Samoa
Apia
Samoa's capital wakes to a police band marching the waterfront for the flag-raising.
The Royal Samoa Police band marches down Beach Road, and Apia pauses while the flag rises over the Government Building. By then the fish market has been trading since first light, cross-sections of yellowfin laid out beside octopus and eels. Samoa's capital runs on ceremony and salt water in roughly equal measure.
Robert Louis Stevenson spent his final years here as Tusitala, the teller of tales; his restored house at Vailima keeps its period rooms and family memorabilia, and the path Samoans cut for him, the Road of Loving Hearts, climbs Mount Vaea to a grave that overlooks the sea. In town, Maketi Fou trades siapo cloth, wood carvings and lava-lava beside the produce, and market vendors sell blocks of koko Samoa, the roasted-and-ground cocoa many call the national drink. Five minutes' walk from the centre, Palolo Deep Marine Reserve drops from a shallow lagoon into a coral-lined hole busy with reef fish. Apia is a working harbour town rather than a resort, and it is better for it.
Solo
The centre is small enough to walk before lunch, from the market stalls to the Museum of Samoa's colonial building. Hire a mask at Palolo Deep and finish the day snorkelling a reserve that begins where town ends.
Couple
Spend the morning at Vailima tracing Stevenson's Samoan years, then come back to the waterfront for the evening. A cup of koko Samoa, thick and bittersweet, makes a better souvenir ritual than anything in the gift shops.
Family
The Samoa Cultural Village walks children through umu cooking, carving and ava ceremony, no screens anywhere, and the fish market is a free spectacle at its liveliest early in the day. Papase'ea's sliding rocks wait fifteen minutes inland when energy needs burning.
Friends
Start at the fish market while the catch is still coming in, scatter along Beach Road and the flea market, and regroup over lunch. Apia is compact enough that nobody stays lost for long.
- The Royal Samoa Police band marches down Beach Road for the flag-raising at the Government Building.
- Apia's fish market lays out the morning catch from dawn, from yellowfin tuna cross-sections to octopus, crab and eel.
- Palolo Deep Marine Reserve lies a five-minute walk from town, its coral drop-off busy with reef fish.
- Blocks of koko Samoa, roasted and ground from local cocoa, sell at the markets alongside siapo cloth and carvings.
The fish market's morning catch runs from yellowfin cross-sections to octopus and eel, and the brave can try sea cucumber gizzards.
Koko Samoa, bitter cocoa simmered with sugar, arrives with cocoa butter slicked on top and pegu grounds waiting at the bottom of the cup.
Casco Viejo
Panama
Crumbling colonial balconies where jazz drifts over a skyline of glass towers.
Lamu Old Town
Kenya
Donkeys replace cars on coral-stone lanes where Swahili doors tell centuries of family history.
Lisbon
Portugal
Seven hills of crumbling azulejo façades where fado drifts from open doorways at dusk.
Matera
Italy
Cave dwellings stacked like a vertical labyrinth inside a ravine, inhabited for nine thousand years.
Saleaula Lava Fields
Samoa
The lava filled a church to its windows yet parted around a single grave.
Matavanu Crater
Samoa
A hand-kept trail climbs to the crater that buried villages; its keeper logs every visitor's country.
Alofaaga Blowholes
Samoa
Taga guides drop coconuts into the vents and the ocean fires them back like cannonballs.
Savaia Giant Clam Sanctuary
Samoa
Swim to the flag: around eighty giant clams, the largest a metre across, wait below.