"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness… Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime" – Mark Twain
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!
Our flight out of the islands was again bumpy, but nothing too out of the ordinary. Strangely enough, we actually had more issues landing in Phoenix. Our plane had to fly around for an extra 30 minutes because of a storm system before it was able to land.
We picked up our rental car and navigated to our new home base. And that’s when things got weird.
We pulled into the driveway to a beautiful house with a gorgeous fountain out front. I sent a message to the hosts letting them know that I thought we were there. A few minutes later, a couple open the front door, looking a little confused. The man was wearing nothing but a robe, with a glass of wine in hand. The woman was wearing a lacy black slip, showing off her huge boobs. I thought at first we must be at the wrong house, but nope! They warmly welcomed us in. We stepped inside and were met with mood music, red lighting everywhere, and a mannequin sitting in a chair next to us.
They showed us to our room, decorated with pictures of naked women.
They then gave us the tour of the house (which, aside from the weirdness, was actually quite gorgeous) and then out to their beautiful, big, lush backyard with pool and hot tub. That’s where they told us that the whole backyard area was completely clothing optional, and we should feel more than welcome to do some nude sunbathing or skinny dipping.
We decided to head out and grab some food instead. There was an amazing vegetarian café a block over that we thoroughly enjoyed, and after that, we went back and climbed right to bed.
We went out to the backyard the next morning to drink our coffee (clothed), but then we were ready to explore Arizona.
We went to a brew pub for a light brunch so that Anthony could watch some of the Chiefs preseason game, and then we drove around Phoenix until we decided we were bored with it. We went back to our neighborhood and tried out another restaurant, this one vegan and also delicious.
Then it was roadtrip time. We started driving north to Flagstaff, through the desert, when I get an alert on my phone for a flash flood warning. Awesome. I check my weather app, and there was a “Heavy Thunderstorm” happening ahead of us, and flash flood warning along the whole drive. In the desert. I did not expect to escape a hurricane to the desert, and still deal with severe weather.
Fortunately, the storm itself was nothing compared to the ones we get back home. Eventually, we made it to Flagstaff and stepped out of our car to the incredible smell of pine all around us.
We walked around downtown, stopping in a couple shops and then a café to dink some coffee. The town seemed really cool, had a real outdoorsy and fun vibe to it, and as usual when visiting somewhere new, I imagined living there. The idea didn’t sound too bad.
After a couple hours, we started heading back south toward Sedona. We started winding down the canyon, cliffs and pines all around us.
We drove through the beautiful Coconino National Forest, making plans to come back and camp there someday. We decided that making this roadtrip the direction we did instead of Sedona first was the way to do it. The views were always in front of us instead of behind.
The red rocks of Sedona started becoming more and more apparent. We had to stop and snap pictures a couple of times.
By the time we reached town, it was getting a little late, and was already getting darker than I had anticipated, the sky still cloudy. We decided not to stop and instead to head straight to the Red Rocks State Park. It was about to close so we drove the loop instead, catching the beginning of a dark, cloudy sunset. While I would have loved that bright orange Arizona sunset illuminating the rocks, it was still so much prettier in person than I had imagined.
While there, I got a breaking news update on my phone that John McCain had passed. I told Anthony, we were silent for a moment, and then we began our journey back to Phoenix. At one point, our navigation had us turn off one highway onto a road that would take us to another highway. Right after this turn, we saw a parking lot filled with news crews and state troopers on motorcycles. We had no idea what was going on, but then Anthony saw a sign that said “Thank you for your service, Senator McCain.” I started googling and discovered that the McCain family ranch where he passed was there, and that state troopers would be escorting his body back to Phoenix. It was rather surreal.
The rest of the drive back was pretty, the sunset finally peaking through the clouds. During this drive, I started wondering how we were supposed to check into our flight the next day without checking into our flight from Lihue to Phoenix (we were hoping trip insurance would still cover that flight). I decided I’d call American Airlines to ask. I explained the situation, and the agent informed me that we would not be able to get on that flight from Phoenix. That as soon as we didn’t show up for the flight in Lihue, our tickets would be voided. This was insane to me. We booked seats on that flight. We paid for seats on that flight. We should be able to use them.
As we were still driving through the mountains, I lost service and the call dropped. I was thoroughly stressed, though, and unable to wait the hour til we got back to Phoenix to get it sorted out, so I called back, again explaining the situation, and again being told that we would need to purchase new tickets for a flight we already had tickets on. Again, the call dropped.
We waited awhile until we thought we safely had enough service, and went through the whole ordeal again. And of course, the call dropped.
We finally decided to wait until we got back to Phoenix. Anthony called again. He got transferred. The agent told him there was nothing she could do. She transferred him to her supervisor instead, putting him on hold for 20 minutes while she explained the situation to her supervisor. Once on the phone, the supervisor instantly had an attitude and told him “there was nothing they could do with the ticket no matter how many times he called back.” So basically, to get to safety from a hurricane, American was expecting us to pay $900 for our flights back to Kansas City, flights that we already had seats on.
We called our credit card company instead. They talked to American, and the best they could do was “change” our flights to just be Phoenix to Kansas City, with a change fee of $284 per person. Still outraged but with no other options because we had to get home, we went ahead and paid it.
We went to dinner, sitting out on a patio, hoping a glass of wine or two would calm me down. It mostly did the trick. We talked about all the fun we had had on this vacation prior to that phone call, and then went back home for a late-night swim in the pool under the stars.
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!
