Bora Bora

Bora Bora: Everything a Vacation Should Be

When you picture yourself taking a vacation, what is it exactly that you see yourself doing? Are you the type who likes to spend their vacation lying around their house, catching up on some housework and all of the latest soap operas and lifetime movies that you missed due to the unfortunate fact of your employment? Do you like to travel into the mountains, living from a tent and catching your dinner, generally enjoying the experience of being completely and totally isolated from the rest of the world? Or are you the type who dreams of spending their vacation lying around on a tropical beach, watching the waves crash and the dolphins dance across the ocean surface while you sip a tropical drink and allow the tensions of your life on the mainland to seep away?

If you fall among the latter group than Bora Bora is the perfect destination. Located in French Polynesia in the South Pacific, this island paradise was once part of a US military strategy but proved to be a siren, calling to its soldiers and sailors and entreating them to stay. Many men stayed behind to enjoy the islands unique beauty and features, returning only when their family came to drag them home. Others never left at all, making their home among the islanders and leaving the bloody aftermath of the war to start a new, simpler lifestyle.

Today, Bora Bora makes its living primarily from its tourists. The opportunity to live a simple life is there, but coupled with it is a booming enterprise. Tourists are given the opportunity to sample the native cuisine and expand their horizons with many of the native products and clothing. They have a chance to learn a new language and culture and see a side of life much like their own while still being very different. They are given a rare glimpse into a way of living that they would otherwise never have dreamed existed and an outlook on life that cannot be found anywhere else in the world.

The main attraction in Bora Bora, however, is its beaches. Tourists are given the opportunity to realize their dreams of lying on white sand, watching the gulls fly above them while they sip tropical drinks and dream of never going home. They are given a chance to collect shells to show to their neighbors back home and go out on boats to take pictures of the wildlife to prove that they really did spend their vacation hundreds of miles away from home.

Most importantly, more important even that the realization of the fantasy that many of these tourists have nursed throughout the long, cold winter on the mainland, they are given the opportunity to make the kind of memories that will last a lifetime, the type that they will be able to take out when they are in their dotage and hold dear to their hearts. These will be the memories that they share with their children and their grandchildren, and will usher in a whole new generation of tourists for the people of Bora Bora.