Experience the best of Upolu

Upolu is the second-largest island of Samoa but home to most of its people, with the capital, Apia, on its north coast. A mountainous spine of forest runs along the island, falling to a coast of coral reefs, black-rock headlands and white-sand beaches. Robert Louis Stevenson spent his last years in a house on the slopes above Apia, now a museum, and is buried on the summit of Mount Vaea.

On the south coast the To Sua Ocean Trench is a deep swimming hole of clear water reached by a ladder, and Lalomanu Beach has pale sand and open-sided beach fales. Waterfalls tumble through the forest, and the Piula Cave Pool is a spring-fed swimming pool in a cave. Small islands, Manono and Apolima, sit in the strait toward Savai'i.

Fa'a Samoa, the Samoan way, shapes daily life, with villages of open-sided fales, church on Sundays with hymn singing, and food cooked in an earth oven called an umu: taro, breadfruit, fish and palusami, coconut cream baked in taro leaves. The climate is warm all year, with a drier season that suits the beaches and a wet season of heavy rain.