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Port Vila
Capital and largest city of Vanuatu

Port Vila

Port Vila, or simply Vila, is the capital of Vanuatu and its largest city.

Plan a trip to Port Vila→From Nouméa (La Tontouta)

It is on the island of Efate, in Shefa Province.

The population was 49,034 as of the 2020 Vanuatu census. This represented 16.3% of Vanuatu's total population in 2020.

Get in

Getting to Port Vila

  1. 01
    Port Vila International Airport
See

Worth seeing

  1. 01
    National Museum of Vanuatu

    Dusty exhibits relating to the culture and history of Vanuatu.

  2. 02
    Evergreen Cascades Waterfall
  3. 03
    Hideaway Island

    A small resort islet known as Hideaway Island.

  4. 04
    National Library
Do

Things to do

Beaches in Vanuatu are always private. Resorts limit access to guests only, although some island resorts like Erakor and Hideaway offer day passes in the 2000 VT range.

  1. 01
    Honeymoon Beach

    Pretty beach at the far end of the Pango peninsula.

  2. 02
    Big Blue Vanuatu

    One of Vanuatu's largest and best-regarded dive shops.

  3. 03
    Independence Park

    A cricket ground which hosted the matches in the 2019 ICC Women's Qualifier EAP tournament in May 2019.

  4. 04
    Korman Stadium

    Korman Stadium is the national stadium and the home of the Vanuatu national football team and has a capacity is 6,500.

Eat

Where to eat

Budget options for eating out are thin on the ground. Look for local Vanuatu dishes like laplap or tuluk at the markets, or self-cater at a supermarket.

  1. 01
    Family Restaurant

    Hunanese home cooking by Chinese for Chinese that doesn't pull its punches on the chillies.

  2. 02
    Kai Vanua
  3. 03
    Three Pigs

    Casual garden restaurant that serves up the best tacos in Vanuatu, although this is admittedly not a terribly lofty bar.

  4. 04
    L'Houstalet

    Likely the most famous restaurant in Vanuatu, l'Houstalet has been serving up an eclectic menu of "French Pacific" cuisine since 1973.

  5. 05
    Stonegrill

    Often ranked as Port Vila's top restaurant, the concept here is simple: steaks of premium Vanuatu beef that you grill to your liking on a sizzling hot stone.

How locals move

Getting around Port Vila the local way

  • Get inTour operators like Yumi Tours offer shuttle buses from the airport to any Port Vila area hotel and back for a fixed price of around 1000 VT/person.
  • Get inDue to landslides caused by the December 2024 earthquake, the main cruise terminal remains unreachable, so cruise ships ferry passengers back and forth with tender boats instead.
  • Get aroundBuses in Port Vila are really shared taxis: Toyota Hiace-type minivans with red "B" license plates, they shuttle up and down the main roads of Port Vila.
  • Get aroundTaxis can also be chartered for a full or half day.
  • Go nextRent a car, charter a taxi or join a tour to see the sights around Efate.

From Wikivoyage: Port Vila, CC BY-SA. Not yet checked by us. Last edited 2026-09.

Text adapted from Wikipedia and Wikivoyage, CC BY-SA 4.0. Photograph: Luis Miguel Bugallo Sánchez (CC BY-SA 3.0), Wikimedia Commons.