifanua wharf is minutes from Faleolo International Airport and about an hour from Apia, so it is entirely possible to land and be on Savai'i the same day. Take a car across if you want the ring road, and book the vehicle space ahead.

What actually happens on a Sunday in Samoa?+

Church, then to'ona'i, the family meal that follows it, then rest. Shops close, the ferry runs a reduced timetable, and villages expect quiet: driving through one during the service reads as disrespect, and the same goes for swimming off a village beach in the middle of it. Resorts keep running for guests, so nobody goes hungry, but a Sunday is not the day to plan an island circuit. The daily version is smaller and catches more visitors out: around dusk a bell rings for sa, ten or fifteen minutes of evening prayer, and you stop where you are until a second bell ends it.

Is Samoa expensive?+

Less than most of the Polynesian names people know, and less than Fiji's resort islands. The flights are the expensive part, because almost everything routes through Auckland, Sydney or Nadi. On the ground the beach fale, an open-sided hut on the sand with a mattress, a mosquito net and usually dinner and breakfast included, is the reason budgets here go further than the region suggests. Imported goods are priced accordingly, the produce markets in Apia and Salelologa are not, and the village bus costs a fraction of a taxi.

Do you need to see both islands?+

No, but they are different trips. Upolu has the airport, the capital, the restaurants, To Sua and the Aleipata beaches, and four nights there is a complete holiday. Savai'i is bigger, emptier and volcanic: lava fields, blowholes, waterfalls, a canopy walk and long stretches of coast with almost nothing built on them. If you have a week, cross. If you have four days, stay on Upolu and do it properly.

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