Involves minimal physical effort and is typically associated with leisurely activities. Activities are low-intensity or last less than a few hours each day.
Day 1: Brisbane, Australia / Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea
Arrive in Brisbane and connect with your independent flight to Port Moresby. Upon arrival transfer to your included hotel for an afternoon at leisure. Welcome dinner and overnight at your hotel.
Day 2: Port Moresby / Embark the Odyssey
Visit the National Museum and Art Gallery with its exceptional collections of primitive arts, including Sepik River carvings, Malagan masks, and Trobriand Island fishing vessels. Board the Odyssey in the afternoon.
Day 3: Expedition Stop
Numerous small islands dot the southern coast of Papua New Guinea and make an expedition stop this afternoon for an introductory snorkel or dive over colorful reefs.
Day 4: Dobu and Fergusson Islands, D’Entrecasteaux Islands
Today explore these distinctive, jewel-like islands capped by active volcanoes and have the chance to snorkel or dive in the surrounding marine-rich waters. Also visit a tranquil seaside fishing village and hike to a series of hot springs and bubbling mud pools surrounded by lush vegetation.
Day 5: Kitava and Narutu Islands, Trobriand Islands
This morning visit with the traditional Trobriand islanders of Kitava and view energetic, time-honored dances that celebrate fishing and the seasonal yam harvest. Learn about the history of the Kula Ring, a circular pattern of ceremonial trade relationships that binds the islands of Milne Bay and eastern Papua New Guinea together in a long-established network of friendship. These islanders are also renowned for the exquisite quality of their ebony wood-carvings, often decorated with mother-of-pearl shell inlays. Enjoy a walk among the villages of Kitava before returning to the ship for lunch.
In the afternoon anchor at nearby Narutu Island. Snorkel amid kaleidoscopic coral reefs populated by parrotfish, neon damsels, and other brilliantly-hued species. Naturalists lead a walk around the island in search of flying foxes (fruit bats), sulphur-crested cockatoos, and helmeted friarbirds.
Day 6: Laughlan Islands
Traditional canoe building is a specialty of the Laughlan islanders. In this very remote corner of eastern Papua New Guinea find hand-crafted seagoing canoes in various stages of construction, with finely tuned hulls of traditional planking lashed with natural sennit fiber cord and caulked with sap. The residents of Bodaluna welcome you and stroll through the village of palm-thatched houses. Enjoy an afternoon snorkel off a pristine sandbar or an adventurous dive off the outer reef.
Day 7: Ghizo and Kennedy Islands, Solomon Islands
Ghizo Island’s natural charms are unveiled as we hike up a hillside for splendid views and watch for white-bellied cuckoo-shrikes, red-knobbed imperial pigeons, moustached treeswifts, and eclectus parrots. Divers investigate WWII wrecks in the crystal-clear waters. In the afternoon your ship cruises in the historic wake of John F. Kennedy’s PT-109 boat ripped in half by a Japanese destroyer in the Blackett Strait during WWII. Kennedy and his crew swam ashore to the tiny island later named in his honor. Zodiacs bring you to its sandy beaches and snorkel or dive over coral reefs.
Day 8: Honiara / Iron Bottom Sound, Guadalcanal
During WWII the British founded Honiara as a military base. The town and the Mataniko River, which runs through it, were the front for many months during the battle of Guadalcanal. Today, this is a bustling town with lovely hibiscus and palm-tree-lined avenues. Enjoy a morning tour of Honiara and its environs, visiting war memorials; Henderson Field, the open-air war museum; and a local woodcarving academy. Later cruise Iron Bottom Sound, the site of intense WWII naval battles, and so named for the large numbers of Japanese and American ships and aircraft that sank beneath these placid seas.
Day 9: Santa Ana Island
Village warriors greet guests with the blowing of conch-shell trumpets as you step ashore on this small island and the local residents offer welcome with songs and elaborately costumed dances unique to their island. Santa Ana is known for its bone fishhooks and imaginative fishing floats. In the afternoon snorkel or dive the reefs to view clownfish, soldierfish, and brilliantly hued wrasses. Or join naturalists for a guided walk across the island through a shady forest. Visit a traditional "spirit house" where ancestral relics are kept. Bird sightings may include the cardinal honeyeater, Brahminy kite, and Solomon sea eagle.
Day 10: Utupua Island
A lagoon and barrier reef surround the rarely visited island of Utupua where Zodiacs take you down a fjordlike channel. Among the marshy mangrove trees learn about an ecosystem that is a beehive of biological activity. Enjoy free time to stroll through Nembo to see where villagers plant their prolific gardens, or join a snorkel or dive excursion.
Day 11: Tikopia Island, Santa Cruz Islands
Tikopia is legendary — a remote tropical paradise where traditional customs remain intact. This Polynesian-settled island lies in Melanesia, yet its people are descendants of Tongan and Wallis Island settlers. School children clad in tapa cloth harmonize songs of welcome, followed by enthusiastic dances by the young men of the village. A hike to the crater lake at Tikopia’s center may reveal fairy terns, cardinal honeyeaters, and yellow-bibbed lories. In the afternoon choose to stroll the lovely beach or snorkel on the edge of the reef where you may spot up to 60 species of fish.
Day 12: Luganville, Espiritu Santo Island, Vanuatu
This morning chose from many options to explore Luganville and its environs. WWII history unfolds as we inspect relics of this large American base — view Quonset huts and downed bombers, or choose to visit Nekat Village and participate in a traditional kava ceremony. Divers set out on an unforgettable dive over the USS President Coolidge which sank in 1942; a tapestry of corals encrust the wreck offering a haven for fishes. Naturalists accompany birders and hikers on an excursion inland to search for some 50 species of birds, including the very rare mountain starling and thicket warbler, found only at high elevations; the chestnut-bellied kingfisher; and the yellow white-eye. Conditions permitting, snorkel at Million Dollar Point, where the Allies jettisoned large quantities of surplus war materiel into the sea.
Day 13: Ambrym Island / Pentecost Island
Today be welcomed by palm-leaf-clad dancers with elegantly carved headdresses before exploring traditional Linbul Village. Ambrym is known for its slit-gong drums, some carved from enormous breadfruit tree trunks. In the afternoon visit Pentecost Island, famous as the birthplace of “bungee jumping.” An exhilarating spectacle awaits as men jump from tall towers with vines tied to their feet, in a ritual believed to ensure a good yam harvest.
Day 14: Port Vila / Disembark / Brisbane, Australia
Disembark this morning for a tour of Port Vila, the capital of Vanuatu, ending at the airport for your independent flight to Brisbane. Dinner and overnight at your included hotel.
Day 15: Return Home
Transfer to the airport this morning for your independent flight home.
Dates & Prices
Per person starting at
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Prices for are estimated based on inflation. Contact us to confirm pricing and availability for your desired departure date.
Initial deposit is 30% cruise cost, and most travelers will call our office and pay the deposit with a credit card.
Final payment is due 130 days prior to departure by bank transfer, check or credit card. All final payments by credit card may be subject to a surcharge and maximum of $20,000 charge
Our guide and driver were very good with their knowledge and were very helpful with our questions. It was a very pleasant visit that would have been impossible to do on our own. Hotels and restaurants were fantastic. The special places we got to go to, like the kitchens, were great. Enjoyed the entire trip!
Meyer Smolen
TrustScore 4.8 | 174 reviews
TrustScore 4.8 of 5
Based on 174 reviews on
1 day ago
The trip was not only memorable for the amount of animals we saw but also for the people and accommodations at the two camps where we stayed. Our first guide, BK, was a wealth of information about the animals, landscape and down to the plants and what they were used for. Everyday out was a learning experience with him. All the people at the camps were gracious and the food was excellent.
Our second camp in the Okavanga was just as good as the first as far as the staff, accommodations, food and animals. After our experience at the first camp we amazed that the high quality remained the same. Our guide, G, made sure we were able to enjoy every experience including a rush through the bush to witness a cheetah and an ensuing hunt that he heard over his radio.
In both camps there were enough guides out that if they saw something the other guides were informed which helped in seeing as much as possible. It was also nice that the concessions were large enough that we did not have vehicles following each other throughout the day.
Normally there is always something in a trip of this length that we think could be improved upon but this is the rare case where we cannot think of anything. From the time we left the States to when we returned it was one of the most hassle free vacations we took.
Perhaps emphasizing the use of the laundry facilities at the camps would be useful because of the luggage restrictions would be the only thing I can think of as an improvement to future clients.
Kenneth Dropek
2 days ago
Mary was so pleasant and professional. She made sure all of our questions were answered.