It is home to the National Parliament Building, the National Museum, the Art Gallery and the Vanuatu Cultural Centre, which has displays that reflect the wide diversity of tradition and art in the islands. The market, with its flowers, fruit, vegetables and handicrafts is open 24 hours a day and is an excellent starting point for a tour of discovery of Vila. The market also houses handicrafts and colourful clothing made by women in small business. Accommodation ranges from self-catering apartments to five star resorts on the beach. Although it has its fair share of sandy bays and reefs, it also has a rugged coastline, rainforest, rivers and waterfalls.
Diving is easily accessible and fascinating in the amount of variety of coral and fishlife.
This is the largest and most diverse island, and hosts wild mountains and ordered plantations, spectacular diving and amazing wildlife on and off-shore. It has the most popular white sand beaches. The United States military based 100,000 US soldiers on Santo during the Second World War, and left several planes and boats in the waters nearby, which now make attractive dive sites. Most famous is the huge USS President Coolidge, a luxury liner converted to troop carrier. It hit two US mines as it entered the harbour of Espiritu Santo with soldiers en route to battle in nearby Guadalcanal.