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I meant to go to Espiritu Santo, ever since the second Australian English teacher I hosted told me about it. She had taught in its main city, Luganville, and mentioned a place where the US military dumped their equipment into the sea at the end of World War 2. The place was called Million Dollar Point, because millions of dollars’ worth of military assets were dumped into the sea. It was shallow enough that you could scuba dive, or even snorkel, to see it.
Little did I know that I would find myself in Espiritu Santo right after the global pandemic eased. Faced with Australia’s sudden reluctance to issue eTAs for Malaysians, I had to salvage my flights, and noticed Vanuatu was just across the Coral Sea. I figured, I might as well see this place. So I spontaneously boosted my holiday budget, and pivoted to explore Vanuatu.
I meant to spend more time on Espiritu Santo than I did. I found myself a day short because Air Vanuatu’s operations were still shaky following the pandemic shutdown. So this article would be more of a summary guide for the interesting things in Espiritu Santo that I saw personally, as well as the things I wanted to do but couldn’t.
Additionally, I knew very little of Vanuatu geography before I went. After the trip, however, I know enough to associate the different islands with what they’re most known for. For example, Tanna’s volcano, and land diving in Pentecost. And I also have a better idea of which of them are nearby to one another, and which are in a whole other part of Vanuatu. So this article would mention that as well.
For a more comprehensive overview on travelling to Vanuatu and all its main islands, see this summary guide at We Will Nomad. For a summary description of how to get around between Vanuatu islands, see my Travel Sustainably article on Vanuatu.
The largest island of Vanuatu
Although Vanuatu’s capital Port Vila is on Efate island, Efate is not Vanuatu’s largest island. Its largest island is Espiritu Santo – though people usually just call it ‘Santo’. (Efate is not even Vanuatu’s second largest island; that would be Malekula, another northern island near Espiritu Santo).
Santo’s main city, Luganville, is the provincial capital, and the second largest city in Vanuatu. Even so, Luganville felt even less urban than Port Vila, with less urban infrastructure. The 3G data service was slower than on Efate, and the LTE service was intermittent.
Espiritu Santo was also the first island in present-day Vanuatu to receive European contact. It was (re?)named by the Spanish, but only visited again by Europeans 160 years later when the French and British arrived. Both established colonies in Vanuatu, eventually co-ruling the islands in a kind of overlapping administration called a “condominium”.
The French administration was near Luganville, which I guess explains why it seems to have more of a French influence than Port Vila. The locals tended to favour French over English, and had more French mannerisms as well. There were even more French tourists there than I noticed in Efate.
Espiritu Santo’s World War II history
Espiritu Santo is a must-visit for World War II history buffs. The island was an Allied naval base for the Pacific theatre of war. Heavily garrisoned, it was meant to be the main Allied South Pacific base. At the time, there were six air strips: 1 for fighter planes, 3 for bombers, and 2 for seaplanes (one of those was for the New Zealand Air Force). There were tens of thousands of soldiers, thousands of tents, and two massive dry docks for ship repairs. A map of the military infrastructure1 from this period is available on the South Pacific WWII Museum website.
However, the island didn’t actually see much WWII action. Espiritu Santo was meant to pair up with Hawaii’s Pearl Harbour as the main North Pacific base. My host told me that Espiritu Santo wasn’t as useful after the bombing of Pearl Harbour. So Espiritu Santo (or Canal, as the French called it) ended up mainly as a repair base. Apparently, if you were stationed in Espiritu Santo, it would have been among the safest places for a soldier during the war, since only five people died in combat here.
There are other kinds of war remnants as well. The Allied forces also brought in fast-growing kudzu vines to serve as camouflage cover. Unfortunately, they became an invasive pest species, spreading over the island, so much so that you can even see it all over papaya trees. I was told that it makes valuable hardwood grow slower, which is a bane to local landowners.
Where to stay on Espiritu Santo
I think it matters even less than Efate, whether you stay in its main city during your visit to Espiritu Santo. While Luganville deserves a look, there isn’t enough to warrant basing yourself there. Another consideration is the size of the island, which means other points of interest are some distance away from one another. If you were to stay near Luganville, the guide I shared above has some accommodation suggestions. And of course, there is also the option of staying in a beach resort, or on one of the small islands around Espiritu Santo.
Instead, if you intend to visit Espiritu Santo’s main attractions, it may be better to stay somewhere along its eastern coastline. All its blue holes are along this side of the island, as well as its most famous beaches. You may even opt to stay a few days around the southern part, and move north towards Hog Harbour or even all the way to Port Olry afterwards.
I didn’t do either. Since my must-do thing was Million Dollar Point, I decided to stay as close to it as possible. I stayed at the Million Dollar View, a small family-run B&B owned by a local with the assistance of a resident Luxembourgian who acted as the host. The beach was quite nice considering they used to dump trash just offshore, and it was also as close to the airport as staying in Luganville. It is, however, less convenient for seeing the further attractions on Espiritu Santo like Port Olry and Champagne Beach.
Where to go in Espiritu Santo
I was really only on Espiritu Santo for three nights (it was supposed to be four). Additionally, my main interest was to do some scuba diving, so I was conscious that I wouldn’t be able to see everything. So I did not research Espiritu Santo too much before the trip.
Therefore, this section covers both the places of interest that I did see during my stay, as well as the places I considered seeing but ended up not having the time to. All fee information mentioned below comes from information sheets my host Gilbert gave me when I arrived. I assume they were correct for 2022.
1. Million Dollar Point
So yes, indeed I went to an island that has beaches the likes of Port Olry, and yet I chose to stay at a trash dump beach. Because I nearly always pick the place with the story. My rationale is that I could get a dreamy beach in my own tropical country if I really wanted to, but you cannot find the story elsewhere.
I don’t know what the place was called before ‘Million Dollar Point’. In hindsight, I should have asked. But the US military didn’t just pick anywhere to dump all their WWII stuff. The spot was already a trash dump during colonial times, because of convenient coastal morphology. In short, there is a deep depression relatively close to shore, where it was convenient to sink your trash. Following the war, colonial Vanuatu (i.e. New Hebrides at the time) still continued to use it as a trash dump.
Today, it is no longer a dumping ground, but you can still find bits of the old trash on the beach, occasionally spat back out by the sea. Fortunately, back then the trash was metals and glass, not plastics. However, while the trash pieces have worn smooth with time, you might want to consider reef shoes for the beach here just in case.
If you go to Million Dollar Point itself, there is an entry fee of 500vt. However, you can also go to the Million Dollar View B&B and snorkel across, and that’s free.
Drop by the Million Dollar View
Million Dollar View has the only remaining patch of mangrove on Santo’s south coast. There used to be more, but the mangroves along the island’s southern coast were cleared away by the US military during WWII, for strategic reasons. Unfortunately, they never grew back, and only a small patch remains.
The B&B’s restaurant is right by this patch of mangrove, and is called Natongtong restaurant after the local word for mangrove. Have some lunch there if you’re coming to snorkel at Million Dollar Point.
Natongtong restaurant has a small display of salvaged glass pieces from trash that washes up on the beach. If Gilbert is around, he’ll happily talk you through them. The bottoms of glass drinks bottles were particularly interesting, not just because they tend to survive intact, but because that’s where bottles used to be marked with the year of production, and sometimes place of production, as well. You could see a sort of record from pre- to post-war Santo. It’s basically archaeology.
There were glass pieces and bottles of all kinds and colours. Some have melted into weird shapes. According to Gilbert, these were from when the Americans were on the island, as they tended to burn garbage with tar before disposing the residue into the dump. Hence, the fire got hot enough to melt glass.
From the wartime era, there was a salvaged mess tray, made of metal back then, yet it had survived mostly intact. There were also broken china (because of course the navy officers dine with proper dining sets and not with mess trays). There were also several hospitals on Santo, so some glass bottles were for medical uses such as storing vaccines, iodine, and even IV fluid (remember, back then there was no plastic, so this was pre-IV drip bags).
Snorkelling at Million Dollar Point
But the main point of curiosity is the piles of military equipment the US dumped into the sea. It’s possible to see some random pieces by snorkelling, but the big stuff is in the deep parts right off the old jetty. Seeing them requires scuba diving. Even then, you can only go so deep; the rest are lost beyond diving depths.
I’m not sure if my experience was typical, but the visibility wasn’t too good for both snorkelling and diving. I still managed to get some nearly decent photos from my snorkelling camera, but the dive shop didn’t have their own underwater photography so I don’t have photos from the dive. However, you can see some (much better) photos here2.
Coral have begun to grow over the discarded equipment, though not uniformly. It wasn’t teeming with fish, but not too bad for invertebrates.
2. Palikulo Bay
Palikulo Bay is the southernmost bay along Espiritu Santo’s eastern coastline. It wasn’t part of my original itinerary. However, since I lost a day on the island, I wanted something that would fit in half a day before flying back out to Port Vila. There are seagrass fields in this bay. So apparently, if you’re lucky, you might see dugong or turtles. I was not lucky, but it was still a good snorkel across a wide seagrass field and the occasional coral reef.
At the end of the peninsula on the eastern side of the bay, are the ruins of a Japanese cannery. My driver said some ship repair activities take place at the end of the peninsula now. You can hike to it for a bit of ‘abandoned sites‘ tourism, but the way is a bit tricky, so watch your footing.
The Japanese cannery pre-dated World War 2. Built in 1926, it was the biggest in Vanuatu. I wonder how awkward it must have been to be Japanese at the cannery, while a massive base was under construction by enemy forces just across the bay. From what my host told me, they kept a low profile and I think they were basically left alone. It goes to show that (at least back then) actual war IRL has a lot of grey areas and pockets of mercy, unlike the rigid rhetoric of politicians and propagandists.
3. Blue holes of Espiritu Santo
Espiritu Santo has no less than three blue holes: Matevulu and Riri, which are close together; and Nanda. All three are located approximately midway along Santo’s east coast. According to my host, apparently there’s an additional ‘secret’ one, the Thar Blue Hole.
This was what I planned to do on my extra day. But since I unexpectedly had the extra day on Efate instead, I went to the blue hole there in lieu.
The blue holes are swimming holes which are naturally strikingly blue in colour. If they’re the same as Efate’s Blue Lagoon, the water should be cool, as if it were a stream from the hills. That would be because the water wells up from a spring that does flow from the inland hills. There are entry fees, which go to the local community who maintain the blue holes. They should be as follows:
- Riri + Matevulu + Thar Secret Blue Hole: 500vt
- Riri Blue Hole + canoeing along the river to the sea: 1000vt
- Nanda Blue Hole: 1000vt
Normally child prices are half the adult price, so ask if there is a child entry fee.
4. Champagne Beach & Port Olry
While not on my itinerary, the dramatically beautiful white sandy beaches of Champagne Beach and Port Olry came highly recommended. I might have swapped one night at Million Dollar View for a night in Port Olry, had I not lost the one day due to the vagaries of Pacific air travel.
Champagne Beach is near Hog Harbour, which used to be where the British administration was located during condominium rule. This is about two thirds of the way north along Santo’s east coast. Port Olry is even further north.
There is an entry fee of 500vt per person, or 2000vt per car, for Champagne Beach. Alternatively, you can also park at the nearby Lonnoc Beach for free, and walk across to Champagne Beach. Lonnoc Beach itself is reportedly pretty good for snorkelling.
Port Olry, despite its fame, is a public beach without entry fees.
5. Points of interest in Luganville
Finally, you’ve got to see the main town of Espiritu Santo at least once. It’s a quick tour, since Luganville is really barely more than a town. It is not at all touristy. There were all of three things of note in Luganville: the Mama’s Market, the South Pacific WWII Museum, and Unity Park. They’re all located where Main Street curves inland to cross Sarakata river. Additionally, if you’re planning on booking tours after arrival, the tour operators would be in Luganville.
Unity Park is a nice lawn park where you can look across to Aore island. Nearby is the WWII museum. If you plan to visit, be sure to note the opening times and come accordingly.
The Mama’s Market sells fresh produce, notably a lot of groundnuts and yams. Outside, there is a kind of food court row, constructed especially to invite visitors to sample local food. Billed as ‘fast traditional food’, it is open from 6.30AM to 9PM. There are two price tiers: 350vt per meal for locals, and 1000vt for foreigners.
Pro tip: At the back of the market, look for a stall operated by ladies. This is where you can get Vanuatu’s national dish, laplap. It is a yam, taro, or breadfruit loaf, wrapped in banana leaf. The texture is similar to Italian polenta or South African mieliepap.
Adventurous things to do in Espiritu Santo
Of course, aside from what I’ve highlighted above, you can also take many tours on Espiritu Santo. Get some inspiration from the Vanuatu Tourism website. There are waterfall tours and cultural tours, spa days, WWII tours, snorkelling tours and diving tours, fishing trips, canoeing trips, and hiking to Millennium Cave. Which one you go for really depends on what kind of holiday you’re looking for.
However, there are two things to do on Espiritu Santo that are worth noting specifically. This is because if you want to do them, they will require designing your overall itinerary in advance, around them.
1. Dive the SS Coolidge wreck
Espiritu Santo reputedly has the best wreck dive in the world, the SS Coolidge (sorry, King Cruiser). If you’re a diver, this is a must-dive site on Espiritu Santo, aside from Million Dollar Point.
The SS Coolidge was a cruise liner conscripted to become a WWII troop carrier. On 26 October 1942, its captain, fearing Japanese submarines, tried to enter port through the larger channel. Unfortunately, that route had Allied mines. She struck a friendly mine and began to sink. The captain decided to get her to ground to save as many people as possible. I guess it worked, since only two people died. Anyway, his decision is why such a large wreck is in relatively shallow water.
The SS Coolidge is a large wreck (200 metres long), and almost completely intact. So you can’t actually fully experience it in a single dive. Additionally, the night dive is quite special. I’m told you can see a resident school of anglerfish when you drop into the wreck and turn off the torches. However, to do this dive, you must do an orientation dive of the ship beforehand. If diving the SS Coolidge is on your itinerary, allocate enough time for all these dives, plus decompression time before your flight out.
2. Climb Mount Tabwemasana
Espiritu Santo also has the tallest peak in Vanuatu. It seems possible to hike up Mount Tabwemasana, but it involves some adventure in the form of a series of truck and boat transfers to get to the access point. This is a 3D2N tour, and best done between September and November.
How to get around in Espiritu Santo
Getting around Espiritu Santo is not very straightforward. Fortunately, Gilbert shared a lot of information on the matter. The easiest option is to rent a car, but rental cars are limited and can be sold out. Car rental is around 10,000-12,000vt per day. This means you can basically tour the whole island with full freedom. I’m not sure how much fuel costs on Espiritu Santo, but on Efate petrol was 227vt a litre in 2022.
Taxi hire
Alternatively, you can hire a taxi for 8000-10,000vt for a whole day. This is slightly cheaper than renting a car, plus you would have a driver with local knowledge, and who can look after your things, e.g. while you’re swimming.
You can also hire a taxi to specific attractions. Indicative rates from Luganville are as follows:
- Port Olry: 10,000 vt
- Hog Harbour, Lonnoc/Champagne Beach: 7000vt
- Turtle Bay/Riri/Matevulu Blue Hole: 2000vt
- Palekula peninsula: 1000vt
- Million Dollar Point: 600vt
Within Luganville, taxis cost a flat 200vt per trip.
Public transport
Public transport vehicles on Espiritu Santo are vans (license plate B), or pickup trucks (license plate PT or ST). Within Luganville (including its outskirts within 12km), the bus fare is 150vt per person, with a child fare of 50vt. You just flag them down, and tell them your destination, though you might have to try a few times to get one going the right way. If you’re going into town from the outskirts, you could also try flagging down a passing taxi and ask if they accept bus fare (“yu akseptem bas feir?”).
There is public transport up to the northeast coast, but it is meant for locals, not tourists. This means that the route starts from Port Olry in the morning rather than Luganville, to bring local people into town. They return northwards after 3PM. So the timing of the transport is not suitable for tourist day trips. That said, if you do take public transport along the east coast, it should cost 400vt to Hog Harbour, and 500vt to Port Olry. Alternatively, you could also hitchhike as it is common in Vanuatu.
Islands near Espiritu Santo
It can be hard to get a sense of a faraway country’s geography. I find this is particularly so for archipelagoes like French Polynesia and Vanuatu. Different islands are promoted for different things, but sometimes you don’t realise which ones are near one another, and which ones are actually far apart. So this section is as much my own notes to myself, as it is to help other people plan a trip.
I wouldn’t have gone to any other island on my 2022 trip, because of time constraints. I had to go to Santo, of course, because it’s the whole reason I thought of Vanuatu as a replacement destination in the first place. And I can’t not see a bit of the capital island on my first visit, right? But if I should make a second trip to Espiritu Santo, then what islands are in the same sort of cluster becomes more relevant, and what they’re famous for.
Here are four interesting islands around Espiritu Santo that I would consider visiting on a second trip, along with why.
Disclaimer: Every Vanuatu island has cultural tours, but they’re not identical because of the diversity of Vanuatu’s cultures. Conversely, you can have beach and seagoing holidays on all of them as well, and they’re probably going to be more similar. In this section, I’m highlighting the one single thing I remember these islands for, just because otherwise I won’t remember anything. It doesn’t mean that they’re the only things you can do there. Nor does it mean that you can’t find something similar on another island. Obviously, you can’t reduce a whole community to one story.
1. Malekula
Malekula is Vanuatu’s second biggest island, and lies just south of Espiritu Santo. Here, you can get closer to Vanuatu’s cannibal past. There is a tour that takes you to an abandoned ceremonial ground of the Amelbati tribe, where the ceremonial objects and cannibalism remains are still there.
2. Pentecost
Pentecost is a smaller island, long in shape3, and lies east of Espiritu Santo. This is the island with the custom of land diving, which was the original inspiration for the adventure activity of bungee jumping. Land diving is practiced by the men of south Pentecost, and coincides with the yam harvest. So this custom takes place only between April and June.
3. Gaua
Gaua is a small, roughly circular island3 to the northeast of Espiritu Santo. On this island, there is a unique water music art form, which is a women’s performance. This is a musical performance that uses water as a pseudo-percussion instrument.
4. Ambrym
Ambrym lies to the southeast of Espiritu Santo, in between Malekula and Pentecost. Shamanistic practices, ritual dances, and men’s secret societies are generally part of Vanuatu culture, as I gathered from a sandroing performance in Port Vila. However, Ambrym island is supposed to be the centre of black magic in Vanuatu. I’m not sure what ‘black magic’ means in Vanuatu, since it depends on what’s being translated into the English term, but I guess you find out on the tour.
Footnotes:
- Note: Depending on where you’re located, you may no longer be able to access this page. Since around February 2026, the South Pacific WWII Museum website has been blocking visitors from my region (I’m not sure whether that’s a country level or Asia in general). ↩︎
- Hamilton, C. Million Dollar Point – Luganville, Espiritu Santo, Vanuatu. CHPhotographic. https://web.archive.org/web/20230923222125/http://chphotographic.com/million-dollar-point.html ↩︎
- I’m sure it’s only coincidental. But I found it amusing that the island with the interesting male custom has an elongated shape, and the island with the interesting female custom has a round shape! ↩︎
Carbon offsetting information to Espiritu Santo, Vanuatu
My actual flights for this trip were slightly more convoluted. However, the best way to get to Vanuatu from Kuala Lumpur in the present day with the benefit of hindsight, is via Singapore and Sydney. This is because a direct flight from Kuala Lumpur to Sydney or Brisbane is more likely to result in layover time in Australia that might exceed the 8 hour visa-free period, requiring an eTA submission which has arbitrary results nowadays. To get to Espiritu Santo, fly onwards from Port Vila to Luganville. This itinerary produces carbon emissions of approximately 4,809 lbs CO2e. It costs about $39 to offset this.
An alternative itinerary for Vanuatu is to fly to Port Vila via Auckland, which is less risky since New Zealand allows visa free transit times that are more commensurate to Pacific flight connection schedules. This raises the overall emissions to Luganville to approximately 5,666 lbs CO2e. It costs about $45 to offset this. Note: It is now also possible to fly directly to Espiritu Santo from Auckland with Solomon Airlines.
Going on a trip to Vanuatu? Save this article for planning your stay in Espiritu Santo!
Thank you for sharing this detailed guide on Espiritu Santo! It highlights the island’s fascinating history, beautiful locations, and adventurous activities. I appreciate the insights about Million Dollar Point and the other attractions you explored. It’s great to learn about the mix of culture and natural beauty Vanuatu offers.
You’re welcome! Although the natural beauty of Santo wasn’t my main focus, I felt it had to be mentioned, because the island really has much more to offer than what I came to see. Not to mention the nearby islands as well. I came without a clear feel for the geography, I hope this guide also helps others get a sense on which islands are which, especially the ones that cluster with Espiritu Santo.
Vanuatu looks beautiful, with so much to see and do. I would love to spend some time on Champagne beach and enjoy some of the islands too.
There’s a surprising amount of things to see in Vanuatu, considering its size and relatively small population. I wish I had time to see the upper east coast beaches. At first, when Port Olry was recommended to me, and Champagne beach, I was like pshhhh how worthwhile is just a beach, I’ve been to Eton on Efate already. Then I saw the pix and… yeah, they look pretty special.
That’s an experience and visit of a lifetime! I would love to have this experience at least once. I could spend hours lazing on the beach.
You’d need a thick beach towel for this Million Dollar Beach, because there’s a lot of coarse coral pieces and of course, the glass pieces! But yes, it’s actually surprisingly not bad, considering what it was once used for. The northern beaches would be much better, and I wish I had the one day that I planned originally to see them with.
I love staying at places with a story too! Million dollar point seems like quite a unique spot to stay or just visit and go snorkeling, and so different from most of Vanuatu.
It’s definitely unique! Maybe I’ll return to see the other islands and be able to see for myself how Santo is different from the other islands :)
In one respect it was good Australia was reluctant to issue eTAs for Malaysians – because it sounds like you discovered a gem in Vanuatu!
I know! I found out in Phuket, and my Thai colleague’s daughter thought I should re-apply with like, lots of letters and things (she had just been through Canada’s visa process). But I was like, no silly, this is just a holiday. I mean, I would try harder if it’s for family, or if a friend is specifically asking for me. But more paperwork isn’t my idea of going on holiday!