Category: Hawaii

Hasn’t everyone dreamed of visiting Hawaii since childhood? The picture-perfect beaches and the green mountains have been imprinted in our brains from countless advertisements throughout our lifetimes.  Anthony and I almost chose Hawaii for our honeymoon as that just seemed to be what people do. We were young and broke then, and Hawaii seemed too expensive.

It’s come up again off and on, but was never prioritized.

After 27 years on this planet, we finally had an excuse to visit. My brother was getting married there. His wedding weekend turned into a great opportunity for a week-long vacation, so the research began, and a plan formed.

Considering many outside factors affected the original plan, this post is a bit more challenging to write than usual, but I will do my best.

Highlights

*Disclaimer here that we did not get to spend time at Koke’e as planned, which almost certainly would have made the highlights list. Ditto to the scuba diving.

**Second disclaimer here that major floods several months before our trip meant Kalalau trail, Haena, Ke’e, and Tunnels were all inaccessible… I would assume at least one, if not more, of those would have also been a highlight.

Helicopter ride – We almost chickened out of this due to the high wind warnings from the helicopter company, but thankfully, we did not. The “Garden Isle”, with its high peaks, rugged coastlines, and gorgeous valleys is a perfect destination to splurge on a heli tour.

While it’s not the best activity for the faint of heart or those with a serious fear of heights, if you’ve got an adventurous streak and have always dreamed of hovering over waterfalls and zipping through mountains, DO IT.  We wanted to have reflection-free images of our experience, so we flow with Mauna Loa who let us fly with the doors off which added another element of excitement as well. 10/10 would recommend.

 

Camping at Polihale – Again, I know that camping isn’t for everyone. Kauai Overlander made it an easy and comfortable experience, though, by including everything we could possibly need with our rental and fixing up the truck with a perfectly luxurious top-tent. Most rental car companies don’t allow you to drive out to Polihale, but they encouraged it.

Polihale beach was the most beautiful beach I’ve seen, and the sound of the waves and that ocean breeze while we slept was perfectly soothing.

Watch out for the flies though. I never saw any mention of them in my research, but they were brutal while we were there.

 

Drinks at Happy Talk Lounge – Kauai has beautiful views everywhere you look, but one of the best is at Happy Talk Lounge. It’s a bit more affordable than the slightly-better-view competition at St. Regis Resort, a more relaxed atmosphere, and the drinks were delicious. Win, win, win.

Wedding and Rooftop Reception – I won’t go into detail here since it’s not relevant to most people planning a trip, but if you happen to be planning a wedding in Hawaii, the rooftop (like WAY rooftop, not just the first rooftop on the second or third floor) of Tiki Iniki is a beautiful place for an evening reception.

What I Would Do Differently

Well… I suppose I’ll start with

Not go during hurricane season – Since this was for a wedding, we didn’t really get to pick the time of year, but also, Hawaii hadn’t had a hurricane in 26 years… seemed like a pretty safe bet that our one week there wouldn’t be any different. But, alas, it was, and while we still had a wonderful vacation, there would have been much less stress and heartache if Hurricane Lane wasn’t slowly trudging toward us during our stay.

Have one night in a hotel/AirBnB to break up the camping – This was our second trip like this, driving around an island and camping in a different location every night. Obviously, I’m a fan. But, there’s no denying that after a few days, we’re starting to crave a nice, hot shower and a cozy bed in a temperature-controlled room where the wind won’t affect our sleep. Just having one night in the middle of the week to accomplish that as well as do some laundry and not be covered in sand and dirt while doing so would be refreshing and perk me up for the remainder of the trip.

Rent snorkel gear – Several beaches in Kauai are great for snorkeling, and I, for some reason, operated under the assumption that there would be an easy place near the beaches to rent the mask and snorkel. I don’t know about some of the others, but at Anini at least, that did not appear to be the case. So there we were, at this beautiful beach with calm waters, a lovely reef, and supposedly lots of sea turtles, and all we could do was sit, walk, and wade.

Despite the additional stress and the trip being cut short, we still had a wonderful time in Hawaii, and I now have unfinished business there that I’ll need to come back for!

After a brief stop to check out the Kilauea lighthouse, we drove south to Lihue.

Mom was supposed to do our helicopter tour with us. She arrived separately, and we spoke to the woman at the check-in desk, who told us that winds were high over Waimea Canyon and the Na Pali Coast, and it would be bumpy, maybe a little frightening, but perfectly safe. She gave us the option of rescheduling to next week, going ahead and flying in the wind, or cancelling. We wouldn’t be there in a week, so that left the other two options. Anthony and I chose to fly, but Mom decided against it (I can’t blame her. I was tempted to cancel as well).

We got shuttled over to our take-off point, and before long, we were climbing into the helicopter and putting our headsets on. We were going to fly doors off, so I put my flannel on to stay warm while we were up in the air.

It was definitely scary starting out. This was our first helicopter ride, and it was pretty shaky from the beginning. Anthony gripped the bar in front of him and instantly looked like he regretted his decision (he’s typically a more adventurous soul than I am, but heights are the one area that I handle better). My stomach clenched, but it didn’t take long at all for me to relax into it and be more than distracted by the gorgeous scenery underneath us.

We flew over and into Waimea Canyon, and even with the clouds, at that moment, I couldn’t imagine anything in my life prior that looked as beautiful.

We flew out over the water and along the Na Pali Coast, getting every angle of it we could.

Zipping into and out of the crevices.

Making a 360 degree turn at the edge.

We flew through Hanapepe Valley with lush green and tall waterfalls all around us.

It was one of the greatest experiences in all my travels, even with the bumps and the camera issues (be sure to charge your batteries, people!!!).

We flew back across the island, this time appreciating the different trees, and had a perfectly smooth landing to finish it out.

It was time for the south coast portion of our trip. We drove down to Shipwreck Beach to do the Makawehi Lithified Cliffs hike.

The hike was really pretty, looking out over the water splashing against the cliffs.

However, my hiking sandals kept capturing all the sand between the bottom of my feet and the sandal, and it would not come out until I sat down and took my sandals off to shake it out. I really regretted my decision to wear them, so don’t make the same mistake.

We turned back to the beach and found our car. We drove into Poipu for dinner, still thinking about the incoming hurricane, but still without enough information to make a decision on when to fly out. At this point, airlines were offering travel waivers for people to change their flights to or from the islands, but American had not yet offered a waiver for the date that we were to fly out, instead expecting us to stay sitting ducks on a small island during the hurricane.

We drove to our campsite for the night, which is a pretty secret place that, out of respect to Kauai Overlander who shared the information with us, I won’t post on here. We parked our truck in a little clearing between trees and then walked a short distance down a path to the cliffs’ edge to take in the sunset. The location is known to have a gorgeous sunrise, but seeing the sun tint the mountains to the east orange was pretty spectacular as well.

We sat there and enjoyed a couple drinks before climbing up into our tent for the night.

That night, the wind was strong. We barely slept at all due to the wind shaking our tent and causing this awful flapping noise. It was after midnight when we dozed off, and shortly after that, it started raining into the tent on us. We closed up our windows and doors, and dozed back off, waking up to new sounds and annoyances throughout the night.

My alarm went off at 5 am so that we could get ready, catch the sunrise, drink coffee, and get to scuba diving by 7.

But instead of any of that, I went into full-blown panic mode. Hurricane Lane was now a category 5, still heading our way. We were officially in a Hurricane Watch. Anyone that knows me knows that I do not handle storms well. We were in the middle of an EF5 tornado years ago, and since then, I can barely handle the sound of wind blowing. I started frantically searching for flights out, but they were all taken. I was looking for anything, as long as it got us off the islands. Flights to San Francisco. Flights to San Diego. Flights to Los Angeles. Flights to Phoenix. Flights to Seattle. Flights to Dallas. Flights to Denver. Nothing, except tickets that cost over $1,000 per person and required a layover in one of the other islands that would be getting hit first, was available. American Airlines still was not offering a waiver for our flight date for some unknown reason, but at that point, I didn’t care. I wanted anything. We spent the morning on the phone with American, with our credit card company Chase, and then every other airline I could think of, while I continuously refreshed Google Flights hoping something new would show up.

We missed out on our scuba diving trip. Instead, we sat in the parking lot of a grocery store, where locals were raiding the aisles for water and toilet paper. We found no flights that would work. I finally accepted the fact that I was accomplishing nothing and was wasting the little bit of time I had left to enjoy the island before storms hit.

We knew we were going to have to change our plans and would not be able to camp our last couple nights up in Koke’e as we had originally expected, so instead, we did a short road trip up the Waimea Canyon to Koke’e, taking in the viewpoints along the way.

We saw the campground that we would have stayed at and saw the markers for various hikes we would have gone on, and my heart broke a little because it all looked lovely. But still, the drive itself was nice, and we slowly made our way back down.

We went back into town a little to eat some lunch. While there, we decided we officially needed to make some plans for getting to safety instead of being stuck in our truck and tent for a hurricane. Anthony booked a hotel for our last two nights, and I finally found a flight that would get us as far as Phoenix a day and a half earlier than planned, for a reasonable price, so I booked that as well. We now had back up plans upon back up plans.

Feeling a bit better about the situation, we drove on out to Polihale. The drive is down a rough gravel road to the beach, and most rental car companies do not allow you to make the journey. Ours did, however, so off we went. We drove through the sand to find a nice camping spot that had a good view and was close to the restrooms.

Polihale was almost certainly the most beautiful beach I’ve seen. It’s completely undeveloped, so the long, wide stretch of sand is not interrupted by any hotels or resorts. The northern edge of it backs up to the cliffs of the Na Pali coast.

The bottom of my feet burned on the hot sand as they sank in, but I couldn’t keep away. The waves were far too strong to attempt walking along the water.

The beach faces west, so we had a spectacular sunset that evening.

At our campsite, we cooked dinner and just relaxed. The beach worked its magic in easing my tension from the day, and I mostly slept peacefully that night, only waking up to check the most recent NOAA forecasts a couple times.

It was still dark out when we woke up, but we started brewing coffee, taking our showers, and getting our truck ready to be returned. Since we were going to be hunkering down in a hotel starting that afternoon, there was no reason for us to keep the truck, and Kauai Overlander was kind enough to take it back and refund our last couple nights.

I sat on a rock, taking in the view while I drank my coffee, trying to really be there in the moment of our last morning camping.

The state was closing all of their parks starting that day, so we drove on out before guards came to escort anyone remaining past the gates.

We drove back along the south coast through quite a bit of rain, eventually meeting up with my parents for a late breakfast in Lihue on the east coast. They were flying out that evening and were about to explore a little bit before going to the airport.

Once we left them, we went to our hotel in Kapa’a, and they let us check in. They gave us a “complimentary upgrade” … to a room that had a great view of the incoming storms. I spent most of that day going back and forth between watching the news, and checking my phone. Things were looking less dire. The hurricane was now a category 3, and it looked like it may stay south of Kauai. I started second-guessing whether we actually wanted to fly out the next morning, to our layover in Honolulu which looked like it’d be getting hit around the time we were there.

But alas, morning hit, Hurricane Lane was now only category 2, and was moving slow enough that even Oahu wasn’t expecting to really feel the effects until that evening. It certainly looked like a hurricane was coming outside our hotel though. We sat outside watching the high surf and the dark clouds. After just a few minutes, it was pouring rain, wind making it nearly horizontal, and we had to escape back to the indoors.

We got our stuff together and caught an Uber to the airport. The roads were dead, everyone already in hibernation mode, and many businesses closed. We kept expecting one or both of our flights to be cancelled at any moment, not feeling secure enough to call our hotel and cancel our stay that night until we were actually on the plane.

The flight was bumpy, and our pilot sounded nervous, but we made it safely to Honolulu. Once there, we again kept checking to see if our flight out was still scheduled. About 15 minutes before take-off, we finally decided it was safe to book lodging in Phoenix. I found an AirBnB just a short drive from the airport that looked nice and had all 5 star reviews, so I jumped on it, while Anthony worked on renting a car.

Our original return flight from Hawaii had a layover in Phoenix on Sunday morning. We decided we would just go ahead and stay in Phoenix Friday and Saturday nights, and then still take the Phoenix to KC leg of our original flight. Apparently, that was naïve thinking. More on that later!

I still was not able to sleep in the morning after the wedding, but was very much tired after being out so late the night before. We rested that morning until it was time to go to the airport for our flight to Kauai.

From the moment we stepped out of the airport, Kauai felt wild and lovely. The humidity warmed my soul while the wind whipped my hair, and I felt perfectly exhilarated and ready to explore this little island.

We were picked up at the airport by the staff of Kauai Overlander (our hosts in a way?) to take us to our Tacoma with top-tent that we were renting for the week. They showed us all of the gadgets and awesome camping gear they included, such as cookware, cleaning supplies, an extra tent and air mattress, some great little French press coffee mugs, the works. They demonstrated how to work the top-tent and the 4×4 as well as how we would release air from the tires for beach driving. They told us we better bring it back dirty and encouraged us to take it off road. The truck was a bit beat up which was exactly what we wanted for such an adventure. We were both pretty damn excited.

We stopped for groceries on our way north, picked up some dinner at Duane’s, and took it with us down to the beach at Anahola Bay. We missed out on the ocean-front campsites at Kumu camp, but we went one row back, and popped up our tent for the night. We walked along the beautiful stretch of beach, and then set up some chairs by the water where I drank some Truly’s and watched Anthony swim in the rough waves.

That night we had a lovely sea breeze come in through windows of our tent, a thunderstorm staying just far enough out for me to be able to sleep that night. In the morning, we woke to a lovely beach sunrise.

We got on the road early to reach Kilauea at 7 am for our boat tour of the Na Pali coast. We were on a small zodiac boat. I knew it was going to be a more adventure-oriented tour, but I wasn’t quite expecting just how much that was the case.

From the time we took off from Anini Beach, we were bouncing over strong waves, salt water spraying our faces, the choppiness tossing us around. They informed us there was an early northern swell happening, and this was probably their last tour for the week.

The coastline was just out-of-this-world spectacular.

We went through some caves and under some waterfalls.

There was one particular waterfall that fell through a hole in the top of the cave, which I thought was pretty awesome.

And then there were dolphins! So many dolphins. Swimming alongside and underneath us.

But the star of the show was obviously the Na Pali coast. There weren’t many opportunities to snap pictures of it as we were zipping along, and even when we stopped, I only felt secure enough to get my phone out, rather than my camera. But pictures could never do it justice anyway.

We stopped at the end to snorkel. I thought the water was freezing, so I only lasted about half an hour, but we saw some beautiful fish in that time, as well as a sea turtle quite a ways underneath us.

The ride back was even rougher. Before taking off, one of our guides told us it was a “top 10 day” for the year, with calm winds, and we’d probably only get splashed a little bit. It took about 5 minutes for him to eat his words, the swell causing us to crash repeatedly into the rough seas, with salt water lashing our faces. My palms were calloused from gripping onto the rope, my ankle was raw and red from rubbing against the rubber of the boat, my back and butt and legs and shoulders sore and tense from constantly working to stabilize myself and stay on the boat. But still, it was a blast.

Upon arrival, we rushed to get our camping permit for Anini before the office closed for lunch, and then we made our way to Princeville to meet back up with my parents at their condo. I did some laundry, charged up our gadgets, took a nice shower, and brushed the endless amount of tangles from my hair. We all went to Happy Talk Lounge to enjoy some drinks and apps while taking in the lovely view from the patio.

Our parents went back to their condo, and Anthony and I drove back to Anini beach to set up camp. Anini does not allow camping in your car, so we grabbed our extra tent, found a site right up along the beach, and set it up.

We decided another evening walk along the beach was in order. We got in the water for a little bit, and during our walk back to our site, the mist created a rainbow ending in the water.

We headed back to Kilauea town right as it started raining, to find somewhere to sit and eat dinner. We sat outside the Kilauea Fish Market, the weather just beautiful when hiding underneath their canopy. Once back at the camp, we aired up our air mattress and got ready for bed.

The following morning, we had about the most spectacular sunrise I’ve seen. We woke up to the sun rising over the water from our tent.

Forever terrible at relaxing, we couldn’t just stay in bed and watch it, but instead, I took to walking the beach, while Anthony went for a morning swim. Anini is a great swimming beach, with the coral reef breaking the waves far back.

Eventually, the magic ended, and we started tearing down camp. We joined back up with my parents and brother at Makana Terrace to enjoy a far-too-expensive breakfast, while taking in about the most beautiful view you can get on the island. You’re definitely paying for that view, and I must admit it was pretty blissful.

At this point, talk of Hurricane Lane was surfacing everywhere. It was still far away and a category 4. It looked like it’d be hitting Kauai by around Friday. Our flight out wasn’t until Saturday. We finally had to admit to ourselves that we should be looking into earlier flights out. So, we went back to their condo and started our research. We researched flights. We researched when it might hit. We researched our trip insurance through our credit card. It still seemed far enough out that we had time, so I figured we would make decisions that night or in the morning. I didn’t want to leave too early, so I needed better forecasts.

Anthony and I drove back out to the eastern side of the north shore, to enjoy Anahola Bay again. The waves were even stronger, but it was a gorgeous day for the beach, hot and sunny after the initial 5 minutes of wind and rain.

We cooked ourselves some lunch on our camp stove, rinsed off, and relaxed. We got a call from our helicopter company, Mauna Loa, informing us that wind had picked up, and we were welcome to try to reschedule, or see what the pilot said at check-in time. We were going to be heading south that day anyway, so we said we’d make it for check-in and see what the conditions were there.

To be continued…