The park is in the South Pacific and is not the easiest place to get to and is in a third world country. Hawaiian Airlines, in 2023, has two weekly flights into/out of the island. Monday and Thursday are your days to fly and the flights are arriving after 10pm and leaving after 11pm. The park headquarters is in Utulei and is not what you would expect from a National Park visitor center. I am calling the park an Instagram park and except that you need to be on the island for 3 or 4 nights unless you are traveling to another island in the area. The island has one main road and it runs from the airport to Utulei with an island maximum speed limit of 25MPH! The park itself has a few hiking trails and some of these trails are not even open. I was told to avoid some trails as they were under water. I was able to walk to the visitor’s center and even ran across three other groups who were on the island for the park.
The island is lush and tropical but is third world so be prepared. The tuna processing plant in Utulei is one of the largest employers in the area. One of the cool things about the island is the bus system is private busses in that the driver maybe the owner of that particular bus. The bus also is a way of expression for the driver. The bus is also a smaller vehicle that has been modified with a wooden seating area on the back of the bus and wrapped in sheet metal. Each bus is different and the fare is between $0.50 and $2 for just about anyplace you want to go.
One other interesting thing was you could use your cell phone for $2.09 per minute of voice and text messages were $0.50 per text. The crazy part was data was $2.00 per Mb, and it is not a typo. Needless to say I had my phone’s cell data off and used wi-fi when I needed the internet.
Hotels are few and far between on the island but you can find one if you need. I stayed for a night at Sadie by the sea and it was right on the water of the harbor. The rest of my stay I was at and Airbnb that was very nice. I had a screened in porch that made the house even better. A crazy custom in America Samoa is that when you die you maybe buried on your land that your house is on. In fact my house had a grave in it which you were not able to go into but could see it. The house below had two graves along with many others in the area. I had a high school below and could watch them practice football. The school had some chanting and dancing before and after school which was interesting to hear a few hundred feet above the school. The football coaches also made the players run hills up the road that I lived on and it was a steep hill.
During the evenings large bats would fly around the house and at first I thought they were birds until I saw one hanging upside down. They did not hurt anything but were interesting to watch fly. Another bird that was everywhere was the chicken and rooster. The second was making noise all day and night but they eat bugs etc. that the islanders like. The chickens eating the bugs prevents the islanders from doing anything about the growing population. Also an issue is the feral dogs and cats on the island. The dogs are much worse than the cats and you need to have a stick with you when hiking at times since the dogs are hungry looking for food. Bob Barker’s saying of “please spay and nuder your pets” has not reached this island.
Beautiful shot