Budget travellers can book into a variety of properties offering beds and shared facilities or smaller budget accommodation units. After beds are taken care of, the next thing the Cook Islands Tourism Corporation recommends is that visitors set their watches to "island time." Tapping your fingers impatiently brings little more than the sound of tapping fingers.
Slow down, breath slowly and then choose from such laid back activities as a lagoon tour, Circle Island Tour, four wheel drive safari or the slightly more challenging walking tours, where guides point out easily missed bits of history, and insider tips on island life.
Scuba diving is another activity that takes in yet another awe inspiring view of this island paradise. Island nights may be tourism focused but are popular with the locals as well. Game fishing, golf and tennis are at the more sporting end of the activity scale.
Many of our Guests choose to explore at their own pace on bicycles, motorbikes or cars.
Aitutaki people are known for their talkativeness, a reputation frequently self-promoted as "cheeky." There is no better example than the legend of Maunga Pu, the highest point of the island at 137 metres. But for how long was it there? Settled now for more than one thousand years, according to legend, chiefs of Aitutaki at one stage became bored with the flatness of their island. Accordingly, warriors were dispatched to fetch a mountain.
They aimed for the closest peaks: Rarotonga, a day's hard paddle away. Stealing in before daybreak, they hacked off the tip of Mount Maru. And, it is alleged, transported the mountaintop to their waiting canoes, hotly pursued by local militia who were awoken by chopping and panting noises as well as the sounds of some pieces falling off.
In terms of sheer audacity, Maunga Pu is one of history's (very) few recorded allegations of mountain theft. Outrageous fable or historic fact? Mount Maru on Rarotonga, is now renamed Raemaru - empty shadow.
Ask any Aitutaki historian and they will point out that Raemaru is flat topped to this day (true) and that random pieces of volcanic debris are still in the lagoon at Black Rock (also true).
Aitutaki lagoon spreads out in a triangular fashion. Purple-blue seas ramp up sharply sloping sides of the atoll, from thousands of metres below sea level to dash, foam-white, on to the reef.
This is the same view seen by US service personnel who had arrived in their hundreds during World War II to lay the foundation for today's airstrip, only recently upgraded to bitumen.
All the American hustle and bustle was an interesting contrast with the somewhat stuffy deportment of the colonial administrators. Ironically the next air service was the Coral Route flying boats which landed in the Lagoon rather than the large airstrip prepared by the Americans. Aitutaki became the international gateway for the Cooks long before the sleepy backwater of Rarotonga.
Other firsts: In 1789, Captain William Bligh introduced pawpaw plants to Aitutaki not long before suffering mutiny and a (very) long boat row to Timor, Indonesia.
In 1821 Aitutaki was the first in the Cook Islands to welcome Christianity, in the form of missionary John Williams and his Tahitian convert, Papehia. Aitutaki also produced two of the country's most outstanding leaders, founding Premier Albert Henry and, later, his nephew, Prime Minister Sir Geoffrey Henry, both hail from Aitutaki.
Inescapably laid-back, spectacularly beautiful, fun and even a bit mischievous: little wonder Aitutaki is a favourite for many.