Top 5 things to do in Moorea
Overshadowed by the high end and glamorous Bora Bora, the French Polynesian island of Moorea is a hidden authentic paradise and well worth a visit! Here’s our top 5 things to do in Moorea!
1. GO ON A QUAD BIKE TOUR OF MOOREA
This is our number 1 thing to do in Moorea! It was a last minute decision for us to jump on this tour but it ended up being a huge highlight of our trip to Moorea! We booked with ATV Moorea Tours. This isn’t any old quad bike excursion, the route takes you through the thick of the volcanic landscape, up and over the tops of the mountains with breath taking views and down through muddy rivers for the ultimate adrenaline rush! In parts, the route takes you up to a look out point on a single track road with a sheer drop to the side of you, not great for any nervous drivers! But the views on the way up and from the top are totally worth the exhilarating journey to get there!
2. GO TO A MOTU
A motu is the name for any secluded paradise island in French Polynesia. The kind of remote utopia Tom Hanks was washed ashore on in Cast Away. There are a number of excursions that can take you to a motu as part of a number of other activities, or if you prefer to do your own thing Coco Beach is a quaint little restaurant on it’s own motu. You can give them a call and they will arrange for a boat to come and collect you from any of the main hotels in Moorea, and then you can explore the motu on your own as well as having a delicious lunch with the your feet in the water.
Waiting for lunch with our feet in the water on a Motu in Moorea
3. SWIM WITH STINGRAYS AND SHARKS
This is an absolute must! No where else in the world have we found yet, that allows you to get this up close and personal with stingrays and black tip sharks. Different tour guides will allow you to have different interaction with them, some will allow you to just stroke the stingrays, others will allow you to feed them or if you’re feeling brave you can even try kissing them with Niko at Moorea Jet Ski Tours who was our tour guide. A little tip, buy some reef shoes like these ones before you go to take with you, Moorea and the French Polynesia islands are home to the deadly stonefish who lurk on the bottom of the sea camouflaged. You definitely don’t want to be treading on one of those! Ouch!
We actually ended up swimming with stingrays and sharks twice on two different tours. A great tour where you can combine swimming with stingrays and sharks and visting a motu is Miti Lagoon Tour. You’ll spend all morning swimming in a couple of different locations with tropical fish, stingrays and sharks, then head over to a motu where the tour guides prepare a BBQ on the beach for you to enjoy, feet in the water admiring the beautiful views. A perfect day that ticks a lot of boxes!
4. SEE SHARKS SWIMMING AT NIGHT
Swimming with the black tips sharks is fun but there’s something totally eery and fascinating about seeing them in their natural habitat at night. The black tip sharks are completely innocent but swimming at night is not recommended as other sharks often come in shore. Two of the best places to see sharks at night are at the Totea Creperie & Bar which is actually a restaurant within the Hilton Moorea Resort & Spa hotel, you can see our thoughts on this resort here, we saw black tip sharks swimming underneath the restaurant at night. Or for a more authentic Tahitian dining experience, go to Te Honu Iti restaurant where stingrays and sharks visit every night in large numbers to be fed by the owners. The food was great here, we had a seat right next to the area that they were fed in, and even saw a 7 foot long nurse shark! It was definitely a unique dining experience!
Nurse sharks and black tip sharks being fed at the Te Honu Iti restaurant in Moorea whilst we ate our dinner. Apologies for the blurry picture… Sharks move fast when they’re hungry!
5. GO ON A JETSKI TOUR OF THE ISLAND
Yes jet ski’s can be found anywhere in the world, but this jet ski experience was just that little bit more magical than normal! Jet skiing off the coast of Moorea was a truly unique experience because of how beautiful it was to look back at the island with it’s dramatic landscapes and turquoise lagoons from out at sea, not only that but swimming alongside our jet ski’s were a beautiful school of dolphins leaping out of the water playfully.
So there you have it, that’s our top 5 things to do in Moorea, French Polynesia.
Have you been to Moorea before? Comment below and tell us about your top things to do in Moorea!
