When I left my job without another one lined up, everyone thought I was having a breakdown. I was. But I was also buying a one-way ticket to Bora Bora, and it turned out those two things were deeply connected — because sometimes the only way back to yourself is through somewhere impossibly beautiful. What I found there wasn’t just the turquoise lagoon and volcanic peaks you’ve seen on every screensaver; it was a place packed with real adventures, from heart-racing water sports to quiet cultural moments that hit harder than I expected. This guide walks you through the top ten things to do in Bora Bora — the experiences that will actually make the trip feel like more than just a pretty backdrop. (If you’re still in the planning-spreadsheet phase, start with my ultimate Bora Bora travel guide and come back here for the fun part.)
The Top 10 Things to Do in Bora Bora
I ranked these the only honest way I know how: by which ones I’d repeat if someone handed me a boarding pass tomorrow. Prices in French Polynesia shift with the season and the exchange rate, so treat every number below as a “expect around” figure, not a contract.
1. Swim with blacktip sharks and stingrays on a lagoon tour
This is the Bora Bora experience, and yes, it’s as surreal as it sounds: you slide off a boat into waist-deep water while stingrays glide up like friendly dinner guests and blacktip reef sharks patrol a polite distance away. Group tours typically run from around $150 per person, and the full-day versions add multiple snorkel stops plus a grilled-fish picnic on a private motu. I went in bracing for terror and came out having laughed underwater, which I didn’t know was possible. Book a small-group tour if you can — twelve people in the water feels very different from forty.
2. Snorkel the Coral Gardens
The Coral Gardens is a shallow, calm patch of lagoon stuffed with parrotfish, butterflyfish, giant clams, and one alarmingly large moray eel that I have chosen to remember fondly. It’s beginner-friendly — a basic mask and snorkel is all you need — and most lagoon tours stop here, though you can also reach it by kayak. Visibility is best in the dry season (May through October), when the water sits so still it feels like snorkeling in an aquarium someone forgot to put a lid on.
3. Claim your patch of Matira Beach
Matira is the island’s one great public beach — free, open to everyone, and sitting on Bora Bora’s southern tip about ten minutes from Vaitape. The sand slopes gently into warm, coral-free shallows, which makes it the rare place here where you can just wade in and float without a tour boat involved. Go before 8 a.m. when it belongs to the locals; by mid-morning the day-trippers arrive. There are food trucks and snack stands nearby, which — as I explain in my guide to doing Bora Bora on a budget — are the single best money-saving trick on the island.
The Sunscreen I Wish I’d Brought (Before the Lagoon Burned Me)
Bora Bora’s lagoon is so reflective that UV rays bounce off the water like a second sun—regular sunscreen melts off in saltwater within an hour, and you’ll burn through it faster than you’d think. I learned this the hard way on day two.
What works
- Actually stays on in salt water for longer than chemical sunscreen—I reapplied every 90 minutes instead of every 45, which meant fewer reapplication breaks during snorkeling.
- Doesn’t leave you feeling like a greasy mess in tropical humidity; mineral sunscreen feels lighter than the thick, oily stuff I packed expecting to need it.
- The reef actually matters—Bora Bora’s lagoon ecosystem is fragile, and switching to reef-safe feels like the least you can do after what those islands have been through.
What doesn’t
- The spray application is uneven if there’s any wind (which, spoiler: there always is on the water), so you still end up rubbing it in with your hands half the time anyway.
- It’s noticeably more expensive than drugstore brands, and a single bottle goes faster than you’d expect for a week-long trip.
I almost skipped it on my second lagoon day because I was tired of reapplying anything, but that’s when I realized the mineral formula had actually prevented the lobster-red shoulders I was sporting from getting worse. Grab the Reef Safe Mineral Sunscreen Spray SPF 50+ before you go.
4. Snorkel the Lagoonarium
The Lagoonarium is a natural lagoon enclosure on a motu where rays, blacktip sharks, and clouds of tropical fish congregate in knee-to-waist-deep water — basically the shark-and-ray experience with training wheels, and I mean that as a compliment. Most people visit it as a stop on a half- or full-day lagoon tour rather than on its own. If you’re nervous around big marine life, do this before the open-lagoon shark swim; it’s a confidence-builder disguised as a wildlife encounter.
5. Take a 4×4 safari into Bora Bora’s interior
Here’s the thing nobody tells you about Mount Otemanu: you cannot hike to the summit. The final peak is loose basalt and near-vertical cliff, so it’s off-limits — the closest you’ll get on foot is a strenuous guided hike to a cave partway up, hauling yourself along fixed ropes. The sane alternative is a 4×4 safari, typically $80–120 per person for three to four hours, which bounces you up to panoramic lookouts and the WWII-era American naval cannons still rusting above the lagoon. Mine included a stop at a small fruit-and-vanilla plantation, where I learned more Polynesian history in twenty minutes than in a week of resort brochures.
6. Walk the lagoon floor on an Aqua Safari helmet dive
Picture strolling across white sand three meters underwater wearing what looks like an astronaut helmet, breathing normally, hair somehow still dry. That’s the Aqua Safari, and it requires zero certification — you don’t even need to know how to swim. Expect around $155 per person for the excursion, with roughly 30 minutes underwater in the middle of a coral garden while an instructor keeps watch. It’s the one big-ticket water activity I’d recommend to people who insist they’re “not water people.”
7. Circle the island by jet ski
A guided jet-ski circuit of the lagoon runs about two hours and typically costs $180–240, with stops for swimming and, on my tour, a coconut-husking demonstration performed with genuinely intimidating speed. You ride single file behind a guide, so it’s less “reckless speed demon” and more “very fast sightseeing” — Mount Otemanu keeps photobombing from every angle. If you only splurge on one adrenaline activity, this one delivers the most lagoon per dollar.
8. Paddleboard or kayak at sunrise
At dawn the lagoon goes glassy, the tour boats haven’t started, and the whole island is quiet enough to hear your paddle drip. Rentals run around $20–40 per hour, and if you’re staying at a resort, kayaks and paddleboards are often free with your room — one of the sneaky perks I cover in my guide to Bora Bora’s best overwater bungalows. This was my favorite free-ish hour of the entire trip, and I say that as someone who fell off the board twice before figuring out where to stand.
9. Toast the day on a sunset cruise
Sunset cruises — by catamaran, outrigger canoe, or something with a champagne budget — typically start around $250 per person, and watching the sun drop behind Mount Otemanu’s silhouette justifies most of that. Yes, they skew romantic; I went solo and had a perfectly good time befriending a honeymooning couple’s leftover canapés. If you are traveling as a pair, this slots neatly into the honeymoon itinerary I mapped out here.
10. Eat like a local (and check on Bloody Mary’s)
The food trucks and snack stands around Vaitape and Matira serve poisson cru — raw tuna in coconut milk and lime — for a fraction of resort prices, and it became my daily ritual. The island’s most famous restaurant, Bloody Mary’s, with its sand floor and celebrity wall of fame, closed in late 2023 for a full rebuild and is slated to reopen in September 2026 as a restaurant and boutique hotel — check its status before you build a dinner plan around it. Either way, one meal off resort grounds per day will do wonders for both your budget and your sense of where you actually are.
The Adapter That Saved Me From a Dead Phone in the Middle of the Lagoon
Bora Bora’s resorts are scattered across motu (islets), and getting stranded without power to your phone—or camera, or GPS—is genuinely dangerous, not just inconvenient. I learned this the hard way when my US charger melted in a Polynesian outlet, leaving me with a dead phone and no way to contact my boat guide.
What works
- Works with Bora Bora’s Type A and Type I outlets without any voltage converter needed—you just plug and go, which matters when you’re bouncing between overwater bungalows and village guesthouses.
- Multiple USB ports mean you can charge your phone, camera, and headlamp simultaneously—essential when you’re doing back-to-back water sports and can’t afford dead batteries.
- Compact enough to slip into a daypack without adding weight, so you’re actually willing to carry it on snorkeling trips and hikes instead of leaving it in your bungalow.
What doesn’t
- Only one outlet accepts grounded plugs (the three-prong kind), so if you’re traveling with multiple devices that need grounding, you’ll still need a small power strip.
- The USB ports charge slower than a direct wall outlet, which became annoying when I had 45 minutes before a sunset boat tour and a camera battery at 3%.
I almost ditched this adapter halfway through my trip because I thought the slower charging wasn’t worth the space, but then I got caught on a motu without power for four hours and realized it was the difference between capturing memories and sitting in the dark. Grab a universal travel adapter before you board your flight to French Polynesia.
Ten experiences, one slightly sunburned solo traveler, zero regrets. Bora Bora is expensive, far away, and worth every logistical headache — and if you need help with those headaches, my full planning guide has you covered.
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