Product Description

From lagoon swimming in the Cook Islands to witnessing the race of the banana bearers in the Heiva i Tahiti festival, travelers will find the best of the South Pacificboth popular and obscurein this guidebook. Moon Handbooks South Pacific provides in-depth coverage of outdoor recreation, with specifics on swimming, diving, yachting, kayaking, biking, hiking, camping, climbing, caving, and horseback riding. Complete with helpful maps, photographs and illustrations, as well as useful advice on practicalities such as food, entertainment, shopping, visas, money, health, packing, and inter-island travel, this guidebook offers the tools you need for a uniquely personal experience.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #227955 in Books
• Published on: 2005-01-28
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 1136 pages

From the Author
The original travel guide to the South Pacific islands.
Since July 1979 the South Pacific Handbook has gone through seven editions, incorporating the experience of numerous visits. During the first 20 years of its life my book was the only standard guide to Pitcairn, Niue, Wallis and Futuna, Tokelau, and Tuvalu, hidden areas only now being "discovered" by other publishers. South Pacific Handbook offers comprehensive coverage of everything from Easter Island to the Solomons, with major chapters on Tahiti, Cook Islands, Tonga, the Samoas, Fiji, New Caledonia, and Vanuatu - fifteen countries and territories in one portable volume. It's a practical travel guide which describes the whole range of accommodations options from beachside campgrounds to smart designer resorts. Getting around by bus and boat is examined in depth, and information abounds on sporting activities such as scuba diving, kayaking, sailing, hiking, and riding. No freebies or favours were involved in the research, thus ensuring consistent, independent reporting. South Pacific Handbook also serves as a primary reference work with 129 two-colour maps and 28 charts. This edition we've added hundreds of e-mail and website addresses, allowing readers instant electronic access to the South Seas. I hope you find my book a valuable tool.

Customer Reviews

South Pacific Handbook is superb single volume reference
As president of Sea for Yourself snorkeling tours, it's my job to stay informed about the areas we visit with our groups. I'll be honest - if I need a guidebook, for this application I refer to David's more specific books such his Fiji Handbook, or his new Tonga/Samoa Handbook.

But it's also my job to design new snorkeling programs. For areas in the Pacific that extend beyond my personal familiarity, I turn to David's South Pacific Handbook as the place to start researching new destinations.

With this book, as with all of David's books, this process is simple. I read the excellent background information for a selected specific destination, along with some of the practical info (such as accommodations, etc.) After that, the sections I find most helpful for research are the extensive bibliography and the detailed Internet and email directories.

Of course, the South Pacific Handbook is much more than a list of other references. In my estimation, David's South Pacific Handbook is THE REFERENCE. David's books inspire loyalty and deserve the continued attentions of conscientious travelers. I first started using this book (2nd edition) back in 1982. I still have that travel-worn copy which sits on the shelf alongside many of the subsequent editions. And although they have served as invaluable reference in years past, I'll be now be using this new 7th edition.

South Pacific Handbook
In the late 1970s, on my first trip to the South Pacific, someone showed me a copy of an early edition of the South Pacific Handbook. I fell in love with it and have purchased every edition since. This is not just a travel book: it is an adventure in itself.

It's a challenge to find adequate words to describe this book. It seems to me to be a scholarly or encyclopedic work because of its depth and scope, but the information is so well organized and clearly presented that everything falls comfortably in place. You can quickly find what you want to know.

I am writing this comment with the 7th edition of the South Pacific Handbook next to me. The first part of the book, through page 123, provides an extensive background to the South Pacific. Subjects covered include the formation of coral reefs, flora and fauna, the history of discovery, exploration, settlement, colonization by Europe and The Pacific Today, government, economy, the people of the South Pacific, conduct and customs, health, food and drink, and much, much more.

David Stanley (the author) devotes the next 800 pages to the islands of Tahiti-Polynesia, the Pitcairn Islands, Easter Island, the Cook Islands, Niue, the Kingdom of Tonga, American Samoa, Samoa, Tokelau, Wallis and Futuna, Tuvalu, Melanesia (Fiji), New Caledonia, Vanuatu, and the Solomon Islands. Reading these pages, you will feel as though you are there. I don't think anything has been left out.

At the end of the book, under the general heading of Resources, is a list of all the information offices (including web sites and e-mail addresses) for all the island groups discussed in the book. There is an extensive Bibliography, including guidebooks, geography, natural science, history, publishers, and periodicals. A Discography section listing noncommercial recordings of Pacific music follows. A section on the South Pacific on the internet - websites and e-mail addresses for everything you can imagine - is next. Finally, there is a Glossary section and an extensive Index.

In the 1980s, I went to Aitutaki (an atoll in the Cook Islands) after reading a seven-sentence description in the first edition of the South Pacific Handbook. Aitutaki was exactly as Mr.Stanley describes it and I owe my exciting experience there to him.

The next time you are in a bookstore, I suggest that you at least browse through this book. If you buy it, you might try reading it in bed at night. If you're like me, you may start to dream about Bora Bora (French Polynesia), Aitutaki, or some other jewel in the South Pacific.

Steve Schlein

Especially Essential for Business and Professional Travelers
MOON HANDBOOKS SOUTH PACIFIC should serve as the prototype for the entire guidebook industry. A travel region could not be better described than the author and the publisher do in this book.

This encyclopedic single volume is indispensable to backpackers, island-hopping travelers, business people, and anyone else who is going to the South Pacific region for more than a short vacation.

If I may offer my greatest praise conversely, I am very disappointed that David Stanley has not written such a guidebook about Northern New England. I'm sure that I could live a much richer (and much more efficient!) life here on the Connecticut River if I had a Stanley-written guide to the resources of my region.

The book includes basic vocabulary, maps, lodging directories, transportation choices, dining suggestions, park listings, entertainment guides, very helpful travel tips...I might as well quit itemizing, because the list of features in this book is as endless as the list of opportunities in the South Pacific paradise.