{"id":13756,"date":"2017-08-28T08:13:17","date_gmt":"2017-08-28T12:13:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/?p=13756"},"modified":"2020-07-13T09:39:14","modified_gmt":"2020-07-13T13:39:14","slug":"paradise-never-heard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/blog\/paradise-never-heard\/","title":{"rendered":"The Paradise You Never Heard Of…"},"content":{"rendered":"

Niue Island, Polynesia.\u00a0 Have you ever seen the ocean turn day-glo pink?\u00a0 It does here naturally during a sunset (this is not photoshopped).<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

Niue (new-way) is the Polynesian paradise you\u2019ve never heard of .<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

Niue \u2013 Polynesian for “Hey, guys, there are coconuts here!” \u2013 the first thing the original discoverers exclaimed when they landed from Samoa a thousand years ago, is called “The Rock of Polynesia,” as it\u2019s a raised coral atoll, 100 square miles of old limestone between 60 and 200 feet high.<\/p>\n

Rainwater collects in underground pools in deep limestone caverns, creating a “water lens” of fresh water of enormous size, one of the world\u2019s biggest.\u00a0 An Olympic swimming pool holds 650,000 gallons.\u00a0 Niue\u2019s water lens may contain a million Olympic swimming pools of pure fresh water, continuously replenished by abundant rainfall.<\/p>\n

Yet, Niue remains the Paradise Never Found.\u00a0 If you\u2019re like most everyone else, you\u2019ve dreamed of going to the South Pacific.\u00a0 All your life you\u2019ve heard of Tahiti or Samoa or Fiji, quite possibly Tonga or Rarotonga.<\/p>\n

Odds are, however, you have never ever heard of this place, even though it\u2019s smack dab in the center of Polynesia, right between the Cook Islands (Rarotonga) and Tonga, and south of Samoa.\"Consumer<\/a><\/p>\n

How come?\u00a0 The island is uniquely fabulous.\u00a0 As a huge limestone rock with no silty river runoff, the water is incredibly clear \u2013 visibility can reach over 200 feet.\u00a0 There are a multitude of chasms through which you clamber to these out-of-a-movie tidal pools perfect for snorkeling surrounded by colorful reef fish.\u00a0 The limestone cliffs encircling the coast are riddled with caves with multicolored stalactites and stalagmites.<\/p>\n

You can snorkel or dive with spinner dolphins and humpback whales.\u00a0 The big game fishing is world class \u2013 within a few hundred yards off shore.\u00a0 The Niueans are unfailingly friendly and welcoming, the places to stay and the food and beer is inexpensive, the weather is balmy perfect \u2013 and no one is here, the economy is dying on the vine in the middle of the world\u2019s tourism paradise.\u00a0 Why?<\/p>\n

Because you can\u2019t get here.<\/p>\n

You can\u2019t fly here from Tonga, just 375 miles away.\u00a0 You can\u2019t fly here from Samoa, just 380 miles away.\u00a0 You can\u2019t fly here from Rarotonga in the Cook Islands, 675 miles away.\u00a0 Look at the map above.\u00a0 The\u00a0only\u00a0way to fly here is from\u00a0Auckland New Zealand\u00a01,500 miles away and back.<\/p>\n

The “government” of Niue pretends it\u2019s “the world\u2019s smallest independent nation,” and even suckered\u00a0Lonely Planet<\/a>\u00a0into believing it.\u00a0 The reality is that Niue is a total absolute colony of New Zealand \u2013 Niueans are NZ citizens with NZ passports, there is no Niuean citizenship, there are no Niuean passports.<\/p>\n

The Kiwis insist on maintaining a total monopoly of access to Niue \u2013 while constantly complaining how much money they spend on subsidizing Niue and its people.<\/p>\n

As a result, over 90% of Niueans live in New Zealand now, some 22,000, while less than 2,000 live here, their homeland.\u00a0 Every village has more abandoned homes, empty wrecked roofless shells, than lived-in homes.<\/p>\n

This place should be booming.\u00a0 Tourism is the biggest business in the world (add it all up \u2013 airlines, hotels, rental cars, restaurants, trains, buses, tour companies, etc. \u2013 you\u2019ll quickly see why).\u00a0 A vacation in a Polynesian Paradise is every traveler\u2019s dream.\u00a0 Only a government is capable of screwing this up so stupidly.<\/p>\n

The really scary part is that New Zealand has one of the best run governments in the world, one of the freest economies, one of the least corrupt \u2013 so why in the world are the Kiwis determined to ruin this place and its people? \u00a0It\u2019s a real puzzle.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, here are some photos of the unique paradise of Niue. \u00a0Maybe the Kiwis will someday allow it to be easy for you to see it for yourself.<\/p>\n

\"The
Matavai Resort \u2013 Best Bargain in the Pacific<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"The
Avaiki King\u2019s Pool where only the royalty were allowed to swim<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"The
Matapa Chasm<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"The
Limu Pools<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"The
Palaha Sea Cave<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"The
A friendly Niue Face<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Jack Wheeler is the founder of\u00a0Wheeler Expeditions<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Niue Island, Polynesia.\u00a0 Have you ever seen the ocean turn day-glo pink?\u00a0 It does here naturally during a sunset (this is not photoshopped). Niue (new-way) is the Polynesian paradise you\u2019ve never heard of . Niue \u2013 Polynesian for “Hey, guys, there are coconuts here!” \u2013 the first thing the original discoverers exclaimed when they landed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":366,"featured_media":13762,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[23221,2924,23224,17286,9005,23223,14607,4609,23219,23222,7368,25271,23225,23220,10262,15904,1869,25270,2018,9517],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/jpeg-1-9.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13756"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/366"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13756"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13756\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33928,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13756\/revisions\/33928"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13756"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=13756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}