Malolo is the largest island in the Mamanuca group and one of the most complete in Fiji: white-sand beaches, a house reef, two iTaukei villages with centuries of history and a string of resorts ranging from overwater bungalows to luxury hideaways. It is just 25 km from Nadi, close enough to reach in under an hour and big enough to have a small mountain, walking trails and corners to get lost in.
Floating off its coast is the most Instagrammed outing in the country: Cloud 9, a two-storey platform anchored on Ro Ro reef, with a full bar, wood-fired pizzas and 360-degree views of the turquoise sea. You spend the day between snorkelling dips, cocktails, music and pizza, floating in the middle of the South Pacific. You get there by boat from Denarau or by speedboat from the resorts on Malolo and Malolo Lailai.
Malolo is also the gateway to the world-famous waves of the Mamanuca: Cloudbreak breaks over the Malolo barrier reef and is considered one of the best and most demanding waves on the planet. And its neighbouring island, Malolo Lailai, is home to classics such as Musket Cove and Plantation Island. Beach, culture, surf and an iconic floating bar: Malolo packs the best of Fiji a stone's throw from Nadi.
Malolo is part of the traditional iTaukei vanua of the Mamanuca: its two villages, Yaro and Solevu - the latter the seat of the Paramount Chief of the Mamanuca - retain ancestral rights over the land and sea. In 1840, near here, the American expedition led by Charles Wilkes fought a bloody clash with islanders. Sparsely populated and used for fishing and gardens, Malolo opened up to tourism in the 20th century and today combines resorts, surf and the famous Cloud 9 floating bar. The full story is on the history page.
Read the full history ↓Fiji's postcard islands: two volcanic chains off the west coast of Viti Levu, with white sand and turquoise water. The Lapita people settled them three thousand years ago, and today they are home to resorts and snorkelling and were the setting for films such as Cast Away and The Blue Lagoon.
Read the history of Mamanuca and Yasawa Islands →They depart from Denarau, 22 km away. If you book from this link we earn a commission and you pay no more.
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Origins, formation and what the sources say.
Today Malolo is synonymous with floating pizza and overwater bungalows, but in July 1840 it was the scene of one of the bloodiest episodes in the contact between Fiji and the West. That year the United States Exploring Expedition reached the Mamanuca. It was the great American scientific expedition, commanded by Lieutenant Charles Wilkes and tasked with charting the Pacific. During a negotiation for food in the village of Sualib, on Malolo, something went badly wrong. The local chief's son, held as a hostage, jumped from the boat and escaped, and the Americans opened fire. In the skirmish Lieutenant Joseph Underwood and Midshipman Wilkes Henry, the commander's own nephew, were killed, along with several islanders.
The revenge was brutal. The next day, Wilkes launched a punitive attack that razed the villages of Sualib and Arro and much of the surrounding area. According to an account from an elder of Malolo recorded some time later, around eighty Fijians died. The episode, known as the Battle or the Massacre of Malolo, ended with Wilkes accused of illegally attacking the natives. That charting work even left its mark on the names of the waves: the Wilkes break, near Cloudbreak, recalls the commander.
That clash was not the beginning of Malolo's story, just one violent moment on an island that had already been inhabited for millennia. To understand why there were villages, chiefs and hostages there, you have to go much further back.
Like the rest of the Fijian archipelago, Malolo and the Mamanuca were settled more than 3,000 years ago by seafarers of the Lapita culture. They crossed the Pacific in double-hulled canoes, bringing pigs, crop plants and their unmistakable stamped pottery. Skilled growers and formidable sailors, they settled in the sheltered bays, farmed the slopes and turned the reefs into a larder. From the Lapita roots and later Melanesian waves came iTaukei society, the Indigenous Fijians.
On Malolo, that heritage lives on in two villages: Yaro and Solevu. Life is organised around the vanua, the inseparable union of land, people, ancestors and spiritual identity. It also revolves around the mataqali, the clans that inherit collective rights over land and sea. Solevu carries special weight as the residence of the Paramount Chief of the Mamanuca, which makes Malolo a centre of traditional authority in the archipelago. That structure explains why, even today, the land is communally owned. It also explains the sevusevu, the ritual offering of kava (yaqona) to the chief that is still made before entering a village.
For centuries, life in the Mamanuca meant fishing, yam and taro gardens, and wars and alliances between chiefdoms. The great Fijian canoes sailed these waters long before the first tourist catamaran appeared. The islands are small and short of fresh water, so they were never heavily populated, but they were firmly part of the iTaukei political and spiritual world of western Viti Levu.
While Malolo went about its village routine, a struggle for power in the heart of Fiji would end up changing everything. In the 19th century, the chief Seru Epenisa Cakobau, from the island of Bau, took advantage of the arrival of muskets, whalers and sandalwood and bêche-de-mer traders. He extended his influence until he proclaimed himself Tui Viti, 'king of Fiji'. But debts to foreign powers, above all an old American claim, backed him into a corner.
On 10 October 1874, in Levuka, Cakobau, the Tongan chief Ma'afu and other chiefs signed the Deed of Cession that handed Fiji to Queen Victoria. This created the Colony of Fiji, which stayed British for 96 years. The first governor, Arthur Gordon, banned the sale of native land. That froze the iTaukei communal ownership that today covers almost the whole country, Malolo included. From 1879 he also brought in tens of thousands of indentured labourers from India for the sugar cane plantations, the origin of the large Indo-Fijian community.
For outlying islands like Malolo, the cession mostly meant continuity. With no plantations or ports, they remained iTaukei villages under indirect colonial rule, which left a lot of power in the hands of the chiefs. Fiji became independent from the United Kingdom on 10 October 1970, exactly 96 years after the cession, and later declared itself a republic. National politics were turbulent, with several coups (1987, 2000, 2006) shaped by tensions between the iTaukei and Indo-Fijian communities.
The Mamanuca were among the first parts of Fiji to open up to tourism, long before the remote Yasawa. Lying just 25 km across the water from Nadi, they became the natural playground for travellers arriving at the international airport. From the mid-20th century, resorts were built on islands such as Malolo Lailai, Malolo's flat neighbour. Classics like Plantation Island and Musket Cove started there; Musket Cove was founded by New Zealander Dick Smith and is famous for its marina and sailing culture. Malolo itself gained several resorts over the years. There's the family-friendly Malolo Island Resort and the boutique Tropica. There's also the exclusive Likuliku Lagoon Resort, which has Fiji's only overwater bungalows. Most recently came the luxurious and sustainable Six Senses Fiji, linked to the village of Solevu.
The reef around Malolo also made the area world-famous for another reason: surfing. Cloudbreak breaks on the barrier reef and has been voted one of the best and toughest waves on the planet. Nearby are Restaurants, Namotu Left and the Wilkes break mentioned earlier. Since the 80s and 90s, surfers from all over the world have made the pilgrimage to these waters, and Cloudbreak went on to host the world professional tour.
The most recent chapter literally floats on the sea. Cloud 9 is anchored on the Ro Ro reef, off Malolo. It is a two-storey platform with a bar, a wood-fired pizza oven and 360-degree views. It has become one of Fiji's tourist icons and a photo machine for social media. It's the latest twist for an island that went from Lapita pottery and chiefly wars to cocktails and pizza in the middle of the Pacific. Behind the postcard, the villages of Yaro and Solevu are still there, along with the vanua and the Paramount Chief of the Mamanuca. The best way to honour that long and sometimes painful history is to explore Malolo with respect: ask permission before entering the villages, look after the reef and support the communities.
