Samoa has some of the most beautiful and enticing islandscapes in the South Pacific. It's an opinion few travellers will disagree with once they've spent a few weeks rattling up steep rocky trails to stare into the overgrown maws of extinct craters, swished their way through the lush undergrowth of sprawling plantations to clamber into eerie lava tubes, and strapped on a mask before coming face to face with multicoloured coral and other marine life in the shallow waters of deliriously lovely lagoons. Some of the beaches are so stunning that you'll just want to fall over and pretend you're a piece of driftwood, and hidden within isolated valleys in the hinterlands are paradisal waterfalls that plunge into idyllic swimming holes. Add the rainforests and rugged sea cliffs of Upolu, and the lava flows of Savai'I into the mix, and you can begin to appreciate the enigmatic physical nature of these islands.
