The daily emails from Lance in Vanuatu.

Way back in 1980 on this very day, 11th November, my wife and I were walking through the very large Indooroopilly Shoppingtown in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. It was around 10:59 in the morning, when a voice surprised us as it boomed over the public address system. It was an announcement...

There's a yacht that arrived a couple of days ago, and is now moored in Port Vila harbour. They just got fined around USD5,000. (!) It's a classic story of what can go wrong when you don't have local knowledge. None of the 3 people on the yacht actually tested positive for COVID-1984, and it...

News this week that a second undersea communications cable will shortly be laid, this time between Vanuatu and Honiara, Solomon Islands. So we will have backup for undersea cabling, as the original one connects us to Suva, Fiji where it joins the trans-Pacific cable. So right now we have...

Rain is softly falling as I write. Of course, almost everywhere in the tropics there are basically 2 seasons, "the Wet" and "the Dry." It seems that we are entering "the Wet" now, which is not surprising. "The Wet" will be properly underway next month. Personally I enjoy the rain for...

Last night I had a Zoom meeting with two of my colleagues. As usual in this business, we were in three different countries. What is interesting is that one of the participants is big in the Crypto space, and has a deep insight into how crypto owners view the world. Thus the new product...

Earlier this week I said I'd tell you about buying a car in Vanuatu. First you need to throw out all concept of what you are used to paying. There is no income tax here, so the government needs to fill the coffers in other ways, and one of them is import duty. The entire population is...

Vanuatu's governmental system was inherited from it's British and French colonial overlords, but with some local twists overlaying those.  The part that is hardest for newcomers to understand is the "Chief" system.  Each island (or sometimes part of an island) has it's own chief. There...

Ths morning I was reviewing some of Gary Halbert's newsletters, and came across this.. "All truly wise people realize time is the most precious commodity they possess. And, it is this commodity they are least likely to squander. Do you realize many people who pay to have me write copy for...

I recently flagged that I'd tell you about bringing pets into Vanuatu. We have first hand experience with this, as we brought our 2 "Rag Doll" cats with us in 2016. We chose to use a specialist animal logistics company in Australia. A bit if research and getting quotations showed a lot...

In Vanuatu you see a lot of different kinds of Pandanus tree.  The Pandanus can be a very attractive "sculptural" looking tree, besides providing food (breadfruit) leaves to make baskets and mats, and a valuable lesson for us.  They resist salty winds, they fare well in cyclones, and...