South+Pacific travel tips and stories. Vacations ideas, cruises spa and resorts

One of the world’s most famous yet least visited archaeological sites, Easter Island is a small, hilly, now treeless island of volcanic origin. It is located in the Pacific Ocean at 27 degrees south of the equator and some 2200 miles (3600 kilometers) off the coast of Chile, it is considered to be the world’s most remote inhabited island.

Continue reading Explore the Amazing Mystery which Moai Giant Stone Statues of Easter Island creates

Just a five-minute boat ride north of Efate Island in the Vanauatu Island chain, Kakula Island has been called “The Jewel of the South Pacific” for good reason. Its lush 90 acres include white sand beaches, coral reefs and pristine tropical splendor. Protected by neighboring islands, the calm waters surrounding Kakula are excellent for swimming, fishing and snorkeling. Uninhabited and unspoiled, Kakula serves as a breeding ground for sea turtles.

Continue reading Escape to paradise called Kakula Island

The four figures carved in stone on Mount Rushmore represent the first 150 years of American history. The birth of our nation was guided by the vision and courage of George Washington. Thomas Jefferson always had dreams of something bigger, first in the words of the Declaration of Independence and later in the expansion of our nation through the Louisiana Purchase. Preservation of the union was paramount to Abraham Lincoln but a nation where all men were free and equal was destined to be. At the turn of the Twentieth Century Theodore Roosevelt saw that in our nation was the possibility for greatness. Our nation was changing from a rural republic to a world power. The ideals of these presidents laid a foundation for our nation as solid as the rock from which their figures are carved.
Each man possessed great skills and leadership of the brand our nation needed for the times. Today millions of visitors come to see Mount Rushmore and gain inspiration from these four great men.

Continue reading The Four Faces. Mount Rushmore.

Destination Chile, a virtual travel guide to the long coastal strip between the Andes mountains and the Pacific Ocean. This page aims to give you a broad overview of Chilean art, culture, people, environment, geography, history, economy and government.

Beside a country profile with facts and figures, the page contains links to sources which provide you with all the information you need to know about this South American nation, e.g.: official web sites of Chile, addresses of Chilean and foreign embassies, domestic airlines, city- and country guides with extensive travel and tourism information on accomodation, tourist attractions, events and more like weather information, maps, statistics and local newspapers from Chile.

Continue reading Chile is a country of startling contrasts and extreme beauty

A real Tribute to Beauty and Human Love, The Taj Mahal monument is located in Agra, India and is constructed between 1631 and 1654 by a workforce of 22,000 humans. The Muslim Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan commissioned its construction as a mausoleum for his favourite wife, Arjumand Bano Begum, who is better known as Mumtaz.

The Taj Mahal (sometimes called “the Taj”) is generally considered the finest example of Mughal architecture, a style that combines elements of Indian, Islamic and Persian architectures. The Taj Mahal has achieved special note because of the romance of its inspiration. While the white domed marble mausoleum is the most familiar part of the monument, the Taj Mahal is actually an integrated complex of structures.

The Mausoleum of the Taj Mahal at Agra stands in a formally laid-out walled garden entered through a pavilion on the main axis. The tomb, raised on a terrace and first seen reflected in the central canal, is entirely sheathed in marble, but the mosque and counter-mosque on the transverse axis are built in red sandstone. The four minarets, set symmetrically about the tomb, are scaled down to heighten the effect of the dominant, slightly bulbous dome. The mosques, built only to balance the composition are set sufficiently far away to do no more than frame the mausoleum. In essence, the whole riverside platform is a mosque courtyard with a tomb at its centre. The great entrance gate with its domed central chamber, set at the end of the long watercourse, would in any other setting be monumental in its own right.

The postcard picture of Taj Mahal does not adequately convey the legend, the poetry and the romance that shroud what Rabindranath Tagore calls “a teardrop on the cheek of time”. Taj Mahal means “Crown Palace” and is in fact the most well preserved and architecturally beautiful tomb in the world. It is best described by the English poet, Sir Edwin Arnold, as “Not a piece of architecture, as other buildings are, but the proud passions of an emperor’s love wrought in living stones.” It is a celebration of woman built in marble and that’s the way to appreciate it.

What inspired the building of Taj Mahal?

Continue reading Tribute to Beauty at Taj Mahal travel wonder in India

The Cook Islands are a Polynesian paradise consisting of fifteen islands scattered over some one million square miles of the Pacific Ocean. They lie at the center of the Polynesian Triangle of the South Pacific with Tonga and the Samoas to the west, and Tahiti to the east.

Continue reading The newest 4-star property on the Cook Islands

With a circumference of only 37 miles and coastline served by paved road, Moorea can be encircled in a single day’s bicycle or car tour. Be sure to stop in the villages and boutiques as you make your way around. Enjoy horseback riding along the beach or into the interior, hiking up to a hidden waterfall, or drive to the Belvedere lookout point, high in the interior of Moorea for spectacular views of Opunohu and Cook’s Bays.

Moorea, soaring magically out of the ocean in an explosion of green velvet, is what you would imagine a South Seas island to be. A wide, shallow lagoon surrounds the island`s vertical mountains where poetic threads of waterfalls tumble down fern-softened cliffs. Peaceful meadows flanked by pinnacles of green will fill your senses and renew your belief in the majesty of nature. Pastel-painted houses surrounded by gardens of hibiscus and birds of paradise, circle the island in a fantasy of happy, yet simple villages.

A favorite of frequent visitors, Moorea offers couples the perfect combination of all the islands: pristine and secluded beaches; lush mountains and valleys; exclusive resorts; and a wide variety of shopping and fine restaurants.

The drama of Moorea’s landscape continues below the sea with an infinite range of canyons, chasms, and promontories. Fish feeding is common here so divers are often surrounded by schools of small and large marine life. With a lack of strong currents, Moorea is perfect for beginners while the deeper canyons attract the more advanced divers.

Continue reading Moorea is known as the “Magical Island”

Bora Bora – Unquestionably the most mythical of the Pacific islands remains the island of all dreams.
So much has been written about Bora Bora, and yet it is hard to find the right words to describe the magic that emanates from this island.
Seen from the air, Bora Bora has been compared to that of “a tiny emerald in a setting of turquoise, encircled by a sheltering necklace of sparkling pearls”.

Continue reading Best Beaches Bora Bora

The park is located in the pacific coast, in the Peninsula de Osa, in the province of Puntarenas. Corcovado is located in the life zone that correspond to the very humid Tropical forest in the south pacific of Costa Rica and you can be sure that no other wild area in the country protects plants and animal as this park. This wild area is considered an excellent life laboratory, in which you can study the structure and function of the tropical ecosystems and the relationship between them.

Continue reading Corcovado National Park in Costa Rica

The Solomon Islands is a double chain of islands located 1860 kilometres to the north east of Australia. Shaped by earthquakes and volcanic activity thousands of years ago, the 922 individual islands, of which 350 are uninhabited, are divided into nine provinces.

The six main islands of Choiseul, Santa Isabel, Guadalcanal, Malatia, Makira and New Georgia make up most of the 28,000 square kilometre land mass. Hundreds of smaller islands and atolls are scattered throughout the group.

Continue reading The Unique Solomon Islands