Samoa might not specialise in five-star, high-end luxury accommodation, but it does offer a range of boutique resorts in beautiful locations, run by people who are passionate about Samoa and all it has to offer guests — rich culture, white sand beaches, blue lagoons, surf, tropical jungle, freshwater pools and much more.
For those looking for a more authentic experience, beach fale accommodation allows you to stay at some of Samoa’s best beaches at a fraction of the cost of a resort.
New Zealanders Lou and Gavin Brightwell always dreamed of owning a resort and, after visiting Samoa many years ago, they recognised this former coconut plantation on Upolu’s east coast, a one-hour drive from the airport, as a special place and the ideal spot to make their dream a reality.
Saletoga Sands is a four-star family-friendly resort, with a secure lagoon for swimming, a big central pool area with swim-up bar, a very nice-looking day spa and fitness centre and a selection of modern rooms, from Beach Front Villas (the most popular) to Exclusive Villas (which are adults only and circle a pretty garden area).
The rooms are beautifully appointed, with ocean, pool or garden views, and outdoor showers. Gavin and Lou are hands-on at the resort; Lou can be spotted at the kitchen pass most evenings, and Gavin is a constant fixture clocking up miles as he gets things done around the property.
“We wanted to buy a boutique lodge and work for six months of the year,” Gavin says of his early vision for Saletoga, “but I’ve bitten off a bit more than that with 76 rooms.” Saletoga was originally 25 rooms but has grown to include the villas from what was Hideaway Resort next door. “It was a bit rough around the edges so we’ve gotten it back to international standards and replanted the gardens,” says Gavin.
The gardens are pristine, with colourful and fragrant frangipanis and hibiscus planted along winding paths bordered by lush palms and grass, and it’s only when Gavin mentions that a king tide destroyed much of the resort’s waterfront area last year, including its iconic jetty, that you notice some of the sparse vegetation on the water’s edge.
“Samoa’s main drawcard is its natural beauty and the fact that it’s a little bit raw,” says Gavin, but tourism is undersold in Samoa, he says, and the country needs more internationally recognised resorts to set up shop to encourage more visitors. “For Kiwis, our main supporters, it’s probably the third destination on the list. But when someone says talofa to you over here, it comes from the heart. And I think that’s the difference [compared to other tourist spots].”
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Advertise with NZME.For anyone looking for a dreamy resort experience, where you can enjoy the waves lapping on white sand with a cocktail in hand as the sun sets, this is the place for you.
Saletoga Sands, Main South Coast Rd, Upolu
Seabreeze Resort is an adults-only idyll nestled into a secluded, sheltered bay called Paradise Cove. It’s blessed with a picture-perfect lagoon with a striking outer reef and smaller islands dotted around the bay.
Seabreeze’s 12 luxury villas are elevated above a lagoon, positioned around a central swimming pool with lovely ocean views. Its Honeymoon Point Villa takes things to the next level, set farther away from the rest of the accommodation, and perched on a cliff face that seems to float above the waves. It has its own plunge pool and a deck with 180-degree views and a big daybed.
Chris and Wendy Booth opened Seabreeze in 2007, having fallen for Samoa’s charms after many visits and an extended stay in 2003. Seabreeze was built from the ground up by Chris (an Australian Master Builder) and a team of local carpenters and began to gain a loyal following. But its enviable oceanfront position also meant it was vulnerable to the 2009 tsunami, which had a devastating impact on the resort. After two years of hard work to rebuild, it reopened in 2011, and is what Chris and Wendy describe as “the ultimate in boutique luxury”.
If guests can tear themselves away from the pool there is a stunning waterfront restaurant where the resort’s name Seabreeze feels particularly fitting, which is open for breakfast, lunch and dinner (expert to find fairly standard resort fare here, like pasta, burgers and steak). Romantic indeed.
Seabreeze, Main South Rd, Aufaga, Upolu
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Advertise with NZME.Named after the classic 1953 Hollywood film Return to Paradise, starring Gary Cooper, Barry Jones and Roberta Haynes, it’s the beach that put this Samoan-owned resort in Lefaga on the map. White sand, aqua-blue water, coconut trees; it has all the hallmarks of a tropical paradise.
Return to Paradise offers what it describes as Samoan-style rooms, suites and villas, and is one of the more renowned resorts in Upolu, with a pool, spa, restaurant, beach bar, and even a chapel. Visitors enjoy weekly fia fia nights (a cultural show with local performers) and Thursday night screenings of the film over drinks and dinner, “Gold Class style”.
The beachfront rooms are the most popular and open directly onto that famous white sand, while the two- and three-bedroom garden and beachfront villas are popular with families, some of whom book them for extended periods of time, the generously sized rooms offering a comfortable stay with a lounge, kitchenette and dining area.
The garden view rooms are the more affordable option, housed in a two-storey complex further back from the beach, and having stayed in both the villas and the rooms, these feel a bit tired in comparison. Sunsets are best enjoyed at Rock Pool Bar, which is a traditional Samoan fale with an extensive deck that provides lots of private spots to enjoy a happy hour cocktail.
Return to Paradise, Lefaga, Matautu, Upolu
Savaii
Amoa is “not a cookie-cutter resort”, says sales and marketing manager Elizabeth Siaosi of the four-star boutique resort across the road from an impressive blue lagoon in Savaii. “Everything has been made from a lot of passion and hard work.”
Amoa began as beach fales in the 1980s, offering beds for tourists who found themselves stranded in Savaii but wanted to sleep opposite the beautiful view. Today it features 27 comfortable rooms, a mix of Deluxe Bungalows and Poolside Villas and Family Poolside Villas. A suite of new Garden Rooms was open just a week during our visit, decorated in a more minimal, modern style than some of the traditional rooms with their tropical outdoor showers and rich wood detailing. “Samoans don’t like the open showers,” says Elizabeth, “they live their whole life in open fales so they like the closed spaces.”
The rooms are positioned around pristine gardens, a swimming pool with a swim-up bar, and a restaurant serving local seafood and produce. The food here was some of the better resort food we experienced in Samoa, and prides itself on serving Samoan/Pacific cuisine with locally sourced and organic produce. A standout dish was freshly caught fish atop taro mash, with a lime and coconut sauce, spinach and sea grapes.
Across the road is the resort’s jetty, with a semi-circular viewing deck and picnic tables with umbrellas, where you can jump off at high tide, or climb down the ladder and dive in. The water is an unbelievable shade of aqua. Further up the road are beach fales, which Amoa can book for guests. “Fales are the best thing ever,” says Elizabeth, “you have to experience falling asleep in a fale, or sitting and observing village life.”
Elizabeth says Savaii is undersold, and not known about among many visitors to Samoa. “Every guest that comes here says ‘we wish we’d stayed longer’. It’s a little bit off the beaten track and there might not be as many luxuries but you’ll have an authentic experience, which is the whole of Savaii — put a circle around it — we have more of the real thing happening. There’s magic that happens everywhere in Savaii, and it’s real, it’s authentic, it’s not put on. The food, the ocean, the plantations, it’s all organic. It’s a really nice place to be.”
Amoa, North Coast Rd, Siufafa Faga, Savaii
Le Lagoto (Samoan for sunsets) is a boutique resort in a prime position on Savaii’s impressive north coast, a 45-minute drive from the Salelolonga wharf. The restaurant and rooms are all designed in the style of a traditional Samoan fale with rounded pitched roofs and pillars made from coconut tree trunks. There are 10 bungalows, five of them beachfront, with richly decorated interiors including thatched timber ceilings, vertical timber battens and woven floor mats. Rooms are comfortable, air-conditioned and have a writing desk, chairs, TV and a fridge. For families, there are two houses available to rent. Le Lagoto’s Vailili Restaurant is open daily and on Thursday nights offers a buffet dinner and fia fia cultural show, with a Polynesian barbecue on Sundays. Note there is no Wi-Fi here.
Le Lagoto, Fagamalo, Savaii. Email lelagotoreservations@samoa.ws
Aganoa is a renowned surf spot in Savaii, where an outer reef 100m from shore creates peeling, ridable barrels and a beautiful inner lagoon for swimming, surrounded by colourful coral and tropical fish. This is the special location of Aganoa Lodge, a low-key surf camp that welcomes surfers from all over the world to stay in its eight open-air fales. When we visited, the couple who own the lodge was overseas and it was closed to guests, but it’s set to re-open later in 2023. This spot is fairly remote and low-key, so expect the basics done well.
Aganoa Beach, Salelologa, Samoa. Email support@pegasuslodges.com
Fales
Another way to experience Fa’a Samoa (the Samoan way of life) is to spend some time in a beach fale, which are everywhere in Samoa and a concept I challenge you not to fall in love with. These colourful, thatched roof structures provide shade and a lovely place to hang out, snooze, or even stay the night. Ranging from basic open-air fales to fully enclosed buildings, they’re an accommodation option that offers the romance of camping with some of the amenities of a hotel.
In a fale, you can stay at some of the island’s best beaches at a fraction of the cost of the resorts. They can be enjoyed for an hour, a day, or overnight, and some of the more elaborate fales have air conditioning, ensuite bathrooms and set meals. Many fale operators provide a woven mat for the floor, a mosquito net, a mattress if you’d like one, and roll-down blinds for privacy and shade. You can also order snacks and drinks, like fresh coconuts. It’s heaven.
Tanu Beach Fales
The location of Tanu Beach Fales is breathtaking, on Savaii’s north coast in the village of Manase, not far from Le Lagoto Resort and Spa and the Saleaula lava fields. Here, there are wooden steps leading down to an impossibly aqua lagoon which is great for snorkelling and known for its turtle spottings. Opened in 1993, these 28 neon green and yellow fales each have their own name, and have roll-down blinds made from coconut leaves. We experienced lovely hospitality here, with cold coconuts on arrival and a nice chat with the family who owns the Tanu Beach Fales. It has a bar, restaurant and a shop, and shared facilities like showers and toilets (that are fairly rustic). This would be a good place to base yourself for a day or two to experience the magic of Savaii and isn’t far from surrounding resorts if you feel like a cocktail.
North Coast Rd, Savaii, Samoa. Phone +685 54050
Taufua Beach Fales
Lalomanu Beach’s yellow and turquoise fales, on the south coast of Upolu, are some of Samoa’s most popular, after it was voted the top 10 beach destination in the world by Lonely Planet. It’s a primo spot for swimming, with the jungle-covered outer island Nu’utele in the distance.
We spent the morning at family-owned Taufua Beach Fales, enjoying the breeze and reading and relaxing in between swims. This area of the island was badly affected by a tsunami in 2009, which saw devastating 4.5m waves crash into the surrounding villages, wiping out Taufua. It has been rebuilt since then, including a new restaurant, and some new fales further inland. Signs of the destruction are visible, with abandoned houses and patchy vegetation, and at Lalomanu, the coconut trees are still growing to the height they once were. Despite this, it’s a gorgeous spot to swim, snorkel or kayak in the lagoon, with equipment available to hire.
Lolamanu Aleipata, Apia. Email taufuabeach@gmail.com, or phone +685 844 1051
