learn me on Hawaii

Well we have started talking about honeymoon locations aside from the road trip (that is still in the works). We figured we have both wanted to go to Hawaii so we decided why not? Problem is we have no idead which island we would want to go stay at.

We have come up with a short list of things we want do do including surfing, diving, horse back riding and exploring some of the rain forests. We would prefer to avoid areas with large crowds where we could not find time alone. At this point it looks like we will be getting married in August of next year so we are looking at late August early September for the trip.

So who has been there? Any suggestions of places to go and things to do over there (besides the obvious honeymoon stuff)? Any prefered islands of those that have gone?

Oh and anyplace to rent a 308 Ferrari?

ROAD TO HANA! Google it. You can do all those things on that island

There are a gazillion waterfalls to explore along the road as well as some good, private cave swimming (good signage).

Just don't go around the back side of the island. Very dry and sere.

Which island? The big island (Hawaii) or Kuai are probably the most popular for honeymoon type stuff. Oahu is pretty "city like" so you might want to avoid that.

Oahu has the most 'stuff'; cities, cars, roads, tourist traps, ... There are some things I'd like to go back to see because my trips there have been too short, but I wouldn't want to spend more than a day or two there.

Hawaii (the big island) isn't very touristy, but isn't as lush as I had hoped it would be. It has some areas with jungle/rain forest cover. It also has Volcano National Park, which is great if you want to see some active volcanoes or hike lava flows.

Kauai is great for hiking, diving and all sorts of outdoor stuff. It also has some very posh resort areas. The island is small enough that you can drive from any point on the island to any other in a day, but not so small that you've seen the whole thing after the first few days.

I haven't been to Maui, but I've heard good things about it.

I'd avoid staying at a hotel/motel if possible. There are tons of companies that specialize in renting out condos / time shares. If you contact them directly you can usually get a better price than they post online, especially if you'll be there longer than the usual one week stay.

I've been twice, both times to the Big Island. I loved it. The scenery ranges from totally barren to thick rain forest. There's no crowds, either, but that also means there's not a ton of places to eat.

carguy123 wrote: ROAD TO HANA! Google it. You can do all those things on that island

I did a google image search and all I can say is oh my god is that beautiful...and would require a car much more fun than your normal rental Taurus... Must find someone that rents a Ferrari by the day

Oahu would be awesome for hitting some of the big surfing beaches and the like but I think the crowds might drive us nuts.

Maui is definitely looking like a good choice and the big island looks promising as well especially with the volcanoes (geology geek here).

We are going to try and save up enough that we can be there for at least 2 weeks as we figure one week just won't be long enough to get everything in. I will look into the renting a condo instead of the hotel thing.

Wife and I did 3 days on Maui and 3 on Oahu on our honeymoon in '02. We both wished we'd stayed on Maui. So laid back, beautiful and a lot of stuff to do. '

Bobzilla wrote: Wife and I did 3 days on Maui and 3 on Oahu on our honeymoon in '02. We both wished we'd stayed on Maui. So laid back, beautiful and a lot of stuff to do. '

+1 for staying on one island, but for another reason. When you factor in all the things that waste your time (returning a car, going through the airport, flying, going through the other airport, picking up the new car, etc.) island hopping will basically cost you an entire day of your vacation.

The first time I was there was on Oahu, and I had an OK time, but I wasn't really sure I ever needed to go back. The second time was to the big island, and I LOVED it. I WILL go back to the big island, and can't imagine wasting time on any other island. In contrast, one of my co-workers has been to all the main islands, and only wants to go to Oahu. Different strokes for different folks. I hate big cities, and love nature, windy two lane back roads, etc.

No matter what Island you go to, get the guide book for that island from Wizard Publications. Do this BEFORE you go, and make a list of potential things to see/do on your vacation. While staying in Kona, I bought this book as I've been reading it after the vacation, I realize how much more there is than the things I saw/did (and those were amazing.) I can't wait to go back, and a large part of that desire is because of the ideas I've gotten and things I've learned from the Wizard book on the big island.

One of my favorite things on Big Island was hiking the Awini Trail down to the black sand beach

I also loved kayaking at the Captain Cook Monument.

Dave's right. The amount of variety on the big island is amazing. Here are two of my pictures to illustrate his point.

David S. Wallens wrote: The scenery ranges from totally barren

David S. Wallens wrote: to thick rain forest.

You guys suck. Now I really REALLY want to go back to Hawaii.... you know next year is our 10th anniversary.

Do lots of research. There is so much cool stuff that the tourists never see. My Uncle lives on the Big Island so we got to go a step beyond most normal things. We hiked along the aqueduct to the top of Waipio Valley-you get there by parking on the side of a small highway, hopping a fence, going through a cow field, and then following the aqueduct the rest of the way. We swam in a snow fed river that ran through old lava flows. Lots of 20-50ft waterfalls, crystal clear pools, etc. You get to that one by parking in a neighborhood and walking between some houses. We camped in sight of an active Lava flow. That one is pretty easy to get to, you just go to Volcano National Park, sign a waiver that says its your own problem if the Volcano goes nuts, and hike out across terrain that looks like all the blacktop layers in the world dropped acid and went nuts. We played in the ocean in 80 degree weather and one hour later played in the snow. It is a really cool place with every climate you could ever want to visit. Or you could just go to the resorts on the dry side of the island and stay in a really nice place that is totally fabricated. They ship in the beaches in some places. The resorts are nice, but you are missing out on the true beauty of the place.

Yeah we are both in the dislike of large cities and love nature camp ourselves. We are going to the city this weekend to pick up Tiff's ring and we were thinking of picking up a couple travel books to see what we wanted to do and all.

I had thought about the whole island hopping thing but as mentioned it would eat up a ton of time. I did just find a place that rents Miatas over there . They also rent Vipers, Ferraris, Boxsters, and some various other exotics

Being a car junky I found one fact really interesting: If you pass a piece of property with rectangle sections of 10' tall weeds in the yard-that's a car. The weeds consume cars that are ignored in a very short time.

I would say Maui or Kauai, both are beautiful and there is plenty to do. You will probably fly in or out of Oahu so you can do a quick day trip there as well.

When I was on Maui there was a Cobra roadster (replica) for rent, my dad said no.

We went about 15 years ago on our honeymoon. Kauai. No regrets. Very laid back and garden paradise. Not the place to go for down town parties and such. But for hiking and snorkeling and such, it was great.

Joshua wrote: I would say Maui or Kauai, both are beautiful and there is plenty to do. You will probably fly in or out of Oahu so you can do a quick day trip there as well.

Kahualui is an international airport as well. United flew us from San Fran straight in (after flying from indy to chicago, and then chicago to SF).

rebelgtp wrote:

carguy123 wrote: ROAD TO HANA! Google it. You can do all those things on that island

I did a google image search and all I can say is oh my god is that beautiful...and would require a car much more fun than your normal rental Taurus... Must find someone that rents a Ferrari by the day Oahu would be awesome for hitting some of the big surfing beaches and the like but I think the crowds might drive us nuts. Maui is definitely looking like a good choice and the big island looks promising as well especially with the volcanoes (geology geek here). We are going to try and save up enough that we can be there for at least 2 weeks as we figure one week just won't be long enough to get everything in. I will look into the renting a condo instead of the hotel thing.

I have the Road to Hana shirt and I did it. It was awesome. Pick up the Maui Revealed book to get the better sites to see along the road and elsewhere (just don't let the locals see you with it, they hate the books). There is a place that rents bikes and cars per the day/hour. I did it in a Grand Prix rental and it was still fun, even with the wooden steering and weighing in at 3 tons :) Go early, early or fight the traffic. The drive up to the mountain is pretty fun too :)

I have to say that Maui is a great mix of both types of things to do, Lahaina has enough shops and eateries to keep you busy wandering around between the things you choose to do. Lots of great historical sites to visit. There's a neat aquarium there as well. There are ZipLines and horseback riding. The excursion to Lanai is supposed to be a great diving/snorkel trip. Last two times in Maui we stayed at the Westin Ocean Resort Villas and were able to snorkel right from the beach. Liked it so much, bought a timeshare there so we could go back later. http://www.westinkaanapali.com/

Kauai is simply beautiful. Much more tropical. Completely laid back (more so than Maui, which is seemingly comatose compared to Waikiki). They filmed portions of Jurassic Park there (and there are helicopter tours that show you the spots from the movie) Less shopping, less eateries, but still enough to keep you amused between trips, etc. Roads on the North Shore are narrow and twisty, so the Fiesta we rented was right at home there (nice car, BTW). There are ziplines and an offroad ATV course along with Horseback riding. We liked Kauai so much, we're getting married there next March :)

Oahu is worth visiting if you want to visit the Arizona Memorial, the air museum, do some high end shopping and practice your Japanese (seriously, I was just there and there were a ton of Japanese tourists, made me miss taking more Japanese than I did when in school). Otherwise, I'd stick to the other islands for what you're looking for.

Good luck!

In reply to turboswede:

Congrats on your upcoming marriage over that way.

Man I have a feeling it just going to be damn hard choosing an island we might just have to visit them all over the years

Thanks!

Yeah, I didn't travel much as a kid (made it to Boston and drove back through Canada with my Mom one summer and that's it basically) but when I met Joy, she and I started traveling and after we went to Maui to stay with her Mom for a couple of weeks, I was hooked. The next year we went back for her Mother's wedding and we signed up for a week in Maui, the deal worked out the same as a car payment (which we didn't have, nor will have as I'm too GRM for that) but in the end we have something more valuable as the time can be traded for stays elsewhere without penalty.

Like I said, I think you'll like Maui quite a bit. Plenty to do and the costs are lower than Kauai thanks to the nature of supply and demand. You can get direct flights to Maui, which is also nice. The airports are not so much, so don't spend much time in them :) (they haven't changed since Hawaii 5-0, with the exception of BS security theatrics)

On our recent Wedding Recon trip, we stayed in Oahu as she has family there that works at a Wedding boutique (The Wedding Cafe, neat concept) and took an inter-island flight to Kauai for a couple of days. The flight was 30 minutes, the trip in/out of the damned airports was half a day. Just wish the island super ferries were allowed to run, would make the island hopping experience more pleasurable, IMHO.

I would love it if we could just have the wedding there though neither of our families could afford the trip over. We are talking about having the wedding itself up in the mountains at her fathers gold claim (there is a huge meadow right next to it) and then having a potluck bbq for the reception to help keep costs down.

We are also planning a cross country road trip that was going to be this summer but its put off for now. Hoping to build a car for that trip and we also want to do a trip down route 66. Im thinkin some 60's convertable for that one.

I think in Hawaii I will have to give up on getting a Ferrari for a day do to cost though a Vette convertable looks doable and Tiff loves those.

We did Maui for our honeymoon and loved it. We were told to skip Oahu unless you just had to go to Pearl Harbor. It is just like any other oceanside city.

We stayed in a condo we found on VRBO.com.

Road to Hana: don't worry about having a fun car, you'll never get going very fast anyway. Contrary to what everyone says, we DID go ALL THE WAY AROUND! It was a LONG trip and took all day. At the time we regretted it halfway thru, but now looking back I'm glad we did it. I think we stopped too many times during the first part of the trip. Be careful, the road on the backside is not in great condition in places and your rental car agreement specifically says you are not to go there.

This is on the backside of Maui...

Consider doing the bike ride DOWN Haleakala. Decending 10000' in something like 35 miles all the way to the ocean - only pedaling a couple of times! It seems they don't start from the summit anymore. We did the Sunrise tour where you see the sunrise from the 10000' summit overlooking the crater. Really cool - we were above the clouds over the ocean!

I did a honeymoon to Kuai (the oldest island) and it was great stayed at a bed and breakfast outside of Kapaa for abou $100/night the proprietor went to the market every morning for fresh fruit for breakfast, had a lovely view of a rain forrest and waterfall, went for a hike to a beach on the north side of the island, drove through the cane fields to a 2mi long nearly empty beach on the west side, drove wiamea canyon, there is horseback riding(not personally a fan), apearently you can go boar hunting, there is surfing at wailua although there wasn't much surf in august, I did not do much snokeling, I think Maui has better snorkeling.

I second Maui and/or Kuai. I visiting to both when my father was living on Kaui. A week at on each island. The trail on the Na Pali coast of Kaui is breathtaking. It is a fairly tough day hike but it was worth it. You really need 2 liters of water per person. I also enjoyed the Maui very much but Kaui has a certain Magic I cannot explain. It is one place I seriously considered not coming home from. I haveto find my pictures from Na Pali.

Yeah if any of you have photos and are willing to share please do so.