Tuvalu Travel Guide

Public Holidays

Public holidays include:

• New Year's Day (January 1)
• Commonwealth Day (second Monday in March)
• Good Friday and Easter Monday (March/April)
• Gospel Day (second Monday in May)
• Queen Elizabeth's Birthday (June)
• National Children's Day (August)
• Tuvalu National Days (early October)
• Prince of Wales' Birthday (mid November)
• Christmas Day (December 25)
• Boxing Day (December 26)

The period 25-28 December is the Christmas-Boxing Day Break.

Funafuti Holidays

Local Funafuti holidays include Bomb Day, which commemorates April 23, 1943, when a Japanese bomb fell through Funafuti's church roof and destroyed the interior. An American corporal had shooed 680 villagers out of the building only 10 minutes before, thus averting a major tragedy. Children's Day features kids' sports and crafts; dancing and a parade on Funafuti airstrip mark Independence Day (Oct. 1).

On October 21, Hurricane Day, Tuvaluans recall 1972's terrible Hurricane Bebe. All of the outer atolls have a special holiday of their own, and that day everyone from that island gets the day off, even if they work on Funafuti.