Aloha from Hawaii!
The past few days have been both exhausting and fun as we have had the chance to totally explore the Big Island. Matt left you on a grouchy note about this fabulous resort we stayed at, so I think you need to hear the other side of the story. See, I agree with Matt, it’s totally overpriced, cookie-cutter at best by resort standards, and is perfect for people who want that experience. Matt, who is totally acting like a brat, failed to see the positives that came out of our experience. We both aren’t really morning people, but with the 4 hour time difference from Oklahoma, we’ve found ourselves wide-awake at 6:00 am local time, so we took advantage of that and were able to catch some really great sunrises since being here. At this fancy hotel, not only were we able to get to see the sunrise, but we also got video of some whales doing their morning exercise of pectoral breaching. At that moment, the ridiculous cost of the fancy hotel was totally justified for this event alone. We’ve seen whales in other places, just not breaching ones! We carried on down the west side of the Big Island, stopping at Kiholo Bay (known for having salt and pepper beaches and large green sea turtles) to see if we could capture any of these beauties sunbathing. We were able to see a few there, so it made the stop worth it. We went on down to Kona and had lunch at the Kona Brewing Company where we met a super nice lady who was sitting next to us at the bar. Come to find out, she is a local guide for travelers and she gave us some lodging and viewing recommendations as we moved closer to Volcanos National Park. A huge thank you to Christiana, who can be found on Instagram @ nuwavehi, or on her website, www.explore24.info if you need recommendations for traveling on the Big Island. We shared traveling and adventure stories over good brews and then headed towards Volcano, HI.
Now, as many of you know or have experienced first hand, staying in, on, or around a national park can mean outrageous prices, backcountry permits, and year long waits for hotel rooms. Since Matt and I never book lodging until the day we plan on staying, I guess we’ve become more risky over the yea, playing what we refer to as the hotel roulette. I wouldn’t change doing it this way because it doesn’t lock us down to a certain location and it gives us the freedom to move around to ensure we get to do what we want to do. Now, I will say, this way of doing things has mostly pro’s, such as staying at different hotel brands (local and international), B & B’s, campsites, etc, but there are just a few cons, which include generally paying way too much for a room or space that is not so great, or like the one time (in all our travels) our way didn’t pan out and we ended up camping in a church lawn in Labrador. So as we gambled away our evening in the Volcano area, we ended up staying at what I would say is a hybrid of a hostel and a bed & breakfast. We literally rented a room in a house (where others were staying) where we had to share a bathroom, and there was no breakfast, so more like a hostel, less like a B & B. We’ve never stayed in a hostel before, and are totally open to the idea of it, so I suppose this was a good way to get our feet wet. In saying that, my point is for under $100.00, located one mile outside of a national park it was totally worth it. We had dinner at the Volcano House Restaurant where the views of the active volcano were pretty spectacular at night, and the prices were reasonable (again not typical for right outside the national park), we would totally come here again. I won’t say more about the park and I’ll let these photos intrigue you enough to visit yourself…that is if the U.S. government doesn’t stay shutdown. Bucket list item: See active volcano-check!
Before we left the Big Island on Thursday to fly over to Kauai, we took the opportunity to drive up to the summit of Mauna Kea (close to 14,000 ft) to watch what is supposed to be a phenomenal sunset with amazing star gazing. This experience completely explains why there are tons of domestic and international astronomers with incredibly large telescopes from NASA, NOAA, and various universities and organizations who office at the summit. Again, I’ll let Matt’s photo be a window into our experience. If you go to the Big Island, don’t skip this process, but be aware you need a four wheel drive vehicle to get to the summit.
Thursday we headed to Kauai, where after our first flight to Maui, we again almost missed our flight due to less than 10 minutes to get from one flight to another. Not our fault this time, just scheduling challenges on behalf of Hawaiian Airlines. We made it to Kauai, unfortunately, our luggage didn’t, so we had to pick it up later in the afternoon when it arrived on another flight. We used the rest of this day to relax at our less expensive, not as swanky hotel as we had before, so Matt felt more in his element I suppose.
Kauai is insanely beautiful, so continue to Holo Holo (Hawaiian for adventure) with us to see how we explored this island and got the most out of a few days here!
