The general expense of everything in the isolated marine environment of Wallis & Futuna is likely to induce anxiety attacks in hardcore budget travellers - if there's a chance this could apply to you, give your nerves a break and just resign yourself to the fact that US$100.00 a day is going to be your absolute minimum expenditure if you stay in the cheapest of the country's 50 hotel rooms and eat only sandwiches or out of supermarkets. This amount doesn't, however, take into consideration the hire of a car or motorcycle/scooter to get around either island, or the cost of a flight (or with any luck a catamaran ride in the near future) between the two main bits of ground.

Considering the fact that there are only two banks in the country (neither of them at the airport) and that only the one in Mata Utu makes a habit of being open every weekday, it's best to have decent reserves of cash on hand when you jet in. The most practical currency to bring is CFP - travellers cheques can be exchanged at the banks, but each transaction is accompanied by a horrific US$10.00 commission. All that said, the banks can (if they're open) give you up to US$235.00 a week in Visa or MasterCard advances.

Oh, and automatic tipping and aggressive haggling are undiscovered species here - don't introduce them or you'll ruin the local ecosystem.

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