Kiritimati - coral atoll in the northern Line Islands, Kiribati

Not to be confused with Christmas Island, an Australian possession in the Indian Ocean.

There is nowhere other than Kiritimati, also known as Christmas Island where you're minutes away from London, Paris and Poland all at the same time. It is one of the Northern Line Islands of Kiribati and has the largest land area (642 km², 248 mi²) of any coral atoll in the world and by itself represents the majority of the land area of Kiribati.

Villages

• London - main city and port
• Tabwakea
• Banana - near the airport
• Poland

Understand

The island got its names from its discovery by Captain Cook on Christmas Eve in 1777. Christmas became Kiritimati (pronounced roughly "kee-rees-mass") in the local Gilbertese language.

Because of its position just west of the International Date Line, Kiritimati is the first inhabited island to begin each new day and year, and attracted a bit of Y2K tourism to celebrate that.

The entire island is a wildlife sanctuary, with five areas that require permission to visit.

Climate

The temperature on the island is constant year round, with highs of 29-31°C (85-87°F) and lows of 24-25°C (75-77°F). August through December is the dry season, with 0-2 cm (0.1-0.6 in) of rain per month during this period. April is the wettest month with 21 cm (8.1 in) of rain. The island is greatly affected by El Niño/La Niña weather patterns and is prone to periods of drought. Average yearly rainfall is 873 mm (34.4 in), which can drop as low as 177 mm (7.0 in) in exceptionally dry years or skyrocket to 2,500 mm (98 in) in especially wet years (particularly El Niño years). The island is buffeted by relatively constant trade winds of around 10 knots (20 km/h, 12 mph), gusting to over 25 knots (46 km/h, 30 mph) at times.

Get in

• Cassidy International Airport (IATA: CXI), 1.986111°, -157.349722°. The island's airport which is served only by Fiji Airways on its once-weekly Nadi (Fiji) – Christmas Island – Honolulu (Hawaii) route. Due to the great distance between the Line Islands and the rest of the country as well as the only other operational airports in Kiribati are in the Gilbert Islands, there are no domestic flights. In order to reach the Gilbert Islands, visitors must fly out of Nadi or Honolulu on Fiji Airways which operates a twice weekly Nadi–Tarawa flight. 2023-01-17

Get around

There is only one main road that goes from the airport through London, the main village, and there is public transportation through that route.

See

There are many things to do and see in Kiritimati, Cook Island has a huge number of birds; while scuba diving you can see thousands of species of fish and coral, ship wrecks, turtles, etc. Fishing is also another very popular activity at Christmas Island.

Do

The main two main activities in the island are scuba diving and fishing; being the largest coral atoll in the world, Kiritimati offers an impressive number of places to dive and things to see under the water. There is only one scuba diving service, Dive Kiribati, 011 (881) 631-442-811.

Buy

Almost every week there is a cruise ship stopping by the island, this is the best opportunity to find local handcrafts when people come out to sell them.

Eat

It's common to have meals included in holiday packages, but if you decide to eat out there are two Chinese restaurants on the island; the one closer to the petrol station is better.

Drink

Despite the remoteness of the island, most of the things you can buy are very inexpensive: for example, a soft drink costs about AU$ 1.50 and a beer AU$2.50. You can bring up to 1 litre of spirits duty-free and they also make a local alcoholic drink made out of the coconut palm.

Sleep

There are around 4 hotels in the island, the most common one is operated by the government called Captain Cook (now closed), and Lagoon View Resort; most of the hotels offer all-inclusive services and their prices vary from 70 - 150 AUD.

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