An exhilarating four-wheel-drive tour inside Bora Bora’s mountainous interior had me on the edge of my seat in more ways than one. Climbing a narrow, winding, rocky road revealed the story of this remote paradise in the middle of the South Pacific Ocean. A 50-minute flight from Tahiti, French Polynesia’s main island, brought to life the story of Bora Bora’s “accidental” fame as the pioneer of luxury tourism in the region.
Formed by the cone of an extinct volcano, Bora Bora is roughly the size of Manhattan. Legend has it that it was the “first-born” because it was the first of the Society Islands to emerge from the sea, millions of years before Tahiti. Originally called Pora Pora (Polynesian for first-born), its geography—a main island surrounded by a chain of motus or islets—explains its captivating beauty.
