The Australian escape that became Vanuatu’s best-kept secret

Vanuatu is quietly emerging as an alternative to the Pacific’s more polished hotspots. On a secluded island just beyond Port Vila, an Australian-owned boutique resort offers a rare blend of barefoot luxury, community connection and low-impact living

While Fiji has long been a favourite among Australian travellers to the South Pacific, many are now broadening their horizons to include an archipelago that feels like stepping back into an earlier, less hurried era. Just a three-hour flight from Sydney or Brisbane, Vanuatu offers a place where genuine warmth hasn’t been polished into performance, where pearl-hued beaches remain blissfully uncrowded, and where the rhythm of island life moves to its own unhurried beat.

Here, the Ni-Vanuatu people greet visitors with smiles that mirror the brightness of their tropical surroundings – rolling emerald landscapes, crystalline waters, and that particular quality of light that makes everything feel softer, more dreamlike. It’s the South Pacific as it once was: authentic, unscripted, and refreshingly real.

Barefoot luxury on Moso Island

For Australian travellers seeking this kind of raw beauty without sacrificing comfort, The Moso – an Australian-owned adults-only boutique resort – presents an intriguing proposition. Lining the ivory shores of a secluded island just one hour from Port Vila by car and a short boat ride away, this boutique resort manages to capture everything that makes Vanuatu special while adding a layer of thoughtful luxury that never overshadows the destination’s natural charm. It’s the kind of place where barefoot elegance meets genuine island hospitality – where you can disappear into your own plunge pool villa one moment and find yourself sharing stories with local staff who’ve become friends the next. 

This is resort life stripped of pretence and amplified by authenticity. Days unfold in a hammock strung above bath-warm Pacific waters where vibrant coral reefs promise afternoon adventures just a snorkel’s reach away. The food mirrors this unfussy elegance – fresh-caught tuna, freshly picked tropical fruits, and local vegetables displayed daily like edible art in the bistro. 

The villas themselves embody this philosophy of pared-back sophistication. White as the sand they overlook, each retreat features soaring ceilings and walls of louvred windows designed to capture every whisper of trade wind that crosses the Pacific. This is deliberate; eco-luxury living is intentionally without air conditioning as ceiling fans lazily stir the ocean breezes, and cross-ventilation becomes an art form. 

You’ll fall asleep to the sound of waves rather than mechanical hum, and wake to birdsong instead of climate control. It’s beach house living elevated, where verandas frame ocean views, and your only security system is the knowledge that you’re surrounded by 650 island residents who’ve welcomed you as their guest. The bohemian simplicity extends to every detail: tasteful Moso touches that speak to place without shouting about it, spaces that breathe with the rhythm of the island. 

But it’s the people who transform a beautiful location into something memorable. Staff greet you with smiles that reach their eyes, remembering your name and your coffee order by day two. During our stay, they orchestrate the kind of moment that defines The Moso’s magic: whisking us by boat to a private beach where a chef conjures dinner over an open fire, waves providing the soundtrack as stars emerge overhead. No white tablecloths, no hovering waitstaff – just exceptional food, genuine warmth, and the profound luxury of feeling embraced by both the island and its people. 

Built on community, powered by the sun

The story of how two Sydney hospitality veterans ended up running a solar-powered resort on a remote Vanuatu island reads like a champagne-fueled fever dream – because that’s essentially what it was. Joel Slattery and his partner Antoun Jabbour had touched down in Vanuatu to help a friend plan a holiday home, expecting little more than a tacky cruise ship destination. Instead, they found themselves captivated by an archipelago that defied every preconception.

“We returned a few months later to find land to build a holiday home, which we did after seven days searching,” Joel recalls. The land they discovered on Moso Island was everything their Sydney life wasn’t – remote, undeveloped, with no power or water, just pure potential and a sense of adventure. Six weeks into building their architecturally designed home with local workers, they made a decision that would have seemed unthinkable months earlier: they didn’t want to return to Australia.

Within three months, they’d sold their Erskineville café and bar – a business they’d run for 12 years – along with their apartment, and relocated permanently to Vanuatu. “As it had happened rather quickly, not a lot of planning had occurred for our futures,” Joel admits with characteristic understatement. The resort idea emerged, appropriately enough, over celebratory champagnes, transforming their personal escape into five villas, a bistro and bar that opened just nine months later.

Today, The Moso operates as one of Vanuatu’s only resorts running entirely on solar power, with 160 panels powering an off-grid paradise that proves luxury doesn’t require environmental compromise. The pools use a chemical-free Naked system with silver and copper ions, while heat pumps warm water using atmospheric heat rather than gas. It’s low-impact luxury in its truest form – where 75 per cent of bistro ingredients are locally sourced and seasonal, where glass bottles are crushed for construction materials, and where linen is line-dried under the Pacific sun.

A Pacific escape that still feels untouched

But perhaps The Moso’s greatest achievement lies in how seamlessly it’s woven itself into the fabric of island life. The resort shares Moso Island with two villages totalling 650 residents, and more than half of the 32 staff members call these communities home. Recently, Joel and Antoun were honoured with a custom naming ceremony – a profound recognition of their decade-long commitment to the island.

The resort’s impact ripples through the community in waves. Local boats handle all guest transfers and tours, villages produce concrete blocks for construction, and The Moso supports everything from nurses’ accommodation to school projects and hospitality internships for local youth. When Cyclone Pam devastated the region in 2015, they turned destruction into beauty – the cedar louvres in their initial five villas were crafted from timber salvaged from demolished homes, and they now continually help the local villages with cyclone preparedness. 

It’s beach house living elevated, where verandas frame ocean views, and your only security system is the knowledge that you’re surrounded by 650 island residents who’ve welcomed you as their guest.

For guests, particularly the Australian visitors who form the resort’s core clientele, The Moso offers something increasingly rare: intimacy at scale. With a maximum capacity of just 28 guests spread across beachfront villas, even full occupancy feels personal. “Everyone loves that we are adults only,” Joel notes. “Even if we’re fully booked, it still feels intimate, and you’re known by name.”

The food tells its own story of place. Dishes are prepared with love by local staff trained to Australian standards, using ingredients grown without hormones or chemicals, often picked that morning. The daily-changing display of local fruits and vegetables in the bistro isn’t just decoration – it’s a manifesto about eating with the seasons. And the fresh tuna? “We can’t keep up with demand,” Joel laughs.

For Australian travellers seeking something quieter and more intimate within the South Pacific, The Moso offers proof that paradise doesn’t require perfection – sometimes it’s found in the imperfect rhythms of island time, in staff who become friends, in the knowledge that your morning coffee is powered by sunshine and your dinner was caught hours before it reached your plate. It’s luxury redefined through simplicity, sustainability, and the radical idea that the best resorts don’t escape from their location – they embrace it completely.

Sharing the dining space with one other couple – who were taking part in a juice cleanse while we indulged in a mouthwatering seven-course degustation dinner – leads to mixed feelings of both guilt and gratitude. But, we reason with ourselves as we take another bite – a stay at Santani is all about balance, after all.