University of the South Pacific

Lonely Planet review

With beautiful lawns and excellent facilities, the USP's Laucala Campus offers some picturesque strolling and fascinating people watching. The campus includes a small botanical garden and the Oceania Centre for Arts & Culture. This is the biggest of USP's campuses, and with more than 11,000 students it attracts attendees and staff from all over the South Pacific as well as the USA, New Zealand and Australia.

Mingling among Fijian students you're likely to see young academics from the Cook Islands, Kiribati, Tonga, Vanuatu and Western Samoa. The university itself is jointly owned by the governments of 12 Pacific countries and is a fee-paying institution. Many students rely on scholarships for which the competition is fierce.

The campus is on the site of a New Zealand seaplane base and inside the northwestern entrance, on the right, is a small botanical garden with peaceful trails winding around Pacific trees and plants. You can also visit the Oceania Centre for Arts & Culture where you can see temporary exhibits of paintings and carvings and sometimes even catch an artist at work. The Oceania Dance Theatre and other performance groups use the centre and you can usually catch a free rehearsal on weekday mornings. The centre also produces CDs of Fijian music with a modern twist.

The university's main entrance, off Laucala Bay Rd, is a 10- to 15-minute drive from downtown Suva. There are frequent buses to the USP: the Vatuwaqa bus departs opposite the Dominion House Arcade in Thomson St, near the FVB or you can hop on a Raiwaga bus from Victoria Pde.