After watching footage of the devastation, the choice was simple for professional photographer Alan Dove - he had to go.
Mr Dove said he visited the island for the first time last month, to take photos of a wedding and enjoy a family holiday at a resort on the island of Upolu.
Discovering that the resort, like many of the buildings on the southern coast, had been destroyed by the tsunami, Mr Dove decided to return to Samoa to "document the aftermath".
He was due to arrive in Apia last night and expects to return to New Zealand on Wednesday.
"It will be a personal project."
Earlier this year, he went to Australia to make his first visit to a disaster zone, to take photos of the Victorian bush fires, an experience he found "sobering and sad".
