Travel Guide Maiao

Three hundred inhabitants barely gathered on a lost island 75 km west of Moorea, around a small 154 m mountain surrounded by a motu and two lagoons - Roto Iti and Roto Rahi. A quiet and happy little paradise of 9 km, which has deliberately chosen to live isolated from Tahiti by opposing the construction of an airport. Reclusive, the inhabitants decided that it would be forbidden to stay there. Two passes still allow small boats to pass through, the only links with the world for its inhabitants, who still live in the Polynesia of yesteryear, free from the constraints of civilization and devoted to traditional occupations such as harvesting copra and weaving pandanus, the island's main resource.