Polynesia's most soulful capital — Robert Louis Stevenson's final home
Apia is the capital of Samoa, a Polynesian city of fale (open-sided houses), the scent of taro and palusami in every market, and one of the Pacific's most intact traditional cultures. The Robert Louis Stevenson Museum sits on a hillside above town, and the Fugalei fresh market is one of the best food markets in the South Pacific: roasted breadfruit, sapasui noodles, and oka — raw fish marinated in coconut cream.
Apia became the capital of Western Samoa under German colonial administration, after a harbor incident in 1889 where three German and three American warships were all wrecked during a hurricane — a conflict resolved by nature alone. New Zealand administered the territory from 1914, and Samoa became the first Pacific island nation to gain independence in 1962. The fa'a Samoa — the Samoan way, including the matai chiefly system — remains the organizing principle of daily life and is one of the Pacific's strongest living cultural traditions.