Only after many years of learning how to voyage long distances, and to survive on the high islands and atolls they found in the sea, did the ocean-oriented Polynesian culture take on its classic form.

Here's everything you need to know about visiting the French Polynesian island of Ra'iātea. As the small motorboat made its way across the calm lagoon from Taha'a and the palm-fringed coastline ...

A Norwegian adventurer, followed by a New Zealand historian, burst into the otherwise quiet arena of Polynesian studies ... logs from Peru to the Tuamotu Islands on the eastern edge of Polynesia ...

In the latest good news for conservationists, birders, and tourists alike, an endangered bird has returned to an island in the paradise of French Polynesia for the first time in over 100 years.