For whatever reason, I’m seriously considering celebrating the New Year in Samoa and American Samoa. I can’t decide whether this is stupid, fun, or stupid fun. One thing is for sure — I need to add this to my list of cool avgeek experience.
Samoa & American Samoa are 24 hours apart
I’m sure everyone is familiar with the concept of “time travel flights,” whereby a flight lands before it takes off, based on local time. This is all possible thanks to the International Date Line, so this can happen when traveling west to east across the Pacific.
For example, United operates a flight from Guam to Honolulu, which takes off in the morning, and arrives the previous evening, allowing you to celebrate the New Year twice.
However, when it comes to timezone arbitrage opportunities for celebrating the New Year, there’s nothing quite like Samoa and American Samoa. The islands’ airports are just 93 miles apart, and the time at both airports is the same… except they’re on different days.
So when it’s 12PM on January 1 in Samoa, it’s 12PM on December 31 in American Samoa. Samoa Airways operates flights between the two airports, which are blocked at around 45 minutes. This means you could leave Apia, Samoa (APW) at 1PM on January 1, and arrive in Pago Pago, American Samoa (PPG) at 1:45PM on December 31.
So while there are lots of places you can travel between to have a New Year that lasts for more than 24 hours, this is the only combination where you could have a full 48-hour New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day celebration.
I’m coming at this more from the angle of finding it to be an entertaining way to spend the New Year, as someone who is usually asleep well before midnight. So I don’t care how big or small the celebration is in either place, I’m intrigued either way.
Considering the logistics of a Samoa trip
Getting between Samoa and American Samoa is easy enough, though perhaps the bigger challenge is actually getting to and from these small South Pacific islands:
- You can most easily get to Apia, Samoa, on Air New Zealand from Auckland (AKL), Fiji Airways from Honolulu (HNL) or Nadi (NAN), or Qantas or Virgin Australia from Brisbane (BNE)
- You can most easily leave Pago Pago on Hawaiian Airlines to Honolulu (HNL), or otherwise can backtrack to Apia, and fly from there
As you can see, there are a decent number of options, but I imagine around the New Year, fares will be pretty high across the board, given that it’s also generally peak season for the South Pacific (in terms of holidays and weather).
To those who have been to Samoa and/or American Samoa, any opinions on how the experience was? How much time should one spend at each destination? Is one destination much more interesting than the other? The islands certainly look beautiful…
In terms of lodging, there’s the Sheraton Samoa Beach Resort, which is a fun points angle to this trip. Meanwhile in American Samoa, it looks like lodging options are a bit more limited, not surprisingly, since it’s less of a tourist destination. Anyone have any thoughts on the best place to stay there?
Bottom line
While there are lots of flights that allow “time travel,” nothing can compare to flying from Apia, Samoa, to Pago Pago, American Samoa, where the clock goes back a full 24 hours. That’s cool any day, though especially cool if you’re traveling for the New Year, where you can have a 48-hour New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day celebration.
I can’t help but be intrigued, and at least ask the OMAAT community if anyone has any insights, as I consider maybe, possibly planning a trip like this.
Anyone else fascinated by the Samoa & American Samoa New Year celebration opportunity?
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