Vanuatu: Getting there & around

The international airport is at Bauerfield, 10 minutes north of Port Vila. International airlines providing direct services to Vanuatu include Air Pacific, Air Vanuatu, Aircalin, Pacific Blue and Qantas. Departure tax is around US$20.00 .

By sea, cruise ships arrive on average once or twice a fortnight into Port Vila. Yachts must clear customs and immigration in Luganville or Vila before 'dropping anchor'. A less common form of ocean transport is the cargo ship, which only carries a few passengers.

Hiring cars, 4WDs and jeeps is relatively straightforward, and the taxis are plentiful and all metered. Minibuses are frequent but untimetabled; simply flag down the driver, tell him where you want to go and pay a set price per trip. Efate has around 240km (148mi) of sealed roads and Santo has 370km (230mi), but sealed doesn't mean free from potholes. Many of the roads on the outer islands are off limits during the wet season. If you want to island-hop it's usually better to fly (using Vanair, the only domestic airline); apart from a couple of well-established routes, inter-island passenger boats are irregular.