Things to Do in Vanuatu in December

December's calm morning waters and warm sea make the sailing cruises departing Port Vila harbour the single best way to experience Efate's coastline. You motor past Iririki Island. The harbour mouth opens into deeper blue beyond the reef pass. Within half an hour you're anchored over coral gardens where parrotfish grind audibly on the reef below, close enough to hear through the water. The post-snorkel lunch on deck, typically fresh poisson cru in coconut milk and grilled reef fish, tastes better with salt drying on your skin and Efate's hills soft green against a cloud-streaked sky. Hideaway Island, home to the world's only underwater post office, is a common stop on these routes. Sending a waterproof postcard from the seabed is the kind of absurd novelty that Vanuatu pulls off without a trace of irony. Morning departures tend to dodge the afternoon storms entirely. They return to the harbour before the first grey wall builds to the east.

Tanna's Mount Yasur is one of the few active volcanoes on earth where you stand at the crater rim and watch molten rock explode skyward. December's longer evenings stretch the optimal viewing window, that transition when the sky dims enough to see the lava glow but the landscape is still faintly visible, later into the night. The approach across the ash plain feels lunar. Black volcanic sand crunches underfoot. Sulphur sharpens in your nostrils with each step upward. The low rumble builds through 361 m (1,184 ft) of elevation until the first eruption sends a column of incandescent rock overhead and you feel the concussion in your chest. December's warmth means the crater rim is comfortable in light clothing even well after dark, unlike the cooler dry-season months when the wind chill at altitude catches people off guard. The catch is the flight. Inter-island routes to Tanna are the first casualty of any incoming weather system. Build a buffer day into your itinerary. Or accept the possibility of a no-show.

The early wet season transforms Efate's waterfalls into the most dramatic version of themselves. December sits in the sweet spot: enough rain to fill the falls to full roar, not so much that the trails wash out. Mele Cascades, a tiered limestone formation a short drive from central Port Vila, drops through a series of natural swimming pools where the water is cool enough to jolt you after the humid trail but warm enough to float in without urgency. The lower pools are an easy walk. The upper tiers require scrambling over wet rock with a rope assist. The reward is a pool to yourself beneath a curtain of water so loud it drowns out conversation. Go before nine in the morning. The light slants through the canopy then. The mist off the falls catches it. Rarru Cascades draws fewer visitors and pairs the hike with a kava-tasting session afterward, an introduction to the earthy, tongue-numbing drink that anchors evening social life across the entire archipelago.

The rivers feeding down from Efate's central hills run deeper in December, which paradoxically makes the kayaking smoother: the current does part of the work, and you're gliding through water rather than scraping over shallow gravel bars. The route threads through lowland rainforest where the only sounds are your paddle blade in the water, birdsong layered through the canopy overhead, and the occasional heavy crack of a coconut dropping somewhere in the undergrowth. The air smells of wet earth and frangipani, still warm and thick in the morning hours before Port Vila's 30°C (87°F) highs set in but comfortable enough to paddle without wilting. The guides on the better tours point out medicinal plants, breadfruit trees, and wild taro along the riverbanks, things most visitors walk past without a second look. These trips are gentle enough for complete beginners. Interesting enough for experienced paddlers who want to see a side of Efate the coast never reveals.

If you can secure the inter-island flight, Espiritu Santo rewards you with the most visually improbable scenery in Vanuatu. The blue holes are freshwater springs that surface as impossibly turquoise pools in the middle of dense jungle, filtered to crystalline clarity by the limestone aquifer beneath the island. Nanda Blue Hole, the most accessible, sits ringed by banyan trees whose roots drop into the water like organic diving platforms, and December's warmth makes the freshwater feel welcoming rather than bracing when you jump. Champagne Beach, regularly cited among the South Pacific's finest, earns its name from the freshwater springs that fizz up through the white sand at the waterline, tickling the soles of your feet as you wade in. The drive from Luganville passes through copra plantations and roadside stalls serving laplap, Vanuatu's national dish of grated root vegetables baked in banana leaves with coconut cream. The smoky, sweet richness of a fresh one eaten on the roadside might be the best meal of your trip.

The zipline courses strung through Efate's interior forest give you the vantage point that no trail delivers: a canopy so dense and green from above that it looks nearly solid, the ocean a blue smear at the edge of your vision, and the occasional flash of a rainbow lorikeet passing below your feet. The platforms are bolted high in mature hardwood trees, the lines span valleys where humid air rising from the forest floor carries the scent of damp earth and overripe fruit, and the speed across each span is just enough to feel reckless without being dangerous. December's morning cloud cover works in your favour, keeping direct sun off the metal platforms and cables. Book the first session of the day if you can. By early afternoon the building thunderstorm risk makes operators cautious about sending people across exposed ridgelines on a steel cable, and cancellations are more common.