Kia Orana from Aitutaki in the Cook Islands – Jeffsetter’s First Video Blog Post!

Last updated on January 16th, 2017 at 08:57 pm

On a rainy day in Aitutaki in the Cook Islands, I found myself with nothing to do but try to make a video for the website. The result? A semi-professional looking video blog post that I’m hoping you enjoy!

While I hope the video looks like it was easy to make, it actually did take some time and effort to get it done, especially with a slow Internet connection on an island. I would love to hear your thoughts on the video and if you are looking to make video yourselves, check out How to Make a Video Blog Post and hear the story behind how this video was made!

For those of you who prefer to read instead of watch videos, here is what I said during the video.

Hey, it’s me, Jeff. I’m here attempting my first ever video blog and I figured that you may want to join me on a journey as I talk about my journey to Aitutaki in the Cook Islands.

I’m sitting here right now in Aitutaki and it’s raining outside, so I figured what better time to attempt my first blog post than now? 

Really, it’s a beautiful place here in Aitutaki, but I’m having some trouble with the weather. The first day was beautiful – everything I ever dreamed of, and then the next few days it has been cloudy and rainy. But I’m hoping it turns around in the next few days.

I’d like to share with you how I got here to the Cook Islands. First thing I did was I actually took an Air Tahiti Nui flight using Delta Skymiles to get to Papeete in Tahiti. That was about an 8 hour flight from Los Angeles and if you tack on another 4 hour flight from my home in Minneapolis, we made it to Tahiti in less than 24 hours from leaving my house. That’s usually a good sign when traveling to an island nation.

From there we spent one night in Papeete and then took a turbo propeller plane from Papeete to Rarotonga, which is the capital of the Cook Islands. We spent two nights there before taking another small plane to Aitutaki.

We have 5 nights here in Aitutaki, and then we are going back to Moorea, which is an Island in French Polynesia. We are going to spend 6 nights there, 5 of them in an overwater bungalow at the Hilton Moorea Lagoon. Then we head back to the United States where we will be disappointed by the weather we see there.

But I’m very excited because most of this was done using miles. The big flight from Los Angeles to Papeete was done using Miles, so it didn’t cost us a lot of money out of pocket. Unfortunately there was no way to redeem miles on Air Rarotonga, which is the airline of the Cook Islands, so we had to pay cash for that.

Also, there are no real loyalty programs from the major hotel chains in the Cook Islands, so we are using cash to pay for our room. Not an ideal scenario for miles and points buffs out there, but we think it’s worth it. Today is actually our first wedding anniversary, so that is the main reason why we are out there celebrating.

It has been tremendous so far, and we are looking forward to another week and a couple days in paradise. Hopefully you are following along. The Internet connection in the Cook Islands isn’t the best, so it may be a while before you see this video. It will probably be posted in Tahiti where the Internet works better.