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Museums & Galleries in Apia
Samoa's capital and only city, on the north coast of Upolu around a horseshoe harbour, and the country's port, market and cultural heart. Apia strings along the seafront from the fish and flea markets to the clock tower and the white Catholic cathedral, with Robert Louis Stevenson's Villa Vailima and his hilltop tomb on Mount Vaea rising in the green hills behind, and the Palolo Deep marine reserve a short walk from the town centre.
No overall organizer. Robert Louis Stevenson Museum Preservation Foundation anchors the event; the rest belongs to the streets.
Dates & details verified against: The institution itself ↗
Why here
The Robert Louis Stevenson Museum at Villa Vailima is the best reason to spend a half-day off the beach in Samoa, and the finest colonial-era house museum in the South Pacific. Stevenson, author of Treasure Island and Kidnapped, sailed the Pacific for his health and settled above Apia in 1890, buying 314 acres on the slopes of Mount Vaea and building the mansion he called Vailima. Samoans took him to heart and named him Tusitala, teller of tales, and when he died suddenly in 1894 they carried his body up the mountain to a tomb on the summit. Restored to how it looked in his day and opened as a museum in 1994, the house holds his furniture, photographs and belongings, including the only working fireplace ever built in Samoa, which he installed to remind him of Scotland. A guided visit walks you through the rooms and the story, and behind the house the Road of Loving Hearts climbs through rainforest to the grave on Mount Vaea, cut by Samoan chiefs as a gift to the writer. Together the villa and the tomb make Vailima the cultural anchor of the whole country.
Best months
The museum is comfortable to visit year round, with the house and its verandas shaded and the collection indoors. It opens on weekdays and Saturday mornings with guided tours run at set times, and closes on Sundays in keeping with Samoan observance, so plan around that. The Mount Vaea tomb walk behind the house takes 30 to 45 minutes each way on a steep, often muddy trail, best attempted in the drier season from May to October and in the cooler early morning; wear proper shoes and carry water.
Getting there & around
Villa Vailima sits at Vailima in the hills about four kilometres south of central Apia, a short taxi ride or bus from the seafront, on the Cross Island Road. Entry is inexpensive and includes a guided tour of the house; allow an hour to ninety minutes for the museum and add another hour or two if you want to hike up Mount Vaea to Stevenson's tomb, for which there is a separate reserve entry. Combine it with the nearby Botanical Garden. Check opening days before going, as it closes Sundays.
Skill levels: beginner
Schools & guides (1)
Robert Louis Stevenson Museum
OrganizerThe Robert Louis Stevenson Museum occupies Villa Vailima, the mansion the writer built above Apia after buying 314 acres on Mount Vaea in 1890. Restored by the Robert Louis Stevenson Museum Preservation Foundation, it opened to the public on 5 December 1994, a hundred years to the day after Stevenson died and was carried up the mountain to his tomb. The rooms hold his furniture and belongings, including the only working fireplace in Samoa, and a guided tour tells the story of Tusitala.