Thinking of going to Hawaii? Learn from my experiences and here are some recommendations for you. Get up early! All the hikes and activities were SO much better without a million other people around. Surfing and other water activities: you’re not as naturally good at things as you think. Get some lessons and an actual instructor. Oahu There are more hikes than you could possibly do unless you’re living there full time. Out of the ones we did, I would…
March 15-20, 2018 Our Hawaii experience can be divided easily; first week was active and adventure, second week was exploratory and junior ranger-ing. This last week I’ll call “beach bum” because lazy and drunk just doesn’t sound as nice. Geoff was able to take most of this time off work, and Robin a few days, so we really got to experience what locals usually appreciate; food and drinks. So true no matter where you go. The first day back we…
Haleakala is separated into a couple sections; park headquarters with the summit and the coastal area of Kipahulu Kipahulu is accessed on the Road to Hana, so we saw this side on our first day in Maui. It was definitely our favorite side. It is coastal so it’s a rainforest, with incredible bamboo forests. We hiked the Pipiwai Trail to see the Waimoku Falls – unfortunately, this area is prone to flash floods, so the trail was closed about a…
Maui was the next stop after the Big Island. However…. I’m real dumb pretty sometimes. I got confused when I booked flights, and may have gotten mixed up about what island Geoff lived on and which islands had the national parks. Long story short, we flew back to Honolulu from the big island at 10pm… only to fly out of Honolulu at 5am the next day for Maui. We decided to just sleep in the airport. Except that this airport closes…
Squeeeeee! There’s just something so exciting about the first National Park… and unlike other firsts in a girls life, this did NOT disappoint! We arrived as quickly as we could when we landed on the Big Island; around 7:30am after an easy drive from the Hilo airport. However the visitor center didn’t open until 9 so we took a quick cat nap in the car. And by we, I mean Mike slept and I tossed and turned like a kid…
Mike and I spent three wonderful days on the Big Island where I earned my first Junior Ranger badge of this trip! Geoff took us to the airport at a time I didn’t even know existed unless you’re a 21 year old that’s making poor choices – 3am. What a good friend. We got dropped off to wait for the doors to open. Then waited in line for TSA to even show up. Then waited to board. All to be…
We headed here in the late morning. Again, we trusted various articles/blogs we had read, but there was some conflicting information. It just led to us having a little more adventure than we anticipated though! Fun fact that we learned – Waimano trail does NOT lead to Waimano Falls. A completely different trail, Manana Trail, is what leads to these falls. We only hiked for a half mile at least until we realized this – and I’ll toot my own…
This is what my crowd hating, adventure loving husband was looking for! We had read some various blogs/articles about this hike and it sounded amazing – waterfalls, jungle, non-touristy. The onllllly complaint would be the lack of factual information that we read about the hike in terms of mileage and the route. We arrived around 11am at this random dead end road that Google Maps had taken us to. It was correct, which was awesomely unexpected – the trailhead was…
After Koko Head, we drove along the beach and followed Geoff’s recommended itinerary. This included eating some 7-Eleven breakfast items (don’t judge… they have legit food here. Normally I’d say never eat gas station sushi, but when they are 3 minutes from the ocean, they are the exception to the rule). We then stopped and checked out the Halona Blow Hole and Sandy Beach Park and got mad at ourselves a little for not bringing the boogie boards to try…
Mike and I woke up at 4am for this sunrise hike… I was jetlagged and had drank wine yesterday instead of more water. Whoopsies. I was NOT in good shape, which make the fact that I did this super impressive to me. It is rated as “difficult” on the Hawaii hikes and is a 1.8 mile trail and ascends over 1000 feet. It’s mostly steps on rail ties that were higher than my hips, so that’s always fun! We started…