eSIM — Tuvalu

Le volume de données dont vous avez vraiment besoin

Plan on very little for the whole visit: at best short messages while you are on Funafuti, and effectively nothing once you are on a boat or out on the other atolls. Anything that means uploading photos or joining a call is better done in Fiji, before you fly in or after you fly out.

À l'atterrissage

The only air gateway is Funafuti International (FUN) on Fongafale islet, reached by a small aircraft from Nausori airport at Suva (SUV) in Fiji on only a few days each week. The runway sits in the middle of the settlement and fills with people walking and playing sport in the evening when no flight is due. The outer islands have no airstrips at all: they are reached by the government passenger-and-cargo ships out of Funafuti wharf, an overnight-to-several-day passage whose schedule moves with the sea and with the cargo being carried.

Où la couverture change

Whatever mobile service exists is concentrated on Fongafale, the narrow strip of Funafuti atoll that holds the airstrip, the government offices and almost every guesthouse. Step off it and the picture changes completely: the hours or days at sea on the inter-island ship, outer atolls such as Nanumea, Vaitupu and Nukulaelae, and even the far side of Funafuti lagoon that you cross by small boat should all be treated as places where you cannot reach anyone until you are back in the main settlement.

Villes qui intéressent les voyageurs

• Funafuti: The capital atoll: the airstrip, the government offices and nearly every place to stay.
• Vaitupu: The largest island by land area and home of the Motufoua boarding school.
• Nanumea: The northernmost atoll, reachable only by the government ship.
• Nukufetau: An atoll north of Funafuti, with the remains of a wartime airstrip on Motulalo.
• Nukulaelae: A small atoll to the southeast and one of the least visited places in the country.

Applications à installer avant de décoller

• Organic Maps or Maps.me with Tuvalu and Fiji downloaded before you fly
• The Fiji Airways app or site to check the Suva–Funafuti flight while you still have a connection
• Facebook Messenger, which is how guesthouses and boat crews around the Pacific are actually contacted
• A notes app holding your tickets, document copies and contact numbers offline