Lonely Planet has made the Cook Islands one of the most attractive destinations for 2022. The Cook Islands lie in the Pacific Ocean, in Polynesia, near New Zealand and vertically down below Hawaii.
These are 15 volcanic islands that cover two million square kilometers of the Pacific Ocean, in an area the size of Europe.
Their largest island is called Rarotonga. You can arrive in the archipelago with Air Rarotonga or Air New Zealand from Auckland, New Zealand (flight takes four hours). You can also take a flight from San Francisco (this prolongs the trip a bit, as the flight takes almost ten hours). Flights to the Cook Islands are also offered by Air Tahiti (Tahiti Islands are only 2.5 hours away).
I flew in from Auckland with Air Rarotonga. As these are very small islands, Air Rarotonga's largest aircraft has only 34 seats and the smallest only three. When you arrive on the island, you are greeted by a flower necklace around your neck. Usually, you are met at the airport by the person with whom you booked accommodation, but you can also get out of the airport by Rarotonga bus.
The bus in Rarotonga has only one road. The bus drives clockwise or counterclockwise. Since the island is sparsely populated, of course there is no crowd on the bus. Locals mostly use motorcycles to ride around the island, usually without a helmet. As I walked along the road and admired the palm trees, coconuts, and the greenery of the island, everyone stopped their motorbike and offered me a ride. The archipelago isn’t densely populated, and the residents really enjoy meeting new people, so I had a free ride around the island.
The island itself is quite mountainous, and in the middle of it, the most famous mountains of this island, Te Rua Manga or, in translation, the Needle, rises vertically towards the sky. The mountain can be accessed from both ends of the island. The typical starting point is in Avarua, the capital of Rarotonga. The trail leads 1.5 km from Avarua or 1.7 km from Papua Falls. It’s easy to follow the trail at the beginning, but it becomes steeper as you approach the Needle.
The island’s most beautiful beaches are Aroa, Turoa, Tikioki and Muri. The most visited is Muri Beach, as it also has some smaller atolls in the Muri Lagoon, which you can swim to if you’re a great swimmer or visit them with a small boat that goes there daily. I lived right next to Muri Beach, overlooking the atolls. A little south of the Muri are some great snorkel spots where you can observe colorful fish. To swim with the turtles, however, it was necessary to rent a boat and go to a little deeper water.
Tourists in Rarotonga were very diverse, from older to younger couples, there were also many solo travelers who set out to dedicate a few days to the Cook Islands on their way to or from New Zealand. Most of them stayed on the main island of Rarotonga, and the lucky few (including myself), also hopped over to the most beautiful island in the world during their visit to the Cook Islands, and the name of this island is Aitutaki.
Aitutaki is a small island where everything revolves around a lagoon. Both the underwater and the surface world of the Aitutaki Lagoon are incredibly beautiful. The highest peak of the island is Maungapu Hill and is only 124 meters high.
After breakfast, I went to lie down on my private beach for a while, and then went for a walk around the island. On foot, so that I could admire every palm tree and every house, brick, or wood. The interesting thing about the island is that there are very few inhabitants. Therefore, everyone is ready to talk, and they also offer you transport when they see you walking (of course, motorcycle transport). There are very few cars on the island as well. I walked past the trees and noticed that in almost half of the island they were damaged. The downside of such islands is that they can be quickly destroyed by tsunamis and tropical storms.
I spent the next day in a lagoon, and the only island where a tourist boat can land inside the lagoon is called One Foot Island. The island offers tourists an interesting souvenir at the post office, which is set up there for tourists every day. Bring your passport with you and they will stamp the very cool One Foot Island logo on it (which is in the shape of a foot).
Another interesting thing is that when I flew to Rarotonga from Auckland, New Zealand, I jumped back for a day – flew on Wednesday, and arrived on Tuesday. The Cook Islands are actually 23 hours behind New Zealand time.
The only thing worth considering when visiting this archipelago is that these islands can be quite expensive (at least for our Slovenian salaries). Since they’re very remote, it’s of course necessary to bring things to the island, which increases the prices of products. Lunch or dinner at the restaurant will cost you around 30 New Zealand dollars. But for two weeks of exotic paradise once in a lifetime, that’s also feasible, don’t you think?
To conclude, let me just say hurry up and visit the Cook Islands. You won't be sorry.
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