Best+Walking+Tour+of+Tahiti

Best Walking Tour of Tahiti

So you don't want to take any of the guided tours of Tahiti because you don't want to pay someone to walk you around. Or you simply like to explore on your own, but you'd like a little rough guidance as to where to go. Following is a great walking tour of Tahiti. It's roughly two hours long, give or take your leisure.

Start your walking tour at Tahiti Manava visitors' bureau. This visitor's bureau is located in Tahua Vaiete, which is the park by the cruise ship dock-not very difficult to find. Now go ahead and start strolling west on Boulevard Pomare. The first major landmark you want to encounter is the Centre Vaima.

The Centre Vaima is full of great shops and very much the center of shopping for the European and French communities living in Papeete. The center takes its name from the restaurant that everybody used to eat at, which is now replaced by the square itself.

If you look across the four lane boulevard you should a wooden boardwalk that borders the Quay. Get on over there.

If you're in Tahiti between April and September you'll be privy to all of the yachts that sail from all around the world to this place. Just across the harbour is Fare Ute. This is where you will see boats that carry cargoes of copra, or dried coconut meat. They take their cargo to the mill here, where the coconut oil is extracted and then shipped overseas to be used in cosmetics production.

Keep walking west along the waterfront past the post office. You should now see Park Bouganville. This park is named after the first French explorer to discover Tahiti in 1767. A likeness of him is in the park between the two naval cannons.

Now keep walking west to the traffic circle at Burat Ave.

This traffic circle is a testament to the great road improvements Tahiti has made throughout the island. Now get a look at the Pacific Battalion Monument. This is a tribute to the French Polynesians who fought alongside General Charles de Gaulle during WWII. Because of the help the French Polynesians gave during the war, the Allies were eventually able to build the all-important air strip on Bora Bora in 1942.

Again, keep walking west along the waterfront. Next you will see the big beige church in the distance.

The Eglise Evangelique is the largest Protestant church in all of French Polynesia. The pastors that minister to the church's active congregation are Tahitian. Be sure to get a look at the racing canoes across the boulevard. These are the canoes used in Tahiti's national sport, canoe racing.

As you keep walking west you will see some of the old colonial homes along the way. Soon you should be able to see an outdoor amphitheatre, and on the banks of the river Tipaerui you will see Tahiti's cultural center and library.

After walking through the amphitheatre and cultural centre, and getting a snack from one of the many snackshops in this area, which many, many Tahitians enjoy, and maybe using the very clean restroom facilities, go ahead and turn back at this point and make your way back east, back in the direction you came from on boulevard Pomare back to your starting point and enjoying all of the details of the sites you missed on the way up. You should easily find your way back to the Tahiti Manava visitors' bureau.