Vanuatu

Lapita voyagers reached the islands about 3,000 years ago; the cemetery at Teouma on Efate, found in 2004, holds some of the oldest Lapita burials known. Over the following centuries the islands developed into hundreds of small, independent societies with their own languages, graded rank systems and trade links, from the pig-tusk economies of the north to the chiefly titles of Efate and the south.

The Spanish navigator Pedro Fernández de Quirós landed on Espiritu Santo in 1606, convinced he had found the great southern continent. James Cook charted the group in 1774 and called it the New Hebrides. Sandalwood traders from the 1820s, missionaries from the 1840s and then labour recruiters followed. Between the 1860s and the early 1900s, tens of thousands of ni-Vanuatu were taken to cane fields in Queensland, Fiji and New Caledonia, many by deception or force, a trade remembered as blackbirding.

British and French settlers competed for land, and in 1906 the two powers agreed to rule jointly as the Condominium. It gave the islands two police forces, two currencies, two prison systems, two school systems and a joint court, while ni-Vanuatu were citizens of neither country. Wags called it the Pandemonium. Settlers bought vast tracts of land, sometimes for a few axes, and by the 1960s land alienation drove the first political movements.

The Second World War transformed the islands. From 1942 the US built large bases on Espiritu Santo and Efate to support the Guadalcanal campaign; up to 100,000 servicemen passed through. The wealth they brought, and dumped at the end of the war, fuelled cargo movements on Tanna and elsewhere. After the war, the New Hebrides National Party led by the Anglican priest Walter Lini campaigned for independence and the return of land.

Independence came on 30 July 1980. Weeks before, the Nagriamel movement under Jimmy Stevens, with support from French settlers and American backers, declared Espiritu Santo independent as Vemerana; troops from Papua New Guinea ended the 'Coconut War'. Since then Vanuatu has had a lively parliamentary democracy with frequent changes of prime minister, and has become a leading voice on climate change, culminating in the 2025 advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice that it requested.

Kastom is the Bislama word for the customary knowledge, law and practice of each place: who owns which land and reef, how disputes are settled, what dances, songs and ceremonies belong to which family, and which places are tabu. It differs from island to island and often from village to village. The constitution recognises it, and the Malvatumauri, the National Council of Chiefs, advises government on custom matters.

Land is the heart of it. At independence all land returned to its custom owners, and foreigners can only lease it. That is why waterfalls, blue holes, beaches and caves have entry fees: you are paying the family that owns the place. It also explains land disputes that can close a site overnight, and why a friendly driver stops at a village edge to talk before you walk in.

Leadership varies across the country. In the north, men rise through graded societies (nimangki on Malekula and similar systems elsewhere) by killing pigs with curved tusks in public ceremonies; each grade gives a new title and privileges. In the centre and south, titles tend to be hereditary. Everywhere, the chief's nakamal is where men meet, drink kava and settle village business.

Over 100 languages survive, most spoken by a few thousand people or fewer, and Bislama ties them together. Sand drawing, a continuous line traced in sand or ash without lifting the finger, records stories, maps and messages, and is on UNESCO's list of intangible heritage. On Tanna and in the Malekula interior, some villages have chosen to live as kastom communities, wearing traditional dress and limiting church and school influence; visits there are arranged through the village.

Vanuatu is probably where kava was first domesticated, and its kava is the strongest in the Pacific. Unlike Fiji's dried powder, the classic Vanuatu drink is made from fresh green root, chewed or ground and squeezed through fibre with water. The effect is a heavy calm, numb lips and a desire for silence; after a second shell, many drinkers sit alone in the dark with their thoughts.

In villages the nakamal is the men's meeting ground, often a long thatched house by a banyan tree, and kava drinking there is tied to rank and ritual. In Port Vila and Luganville, hundreds of town nakamals open at dusk, marked by a light at the gate. You buy a shell at the hatch for a few hundred vatu, drink it in one go, spit and rinse if you want, and sit quietly. Women drink in town nakamals; in rural ones, custom often keeps them out.

Kava is also big business. The Kava Act allows only 'noble' varieties to be sold and exported, and bans 'tudei' (two-day) varieties whose effects linger. Exports to Fiji, New Caledonia, the US, Australia and New Zealand have grown sharply, and farmers on Pentecost, Santo and Maewo depend on it. Prices spike after cyclones destroy crops.

For visitors, one or two shells are plenty, especially of Tanna or Pentecost kava. It does not mix with alcohol or many medicines, and it is best avoided in pregnancy. Keep phones and torches down; the dim light is part of the etiquette.

Vanuatu sits where the Australian plate dives under the Pacific plate, and has about nine active volcanoes on land and several under the sea. Mount Yasur on Tanna has erupted almost continuously for centuries; Cook saw its glow in 1774. Visitors drive across a grey ash plain and walk a short, steep path to the crater rim, where lava bombs burst from vents below every few minutes. Ambrym's twin craters, Marum and Benbow, held lava lakes until a 2018 eruption drained them; Ambae's eruption in 2017–18 forced the evacuation of the whole island.

The Vanuatu Meteorology and Geo-hazards Department publishes alert levels from 0 to 5. At levels 1 and 2 guided visits to Yasur's rim go ahead; at level 3 the rim closes. The fee paid at the Yasur tourism office goes to the landowning communities around the volcano, who also run the guides.

Tanna is famous for movements that grew from the collision of kastom, missions and the war. The John Frum movement, which began around 1940 at Sulphur Bay, rejected mission rule and promised the return of kastom and of wealth from an American figure; after US troops arrived with their goods, it took on American symbols. Every 15 February followers raise the US flag and march with bamboo rifles. Nearby villages later revered Britain's Prince Philip as a spirit ancestor.

These are living beliefs, not tourist shows. John Frum Day at Sulphur Bay welcomes respectful visitors, but ask your guide how to behave and whether photos are allowed. Tanna's other draws are its coffee, its strong kava and its kastom villages, where families perform dances and show old techniques.

Each year between April and June, villages in south Pentecost build towers of up to 30 metres from saplings and vines on a cleared slope. Men and boys climb to platforms at different heights, have liana vines tied to their ankles and dive head-first; the vines, measured to the diver's height, stop them just as their heads brush the softened earth. It is done to bless the yam harvest and to show courage.

The season follows the vines: they are elastic only after the rains, from about April, and brittle by July. Each dive is preceded by chanting, stamping and whistling by the villagers below; the diver may speak before he jumps. The origin story tells of a woman who fled her husband up a tree, tied vines to her ankles and jumped, and of the husband who followed her without vines and died.

The ceremony belongs to the Sa-speaking villages of south Pentecost, and they control it. Tourist visits began in the 1970s, and fees now bring significant income; the Pentecost chiefs set rules for filming, and a 1990s dispute over commercial rights shows how seriously ownership is taken. Bungee jumping, invented in New Zealand in the 1980s, took its inspiration from the Nagol.

Visits are usually day trips by small plane from Port Vila on Saturdays, bundling flights, transfers and the viewing fee, or overnight stays in bungalows near Lonorore airstrip. Wear sturdy shoes for the slope, follow the stewards, and stand well back from the tower.

Espiritu Santo still bears the marks of the Second World War. The SS President Coolidge, a liner turned troopship, struck US mines at the entrance to Luganville's harbour in October 1942; all but two of about 5,000 men aboard got off, and the ship slid down the slope where it now lies from 20 to 70 metres deep. At Million Dollar Point, the US military dumped jeeps, bulldozers and crates into the sea in 1945 after France and Britain declined to buy them.

Cyclones are the country's recurring disaster. Pam, a Category 5 storm in March 2015, destroyed homes, gardens and water supplies across the south and centre. In 2020 Harold hit Santo and Pentecost, and in 2023 Judy and Kevin struck Efate within a week, followed by Lola in October. Each storm sets back village gardens for months, which is why visitors after a cyclone may find fewer fresh foods and higher prices.

On 17 December 2024 a magnitude 7.3 earthquake struck about 30 km from Port Vila, killing more than a dozen people, collapsing buildings in the town centre and causing landslides on the roads north. Diplomatic buildings and the port were damaged, and repairs continued through 2025 and into 2026. Visitors returned within weeks, but some sites and hotels changed as a result.

These shocks explain Vanuatu's diplomacy. The country has argued for climate finance and loss-and-damage funding, pushed a UN General Assembly request to the International Court of Justice, and welcomed the court's 2025 advisory opinion that states have legal obligations to limit climate harm. For travellers, the practical message is simple: learn the tsunami route where you stay and check VMGD alerts.