Everyone lands on Funafuti, and most never leave: it has the only airport, the only hotel facilities and over half the population. Give it three or four days. Walk Fongafale from the parliament maneapa at Vaiaku to Fētu'ao Lima, the Morning Star Church, then cross the lagoon to the Funafuti Conservation Area. Vaitupu, Nanumea and Nui are reached only on the government ships every three or four weeks. Come May to October, and book the Fiji Airways flights first.
Fun fact
Tuvalu's highest point, on Niulakita, is 4.6 metres, the second-lowest of any country after the Maldives. Yet a 2018 study found most of its islands had grown between 1971 and 2014, total land up by more than 2 per cent, as waves shifted sand onto their shores.
Stereotypes, sorted out
The realityLow, and the numbers pull both ways. The highest point is 4.6 metres and the sea at Funafuti rises about 3.9 millimetres a year, twice the world rate. Yet a 2018 study found most islands had grown since 1971. The government is raising a platform of about 7.8 hectares on Fongafale to last past 2100.
The realityFunafuti is the only island with hotel facilities, and visitors number in the low thousands a year, mostly officials and consultants. No cruise ships, no resort strip. There is a lagoon 24.5 kilometres long, a reef conservation area across it, outer-island guesthouses and a ship every few weeks.
The realityThe .tv suffix earns real money from companies that like its echo of television, but it is one income among several. Fishing licences across about 900,000 square kilometres of sea, aid, trust-fund income and the wages of Tuvaluan seafarers carry the economy too.
The realityThe Falepili Union, signed with Australia on 10 November 2023, opens a pathway for 280 Tuvaluans a year and adds money for the trust fund and coastal adaptation. It is a door, not an evacuation plan, and the evidence so far is that most Tuvaluans prefer to stay.
Cultural notes that actually help
- Carry Australian dollars in cash. The US State Department reports no ATMs and no card payments; the National Bank of Tuvalu changes major currencies, including US dollars.
- Each island has a maneapa, the meeting hall, and a falekaupule, the council of elders that the 2023 constitution recognises as the traditional authority. A fatele there is a community occasion: you are a guest, not an audience.
- Church is central. The Church of Tuvalu counts about 86 per cent of the population, and Fētu'ao Lima, the Morning Star Church, is the most prominent building on Funafuti.
- Treat water as scarce. Rain tanks are the main supply, desalination tops up Funafuti, and the State Department warns that tap water is often not safe to drink.
- Traffic keeps to the left, and on Funafuti animals and pedestrians share unlit roads after dark.
- Tuvaluan, not English, is the language of daily life, and fafetai lasi, a thank you, is the phrase worth learning first.
Famous Tuvaluan faces
Toaripi Lauti
Enele Sopoaga
Simon Kofe
Feleti Teo
Kausea Natano
Tofiga Vaevalu Falani
Tuau Lapua Lapua
Telupe Iosefa
Etimoni Timuani
Karalo Maibuca
Temalini Manatoa
Must-try Tuvaluan food
Pulaka
Giant swamp taro grown in compost pits dug to the water table. Rising salt hits it first.
Fekei
Grated pulaka mixed with coconut cream and cooked wrapped in leaves.
Pork at a fatele
Feast food, eaten mostly at fateles, the celebrations of song and dance.
Coconut crab
The big land crab of the atolls, and one of the seafood staples across the islands.
Lagoon and reef fish
The everyday protein. More than 600 species are recorded in Tuvaluan waters.
Flying fish
Netted at night from a boat under a spotlight. As much an outing as a meal.
Breadfruit
Grown beside bananas as a supplement to pulaka, the main starch.
Taro
The hardier taro now grown on Fongafale, where the pits have become too salty for pulaka.
Toddy
Sap tapped from the coconut palm. The same palm gives the cream in most dishes.
Coconut sweets
Desserts made with coconut and coconut milk, and no dairy.
Rice and tins from the fusi
Canned food and rice from the fusi, the island co-op shop. The shelves follow the ships.