Apia, Samoa

Apia is the capital and only city of Samoa, spread around a wide harbour on the north coast of Upolu, the more developed of the country's two main islands. It is a relaxed, green, low-rise Pacific town rather than a bustling metropolis, and it makes the natural base for exploring Upolu and experiencing fa'a Samoa, the Samoan way of life that remains one of the strongest living Polynesian cultures. Along the harbourfront, the Beach Road strings together the lively Maketi Fou and flea markets, the white Immaculate Conception Cathedral, government buildings, the old clock tower and a handful of colonial-era trading buildings, with fishing boats and the reef beyond. Apia's most famous attraction is just above town at Vailima: the gracious home where the Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson spent his last years (the Samoans called him Tusitala, 'teller of tales'), now a museum, with his tomb reached by a forest trail up Mount Vaea behind it. But for most visitors Apia is the springboard to the rest of Upolu, an island of extraordinary natural beauty: the photogenic To Sua Ocean Trench, a deep swimming hole reached by a ladder into a garden-fringed pool; the long white sands of Lalomanu and the south-coast beaches with their open-sided beach fale accommodation; waterfalls such as Papapapaitai and Sopoaga; the Piula Cave Pool; and the Papase'ea Sliding Rocks. The larger, wilder island of Savai'i, with its lava fields, blowholes and rainforest, lies a ferry ride away. Samoan culture is everywhere — in the villages, the Sunday church singing, the ava (kava) ceremony, and the fiafia nights of song, dance and fire-knife performance with an umu earth-oven feast. The climate is tropical, warm and humid year-round, with a drier, more comfortable season from May to October and a wetter, warmer season from November to April. Note that Samoa lies just west of the International Date Line, so it is among the first places on earth to see each new day.