Kiritimati – also known as Christmas Island – is one of the Northern Line Islands of Kiribati. It is the largest coral atoll in the world (248mi2, 642km2) and by itself represents the majority of the land area of Kiribati.
The island got its names from its discovery by Capt. James 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.
There are two weekly flights to Kiritimati; one departing from Fiji on Tuesday at midnight and second one from Honolulu, Hawaii on Tuesday's morning. They are both operated by Air Pacific and can be found on any travel portal as long as the layover of the search results falls on a Tuesday very early in the morning.
There is only one main road that goes from the Airport through London, the main Village, there is public transportation through that route.
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.
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.
Almost every week there is a cruise ship stoping by the island, this is the best opportunity to find local handcrafts when people come out to sell them.
It's common to have the meals included in the vacation packages, but if you decide to "eat out" there are two chinese restaurants in the island; the one closer to the petrol Station is relatively better.
For the remoteness of the island most of the things you can buy are very inexpensive, a soft drink costs about 1.50 (AUD) and a beer 2.50 (AUD); You can bring up to 1 litre of spirits and they also make a local alcoholic drink made out of coconut palm tree.
There are around 4 hotels in the island, the most common one is operated by the goverment (Captain Cook) and its located a few miles from the largest village, London; most of the hotels offer all-inclusive services and their prices vary from 70 - 150 AUD.
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