Menen Hotel

The Menen is Nauru's hotel in the singular sense—the state-owned principal address where nearly every official delegation, contractor and curious traveller to the world's smallest island republic ends up. It spreads low along the ocean shore in Meneng district on the southeast coast, about fifteen minutes' drive from the airport, with lawns running to a coral coastline where the Pacific breaks in constant, hypnotic lines.

Rooms across the wings vary with renovation cycles from dated standards to more comfortable refurbished categories; all are air-conditioned, and the ocean-facing rooms earn their premium with breeze and surf-sound. The restaurant and bar carry much of the island's social traffic—Australian-influenced menus, fresh reef fish when the boats oblige—and the hotel's bar remains the place where Nauru's news is exchanged.

Facilities run to a pool, tennis court and event rooms, and staff will point visitors to the island's singular sights: the jagged limestone pinnacles of the mined-out phosphate plateau, Japanese wartime guns and jails, Anibare Bay's swimming harbour and the two-ring road that circles the entire nation in half an hour. The Menen is honest, quiet and slightly time-worn—and as Nauru's leading stay, it wears the role with modest good humour.