Planning a family trip to Fiji? TripNest turns it into its own app: 9 narrated story podcasts about Fiji for the drive, games and a quiz for the kids, an audio phrasebook, and the day-by-day plan and map the whole family shares.
How one word became a whole way of greeting people
In Fiji, strangers call out "Bula!" from boats, gardens and passing trucks. We find out why the same word means both "hello" and "life", and what happens when you say it back. By the end you will be shouting it too.
How volcanoes and tiny animals built a country
Some Fijian islands are old volcanoes with sharp green peaks. Others are flat rings of sand built by creatures smaller than your fingernail. Learn how to tell them apart just by looking at the horizon.
Hot stones, banana leaves and a very patient wait
First you dig a pit. Then you heat stones until they glow, wrap the food in leaves and bury the whole meal. Hours later the lovo is opened and everyone crowds around - we describe exactly what comes out.
Performances that remember what happened
Before writing arrived in Fiji, dances carried the news. A meke can tell about a long canoe voyage, a storm, or a visitor from far away. Listen for how the hands do most of the talking.
Parrotfish, clams and the fish that cleans other fish
Put your face in the water off a Fijian beach and a whole town appears. There are fish that crunch coral and turn it into sand, and tiny ones that run cleaning stations for bigger customers. Here is who to look for first.
The drua and the art of reading the sea
Long before satellites, Pacific sailors found tiny islands using stars, swells and the flight paths of birds. Fiji built some of the largest sailing canoes in the Pacific, called drua. We look at how they worked.
Barefoot games on the grass to Olympic gold
In Fiji, rugby is played on beaches, in village clearings and between coconut palms. When the sevens team won Olympic gold, the whole country stopped to watch. Find out what makes Fijian sevens so fast.
A green lizard on the far side of the Pacific
Most iguanas live in the Americas, thousands of kilometres away - so how did they end up in Fiji? Scientists are still arguing about it. Meet the crested iguana and the island that keeps it safe.
How Fiji became a place of villages, temples and cities
Fiji's story includes ocean voyagers, sugarcane farms, families who arrived from India, and independence in 1970. Today you might hear Fijian, Fiji Hindi and English on the same street. Here is how that came to be.
Taveuni / Viti Levu / Vanua Levu / Kadavu
Goodbye / Hello and life / Please / Beach
A wooden drum / A sailing canoe / A feast cooked in an underground oven / A kind of coral
The Fiji podcast has 9 narrated story episodes for the car or the plane: Bula! The Word That Opens Every Door, Islands Made by Fire and Coral, The Feast Cooked Underground, Drums, Dance and the Story Inside a Meke, Under the Reef, Canoes That Crossed an Ocean, A Country in Love with Rugby, The Iguana Nobody Expected and One Country, Many Homes.
"Thank you very much.", said THANK yoo VEH-ree much. It's one of the phrases in the Fiji audio phrasebook, recorded so the kids can hear it before they try it.
911 (Emergency (all services)) and 917 (Police). TripNest puts it in your trip's contacts page next to your own contacts.
Every trip starts free: the day-by-day plan, map and contacts. Premium adds the Fiji podcasts, kids' games and the audio phrasebook for $24, once per trip - no subscription.
No. Your trip is one link that opens on everyone's phone, grandparents included, without an account. You can add it to your home screen so it works offline once you land.