The city centre is walkable in twenty minutes end-to-end, and most of the central sights are within a ten-minute stroll of the waterfront. For anything outside the centre — the temple, the airport, the Museum of Tahiti, Point Venus — public buses (still called Le Truck though the wooden trucks have been replaced by air-conditioned coaches) run regularly on the coast road for 200 XPF a ride.
Taxis are expensive (a meter starts at around 1,200 XPF and a city run is rarely under 1,800). Renting a small car for a day is a sensible alternative if you want to see beyond the city — Tahiti's coast road is a single 114 km loop and a full circumnavigation takes 3-4 hours plus stops. Bicycles can be hired from a couple of shops in the centre but the traffic on the coast road makes for stressful riding.