7 Days in French Polynesia: A Plan

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Seven days is the sweet spot for French Polynesia: enough time to do 2 or 3 islands properly rather than rushing 4 into a single week. This plan gives Tahiti a day, Moorea 3 nights, and Bora Bora 3 nights, more breathing room on each island than our tighter 6 day itinerary allows.

Book these before you go

Day 1: Tahiti arrival

Land at Faaʻā International Airport (PPT), French Polynesia’s sole international gateway. Spend the day in Papeete: the Marché de Papeete market, Point Venus (the black-sand beach and lighthouse where Cook observed the 1769 transit of Venus), and, if you have the energy, the Faarumai waterfalls (about 45 minutes east of Papeete, the Vaimahuta fall is the easy one to reach). Eat at the roulottes food trucks in Place Vaiʻete for poisson cru, raw tuna in lime and coconut milk, French Polynesia’s national dish.

Day 2: On to Moorea

Take the Aremiti or Terevau ferry from Papeete to Vaiare on Moorea, 30 to 45 minutes, 1,000 to 2,030 XPF each way, sailings roughly every 60 to 90 minutes. Drive the Belvédère Lookout road (about 250m) for the view over Cook’s Bay and Opunohu Bay, split by Mount Rotui. Full island detail is in our Moorea guide .

Day 3: Moorea’s lagoon

A full day on the water: the shallow Sharks Sandbank to snorkel with blacktip reef sharks and stingrays, or, between July 20 and November 20, a regulated humpback whale swim (DIREN-accredited operators, boats stay 100m back, 6 swimmers max at a time).

Day 4: Moorea’s interior

Use the extra day this itinerary has over the 6 day version for the island’s interior: the Manutea distillery in the Opunohu Valley (a free self-guided pineapple juice and rum tour), the Tiki Village cultural center, or a 4x4 safari up toward Magic Mountain, a separate, lower viewpoint from the Belvédère.

Day 5: Fly to Bora Bora

Connect back through Tahiti for an Air Tahiti flight to Bora Bora, about 50 minutes in the air. Bora Bora’s airport sits on its own motu, so arrival includes a boat transfer, longer if your resort is on an outer motu; the InterContinental Bora Bora Le Moana is currently open, its sister Thalasso Spa property is closed for renovation until roughly mid-2027. Spend the afternoon at Matira Beach.

Day 6: Bora Bora’s lagoon

A full day on the lagoon: snorkeling with rays and blacktip sharks around the coral gardens, a motu picnic, and views of Mount Otemanu (727m). Bora Bora’s overwater bungalows are the style the island made famous, Hotel Bora Bora’s 1970 stilt bungalows are where the format took off, not where it was invented, Raiatea has a competing claim from around 1967.

Day 7: Bora Bora morning, then depart

Use the extra morning this itinerary allows for a second lagoon swim or simply resting before the transfer chain, boat off the motu, the flight through Papeete, and your international departure from Tahiti.

Prefer a different 3rd island?

Swap Bora Bora for Huahine (quiet, the richest archaeology in French Polynesia) or Taha’a, the vanilla island next to Raiatea, whose Taputapuatea marae is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, inscribed in 2017 as the ancestral religious center of eastern Polynesia. Either makes for a slower, cheaper back half of the week, just keep it to this same 2 to 3 island structure rather than bolting a 4th stop onto the plan above, island-hopping eats money and half-days faster than it looks on paper.

Food and culture along the way

Poisson cru (raw tuna in lime and coconut milk) is French Polynesia’s national dish, present on every casual menu from Papeete’s roulottes food trucks to the resort restaurants on Moorea and Bora Bora; look for Hinano, the local beer, and Tahitian vanilla alongside it. Tahitian black pearls, cultured from the Pinctada margaritifera oyster, are the collectivity’s second-biggest export after tourism, both islands have shops worth a browse even if you don’t buy. Tatau, the origin of the word tattoo, is a living tradition here rather than a museum piece, and if your dates land in July, the Heiva i Tahiti festival (2026: July 2 to 18) fills Papeete’s To’atā Amphitheater with dance and sport competitions running since 1881.

What this actually costs

Moorea is genuinely the affordable half of this trip, its pensions undercut Bora Bora’s resorts by a wide margin, and the Papeete-Moorea ferry (1,000 to 2,030 XPF) is the one cheap inter-island hop in the whole collectivity. Budget for Bora Bora’s 3 nights to carry a disproportionate share of the total cost, its overwater-bungalow resorts sit at the luxury end even by French Polynesia’s already-high prices. French Polynesia overall runs one of the most expensive tourism markets in the Pacific, most goods are imported and the domestic market is small, so temper expectations of finding bargains anywhere in the collectivity.

Before you go

  • Visa and entry: not Schengen; about 90 days visa-free for most Western nationalities, confirm yours on Tahiti Tourisme’s site . Connecting through Los Angeles needs a US ESTA , LAX has no sterile transit zone.
  • Money: the CFP franc (XPF) is fixed at 1 EUR = 119.33 XPF. Tipping is not customary anywhere in the collectivity.
  • Health: no malaria; dengue is endemic and ciguatera fish poisoning is a real, occasional risk, ask locally before eating unfamiliar reef fish. Outer-island medical care is thin, evacuation to Papeete for a serious problem can run $10,000 or more, travel insurance with evacuation cover is worth having.

Is 7 days enough for French Polynesia?

For 2 to 3 islands done at a genuine, unrushed pace, yes, this is close to ideal. For the full 5-archipelago picture, the Marquesas, the Tuamotu diving atolls, Raiatea’s UNESCO site, you’d need considerably longer than a week; treat this as the honest, well-paced version of the classic trip rather than a full survey of the collectivity.