All flights to anywhere in French Polynesia go through Papeete, Tahiti, and most flights get you there at the crack of dawn, or in the middle of the night.

It’s an 8 hour flight from LA. Leaving LAX at 10:30pm lands you in Papeete, Tahiti at 3:30am the next day (but it feels like 6:30am PST.) If you’re staying at a nice hotel, someone might come get you from the airport at 3:30am, but our host Beni, the Swiss-German who runs the Fare Suisse, said we would be perfectly happy and comfortable hanging out at the airport until he arrived at 6:30am.

When Beni finally arrived to get us, we had already been awake and at the airport for about three hours, but the sun comes up early (around 5:30am) and before it gets light, it’s warm, so it’s not so bad. Basically between 3:30am-6:30am, we just sat at the airport restaurant, flipped through the guidebook, looked at the cool Polynesian money, and ate food to compensate. And tried to figure out how much a 400 CFP croissant actually costs in the states (about $5.00).