The Cook Islands is a great off-the-beaten-path destination.
And Costco Travel has a 8 nites with airfare included deal for $1,795 per person. It would make a great first-time discovery trip for anyone with a flair for remote South Pacific destinations, especially if you can also visit one of the other islands of the southern group of CI.
Your favorite place as I recall…
While I don’t see myself ever getting there…I do see visiting nearby Australia, New Zealand and Fiji.
We’ve been to NZ four times, Fiji and AUS twice. Of those three we liked NZ the most, it’s a compact country and you can drive from the top to the bottom in a three week visit. The climate varies from subtropical in the Northland to borderline frigid on Stewart Island off the southern tip of South Island. Southeastern Australia is interesting but it a big place and more like the US than NZ.
Fiji is an OK place but it’s harder to mingle with the locals and a tad more touristy than most of the places in the Polynesian Triangle west of Tahiti. Tongans, Cook Islanders and Niueans are the most friendly of all the SP islands we’ve visited.