Hawaii

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cougnix
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Hawaii

Post by cougnix »

I just booked a trip to take my wife to Hawaii in February.

1. When is the best time to start looking at flights?
2. We are staying in Pahala on the big island, what do I need to start planning for?
3. Should we rent a car?

Those are just a few questions I have. We are aren't world travelers, our only vacations have been to Las Vegas, so we are rookies at planning adventures.
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packsyd2284
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Re: Hawaii

Post by packsyd2284 »

Rent a car for sure.

start looking for flights 5-6 months prior. Hawaiin Airlines is the nicest to take over there.

Def look into a 4 wheeling off road type thing and scope out cool beaches. Other then that every island you go to will have sea-doo rentals, SUP rentals, Kayak's all that shit. I also recommend fishing but it is a bit pricey for a solid fishing trip.
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Re: Hawaii

Post by Cnasty »

packsyd2284 wrote:I also recommend fishing but it is a bit pricey for a solid fishing trip.
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Re: Hawaii

Post by dakshdar »

Snorkeling is great there and easy even if you're not great in the water. There are tons of group trip options but I'd recommend finding one of the smaller ones. There are big boats that will take big groups out (40+, even up to 100). In my experience that scares away most if not all of the fish you want to see. We went in a small group last time: instructor on his single sea kayak and two couples (including us) each on double kayaks. Lots of fish and sea turtles that weren't scared off/barely noticed we were there.
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DRWebs
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Re: Hawaii

Post by DRWebs »

Going to Kauai in June, would appreciate any suggestions for hikes or local eateries if anyone has been

Hope you enjoy your trip Shane, traveling is one of the most rewarding and freeing things for me
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Re: Hawaii

Post by The_Niddler »

DRWebs wrote:Going to Kauai in June, would appreciate any suggestions for hikes or local eateries if anyone has been

Hope you enjoy your trip Shane, traveling is one of the most rewarding and freeing things for me

Kauai and Maui is where I have been.

In Maui, just about any local eatery was damn good.
Haleakala park is a nice place to go early one morning. You are on top of an old volcano and literally watch the sun rise.
Very cold up there though. Huge temperature difference compared to down on the island.
The road to Hana is a nice ride too. Once we got to Hana, I kept going instead of turning around. There were some incredible views, but very scary roads to drive on after Hana.
It is a 1 lane road and there are places cut out of the rock to pull over as a second vehicle comes by.
Your tour guide map may tell you that driving on that road may void your rental warranty, but I did it anyways.
Once in a lifetime experience.
We stayed in West Maui, not far North of Lahaina and the hotel was great.
Had a luau with a pig roast one evening. Was fantastic.
I don't remember the actual name of the hotel, but it was by Outrigger. There are a few there though by Outrigger.


In Kauai, we rented a house.
Most of the local eateries are good and in Kauai, it is not very commercialized at all, at least 16 years ago, it wasn't.
I recommend a helicopter tour. It was downright amazing.The Na Pali coast was incredible by helicopter and we go over a mountain and the pilot starts a decent and tells us that the waterfall may look familiar, it was the big one in the first Jurassic Park movie.
And it wasn't there when I was there, but I just saw a commercial earlier today for Kauai. There is a river that used to be used for watering a sugar plantation and now it is a lazy river people go down on tubes. Supposed to be incredible.

Here is a link for the tubing adventure:
https://www.tripadvisor.com/AttractionP ... ner=Viator

And both islands will have a ton of hiking trails that lead to waterfalls. It was absolutely beautiful there.
It was an incredible trip that I will remember for the rest of my life. I loved it there.
I have never been to the big island of Oahu
Snorkeling was great on both islands.
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Re: Hawaii

Post by DRWebs »

Hell of a write up JD and I did see the lazy river that sounded pretty badass. Would have never thought of the helitour but I'm pretty positive that'll be on the list now that you planted the seed :)
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Re: Hawaii

Post by packsyd2284 »

Kaui was unreal. A few things I did in Kaui that were musts

We did a boat tour of the Napali coast and they will actually take you into the caves. Save your money on the helicopter and just get in the boat. Plus they will let you snorkel for an hour at the end.

The sugar plantation tubing adventure is a must. You actually go into one cave that is a mile long and they give you a hard hat to wear with a light on it.

We also did an off roading adventure in one of those 4 wheeling husky dealios that was prob my overall favorite thing. Nothing better then cruising through the jungle at 45 MPH and mud womping. We also went Deep Sea fishing and my girl caught a 52 pound tuna.

As far as food in Kaui the Dolphin has amazing Poke and then Ono Burger is must eat as well. Always try and do a Luau too if they have one available they are amazing.

Other than that in Kaui just go chill on a few of their amazing beaches and there is also a nice long hike called the Kalalau Trail which has different markers depending on how far you want to go. My GF and I did the 5 mile hike to the waterfall.
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Re: Hawaii

Post by DRWebs »

Biggest fish she ever caught ;)

Great info Pat, appreciate the suggestions!
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Re: Hawaii

Post by DRWebs »

Never got around to posting this following the trip. Kauai was awesome and definitely somewhere I'd like to revisit down the road. We were with family and in the northern portion of the island vicinity Princeville and Hanalei. If we went back I'd like to spend more time near Lihue which seems to be where most of the action is. The lazy river ride through the sugar plantation was also booked out for two months so that would be another thing on our list if we go back.

Kauai was definitely a surreal place as it is so tropical but still has plenty of mountainous areas in addition to miles of beach. Not listed below, we also checked out "Secret" and other beaches, did a kayak tour to a waterfall, visited a lighthouse, and played some mini golf at a place that doubles as a botanical garden. The Mahi Mahi was great but I'm not a huge fish guy so that was about all I ate seafood wise. We tried the L&L BBQ but it wasn't quite what I was hoping for. Food wise we generally played it safe and we did some grocery shopping when we first got there to cut costs somewhat.

Circling back to the beaches, my favorites were Secret, Ke'e Beach, and Hanalei beaches. Secret was great sand, huge waves, and no reef. Ke'e was set up against the mountain and it's reef area was off to the side, but no waves. Hanalei had no reef but also no waves as it was essentially in the bay. Most of the other beaches had really rough beach areas and/or tons of reef. Just depends on what you're looking to do when you go as plenty of the other family members went to the reef beaches to snorkel.

Queen's Bath
Accessed via a relatively short trail that was extremely muddy and slick in some areas. Pool was supposedly formed via a sinkhole and the waves crashing up against the rocks nearby made it a really worthwhile hike. Saw some large turtles just before reaching the "bath" and there were a couple small waterfalls en route as well
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Safari Helicopter
We've done a helicopter tour previously and this was just more our speed than a catamaran or boat tour. Got a discount from a local magazine, but this would have been absolutely worth it regardless. Simply amazing tour from both the driver (dude was legit nuts but hilarious), pilot (gorgeous blonde South African chick with the most soothing voice ever) to the Brazilian chick with the fat ass. Oh yeah, the views were breathtaking and there were a ton of waterfalls to behold on top of the seemingly endless coastline.
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Kalalau Trail
We waited until the end of the trip for this since we didn't have the camping gear to do the full 11 miles (22 round trip). We ended up only doing the first 2 miles (4 round trip) to Hanakapiai stream and beach. The trail itself was even more muddy and slick than the one for Queen's bath so Keen's or Chaco's are almost a necessity, unless your prefer to go barefoot. If we had more time we probably would have liked to make it the 6 miles (12 round trip) to Hanakoa Falls. Enjoyed getting muddy nonetheless and we got some rain along the way which resulted in us being essentially level with a rainbow.
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Re: Hawaii

Post by Cnasty »

Awesome pics.

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Re: Hawaii

Post by DRWebs »

Cnasty wrote:Awesome pics.

SaltLife
As cool as Colorado has been and as happy it would make her to stay near family, I'm dying to get back near the ocean
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Re: Hawaii

Post by Weasel »

Looks like an awesome trip; great pics
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Re: Hawaii

Post by packsyd2284 »

Kaui is unreal.
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Re: Hawaii

Post by The_Niddler »

packsyd2284 wrote:Kaui is unreal.
+1

I like Maui, but Kaui is just more natural.
I definitely want to go back sometime.
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Re: Hawaii

Post by packsyd2284 »

The_Niddler wrote:
packsyd2284 wrote:Kaui is unreal.
+1

I like Maui, but Kaui is just more natural.
I definitely want to go back sometime.
I went almost two years ago for two weeks and did some amazing stuff. Off roading to hiking to zip lining. Just rent snorkel gear and pick any random beach front to snorkel in. The Napali coast is amazing. The only thing I was not wild about was the food.
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Re: Hawaii

Post by The_Niddler »

The Napali coast views in a helicopter were absolutely amazing!
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