"Tonga" a Tonga Travel Page by bsfreeloader

Consisting of 171 islands covering 280 square miles, the Kingdom of Tonga lies just west of the International Date Line in the heart of the South Pacific. I spent a little over a week in Tonga in August of 2006, visiting the main island of Tongatapu and the Vava’u Group. Tonga is a refreshing place to visit – a place where the people are friendly just because they are friendly and not because they want your tourist dollars. Indeed, visiting Tonga you get the feeling that the Tongans are happy enough to have you as guests but would be equally happy without you. With incredibly rich soil that yields an abundance of fruits and vegetables, plentiful pigs and chickens roaming freely, and rich offshore marine reserves, Tongans seemingly would have no difficulty living independently from the rest of the world. While Western influences have begun to erode traditional Tongan culture, the changes to this point have been relatively minimal and the natural beauty of the islands remains intact. Tongatapu features a five kilometer stretch of geyser-like blowholes, which has to be seen to be believed. The Vava’u Group is one of the world’s best yachting and kayaking destinations, with scores of picturesque islands and sheltered lagoons. Vava’u also is one of the few places in the world where it is possible to legally swim with humpback whales, which is an amazing experience. Indeed, Tonga’s offshore waters teem with marine life, making for excellent diving and snorkeling. And you get all of this with a fraction of the tourists that you would expect for such a unique destination.