“Tuvalu mo te Atua“
For a country that popped up on my radar in such a short span of time, I found myself in love with Tuvalu well before I ever arrived. There is only one other country where that happened to me before, and that was Greece. But Tuvalu was different. I discovered it sometime before leaving for New Zealand from Hawaiʻi, during a period when I was barely getting back on my feet after my Achilles surgery. My original Pacific Islands plan had been American Samoa > Samoa > Fiji > Kiribati > Tonga. Tuvalu was not even on my radar, just like for most people. But that time spent recovering off my feet led me into this unique group of low-lying Polynesian islands in the heart of the Pacific, and the curiosity woke up fast.
A year goes by and with my New Zealand working holiday visa up,it was finally time for that long-awaited Pacific trip on two healthy feet. After seven months of ordinary jobs in New Zealand, I had carved out a budget for the islands I wanted most, including Tuvalu. By then I had already traveled through Tonga, sailed west, and explored Fiji by boat and on foot. I had started adapting to Pacific Island life through village stays, new languages, and the warmth of people across the ocean. Then came the string of onward tickets required by Pacific immigration rules, and eventually, finally, Tuvalu.
A New Perspective: Life on an Atoll
I’ve flown across a small fraction of the world and I will always love a good window seat. But arriving into Funafuti was one of the most unbelievable sights of my life. Seeing an atoll in photos is one thing. Seeing one with your own eyes is something else entirely. Everyday life squeezed onto land barely several hundred meters wide and only a couple of meters above sea level changes your whole perspective. It makes climate, geography, and daily survival feel very real very quickly.
Then you open the plane door and step into some of the hottest air you’ve felt in a very long time. It becomes obvious fast why doing as little as possible in direct sun from around noon to mid-afternoon is a very smart idea. But what really struck me was the surreal feeling of hearing the calm water of the lagoon on one side, then just a few steps away hearing the violence of the open ocean. Funafuti felt more built up than I had imagined, which honestly wasn’t a bad thing. Solar power, water tanks, motorbikes dominating the skinny roads, and fresh lagoon fish acting like the island supermarket — it all gave me a very different understanding of what atoll life actually feels like.
Tuvaluan Food Is So Good
Speaking of fish, the food in Tuvalu was one of the best surprises.
I’ve spent a fraction of my life as a fat kid with a huge appetite, but over the years I’ve grown more used to just eating when it’s time to eat. In Tuvalu I didn’t find myself eating especially heavy, but I was constantly fed. Locals kept insisting I eat more and more, and the food was simple yet so damn good. That’s one thing I really appreciated there: even with limited resources, Tuvaluans seemed to manage pretty well without depending too heavily on imports. Of course rice and certain outside foods are there, but I never found people just constantly cracking open tin fish and corned beef as the default the way outsiders might assume.
The lagoon provides fish like clockwork, and my god, it was good. I had black marlin cooked umu style, raw fish fresh out of the water, baked tuna, taro, pumpkin, breadfruit, rice, and a lot of coconut-based combinations that somehow always hit. One of the best simple meals I had was fresh fish with coconut cream, curry, and rice. As for drink, they don’t exactly have a brewery scene, but kao — a natural alcoholic drink from the branch of a coconut tree — definitely made an impression. Nine cups one night was more than enough for me to know when to stop and get myself home.
The Beauty is out of this world!
The lagoon provides fish like clockwork, and my god, it was good. I had black marlin cooked umu style, raw fish fresh out of the water, baked tuna, taro, pumpkin, breadfruit, rice, and a lot of coconut-based combinations that somehow always hit. One of the best simple meals I had was fresh fish with coconut cream, curry, and rice. As for drink, they don’t exactly have a brewery scene, but kao — a natural alcoholic drink from the branch of a coconut tree — definitely made an impression. Nine cups one night was more than enough for me to know when to stop and get myself home.
The true beauty, though, lay off the main island and out on the motus within the atoll. I knew I couldn’t leave Tuvalu without somehow seeing more of the atoll itself, especially knowing I wasn’t going to make the outer islands on that trip. So I went to the island council, negotiated 150 AUD for a ride to one of the islands, and ended up getting far more than I expected. Because the drivers thought I was a good guy, they took me into the conservation area for free and basically gave me a near-full tour of the atoll. Blue water, green islands, soft sand, jungle, World War II remnants, snorkeling, fresh coconut, and finally lunch in Funafala under cover from the brutal midday sun — that was Tuvaluan paradise. Not some generic paradise. Tuvaluan paradise.
Rich Culture Surrounds You
It’s not like everything in Funafuti is far away, but even so, culture surrounds you in a way that feels constant. It becomes part of your day before you even realize it. It doesn’t take much before you find yourself sitting in someone’s home, welcomed in like family, watching the life of the island move around you. One of the highlights, being invited to sit in the middle of a fetele – of of my favorite cultural experiences that eventually paved the way to voyage Tokelau.
I just loved sitting back and people-watching — women riding mopeds in their colorful sulus and fau o aliki, families moving through the day, and the general pulse of village life on the atoll.
It’s not like everything in Funafuti is far away, but even so, culture surrounds you in a way that feels constant. It becomes part of your day before you even realize it. It doesn’t take much before you find yourself sitting in someone’s home, welcomed in like family, watching the life of the island move around you. I loved just sitting back and people-watching — women riding mopeds in their colorful sulus and fau o aliki, families moving through the day, and the general pulse of village life on the atoll.
I had thought connecting with people would mostly happen on foot, the way it often does. I was wrong. Renting the motorbike and riding from end to end actually opened the island up even more. At one stop for photos, I got invited over for conversation, fish, fikei for lunch, and even a little Tuvaluan language lesson. On my last day, one friend gave me fresh sweets at the airport, and another who worked there gifted me a shell necklace as a farewell. That says everything about Funafuti. It’s so small that it doesn’t take much to make real connections. The people may be shy at first, but like much of the Pacific, if you show kindness with a genuine smile and wave, you are quickly treated as friend, as family. The warmth of the people there was on another level.
You Won’t Want to Leave
When you get a taste of something you end up loving but don’t get enough of it, the craving becomes intense. That was exactly how Tuvalu felt to me. I simply wanted more. More time, more budget, more island, more people, more of that little atoll life. Even staying one more week on Funafuti would have helped before heading off to voyage in Kiribati. But had I had the extra money and time, I would have taken the ferry straight to the outer islands to experience the deeper Tuvalu I know is still waiting for me. Maybe Vaitupu, maybe Nanumea, maybe somewhere else entirely. All I know is that my first experience in Tuvalu was cut far too short.
And that’s what says the most. Tuvalu was already a dream country before I arrived, but once I was there it turned out to be even better than I had imagined. That doesn’t happen often. The beauty, the people, the simplicity, the culture, the atoll itself, all of it exceeded what I had built up in my mind. I can’t wait to return and give Tuvalu the fuller visit it deserves. And guess what, the return is definitely happening.
Fetaui Tuvalu. Until next time.
Check out my complete voyage on Youtube!
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This work is part of One Ocean, One People, a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to documenting and sharing Pacific Island cultures and stories. All support helps fund fieldwork, travel to remote islands, and the production of educational storytelling across Oceania.
