Luganville, Vanuatu: SS President Coolidge WWII Wreck, Million Dollar Point, and Santo

The SS President Coolidge was one of the largest luxury ocean liners in American service before World War II — launched in 1931, it carried 600 first-class passengers and ran the San Francisco to Shanghai route for Dollar Steamship Lines before the war. Converted to a troopship in 1941, it struck two American mines entering the Luganville channel on 26 October 1942; the captain immediately drove the vessel toward the shore and beached it in shallow water, allowing 5,340 soldiers to escape before the ship slid off the reef and sank in 21-67 metres of water. The wreck is now the world's most accessible large WWII dive: the shallowest sections begin at 21 metres and are accessible to recreational Open Water divers, while the deeper sections hold intact cargo holds, guns, trucks, ammunition, and the ship's most photographed artifact — a ceramic tile relief called "The Lady" in what was the first-class smoking lounge. The dive operators in Luganville work the Coolidge daily and offer guided wreck dives with orientation briefings specific to the current condition of the wreck.

Million Dollar Point, 3 kilometres from the Luganville wharf, is an underwater field of American military equipment pushed off the cliff face into the lagoon in 1945 when the United States refused French and British requests to sell the surplus equipment rather than destroy it. Jeeps, bulldozers, forklifts, trucks, field kitchens, ammunition crates, and construction materials are now encrusted with coral and inhabited by reef fish in 5-30 metres of water. The site is accessible to snorkelers in its shallower sections and divers at depth; the scale of the abandoned equipment is legible even without specialized wreck diving knowledge. The clear lagoon water — 20-30 metres visibility on most days — makes the underwater landscape readable from the surface.

Champagne Beach, on the island's northeastern coast 60 kilometres from Luganville, is consistently cited among the finest beaches in the South Pacific: a long white-sand crescent with a freshwater stream running through coconut palms at one end and coral reef visible through the clear water of the protected bay. The beach is managed by a local community; entry requires a small fee payable at the gate. The road from Luganville is partially unsealed; organized 4WD excursions are the most practical transport, as the road condition can be difficult after rain. The journey takes 90 minutes in good conditions.

The kastom (traditional) villages of Espíritu Santo — communities that have maintained aspects of pre-Christian Ni-Vanuatu culture including traditional architecture, garden cultivation, and ceremonial practices — are accessible from Luganville with advance arrangement through village-approved guides. The Loru Protected Area, a conserved forest 5 kilometres from Luganville, has walking trails through banyan forest and the remnants of WWII American base infrastructure returning to jungle. Blue Hole freshwater swimming holes are scattered across the island's interior — clear, cold freshwater pools of volcanic origin, the largest of which (Nanda Blue Hole, 15 kilometres from Luganville) has a characteristic blue tint from the mineral content of the water and is accessible by short walk through gardens and coconut plantations.