🛍️ Vanuatu: souvenirs
Vanuatu's craft is kastom made visible - sand-drawing motifs, carved tamtam drums and the pepper plant that gave the world its strongest kava. Here is what travellers bring home from Vanuatu, where the good versions live, and the export questions worth a look - alongside our 34 written places.
🛒 The classic buys
Tamtam (slit drums)
The carved standing drums of Ambrym and Malekula in miniature - buy from carvers at Port Vila's handicraft market; the faces are ancestor figures, carved openly for sale.
Kava
Vanuatu grows the Pacific's strongest - powdered and packaged for export; several countries restrict import, so check yours before buying quantity.
Woven pandanus and baskets
Island mats, bags and fans - each island group weaves distinctly; the market mamas sell their own work.
Tanna coffee and chocolate
The volcano-island's arabica and small-batch island cacao - Port Vila shops carry both.
Sand-drawing art
The UNESCO-listed one-line drawings on prints and cloth.
⚠️ Check before you buy
- Kava import rules vary widely - check your home country before stocking up.
- Australian and NZ biosecurity - declare wood carvings and all fibre; untreated wood may need treatment.
- Genuinely old kastom objects are cultural property - buy new carvings.
✗ Better left behind
- Old ritual figures - restricted; the carvers' new work is the honest buy.
- Coral and turtle items - protected.
Markets shift, workshops close and open, and the best souvenir is still the one with a story you were there for. Buy from makers where you can, keep receipts for anything substantial, and when a deal feels too good, it usually is.