May 16th, 2025
As we are back in North America now, we will not being doing the usual info blurbs unless it’s something unique or a place we’ve never been. In that vein, although we’ve been to three Hawaiian islands, we have not been to Kauai. We did want to insert in the Hawaiian flag as it’s quite unique and its license plate cause it’s cool:
The Hawaiian state flag is unique in featuring the British Union Jack in the top left corner and alternating horizontal stripes of white, red, and blue. The eight stripes represent the eight main islands of Hawaii. The Union Jack’s presence is a nod to Hawaii’s historical ties with Great Britain, particularly the gifts given by British Captain George Vancouver to King Kamehameha I. The flag’s design was finalized in 1845 and has remained the same since, serving as a symbol of state pride and Hawaiian heritage. Hawaii became an American territory in 1989 and the 51st state in 1959.
GAS PRICE: $4.44 USD a gallon in Honolulu and $5.09 on Kauai
Landing safe and sound from Pago Pago, in American Samoa with all our bags in Honolulu, our NEXUS pass helped us get through Immigration way faster than everyone else. It was 6am when we got outside the airport to the bus stop to get us to Waikiki. We are one hour ahead of American Samoa now and only six hours behind the Eastern Time Zone. We’re getting there!
As we couldn’t check into the studio apartment we booked here until this afternoon, we were not in a hurry to leave the airport but as there was no place to sit and maybe have a drink in either the arrivals or check-in area, we had no choice but to head out. We had already figured out the public transit bus to get to Waikiki ahead of time.
The No. 20 bus arrived right away but you need exact change to pay and there is no credit card option. The driver told Doug to go to the nearby Starbucks (not so nearby) and get change. Fran stayed with the bags while he went to get some. The bus costs $3 an adult and it took about an hour to get to the other side of Waikiki where our studio apartment was located. We got off about a block early and walked down to the beach to sit at McDonald’s for some brekkie and then walked across the road to sit on a bench on the beach for a while with this view:
By ten we could head over to an office where we were supposed to be able to leave our bags till check in but we’d be notified it was available earlier. After a mix up, we were able to leave our bags in the hotel where the office was located.
We were craving Dairy Queen so Fran found one a mile (1.6 km) away (we are now in ‘merica so there are back in miles!) and we dragged our tired butts over there just to learn that their Blizzard machine wasn’t working and Fran’s fave, the Pecan Mudslide, was not available. Dang. We had passed a Baskin & Robbins enroute so we returned and enjoyed some of their yummy ice cream sitting on a terrace.
We walked the beach boardwalk as far as it went and then went to check out Duke’s Bar to see if they still play live music at night – yes they do – starts at 4pm. We did this last time we were in Waikiki back in 2013 and recalled that we sat at the Westin one night too. So that was the next stop where we had a light lunch and cold drinks. We were both feeling quite tired after a night of no sleep on the flight and Fran saw a few rocking chairs behind the bar so we sat there for about a half hour and tried to snooze with sporadic success. Upon leaving the Westin, we stopped at an ABC Store (the big convenience chain store that is everywhere here), got a couple of drinks for ourselves and to keep in the room and then Fran checked her phone and saw we could get into out studio – it’s now about 1:30.
We returned to the luggage drop off spot, got our bags and made our way into the apartment. It’s called Aloha Waikiki Suites and it’s a unit on the 2nd floor, with a queen bed, kitchen, private bath, balcony with really no view and fast internet. We are pay $376 for two nights for this privilege – hotels cost even more. The best part is: one block from Waikiki beach. It’s not fancy but clean and seems safe.
As soon as we got in the room we decided to crash for a while; Fran set an alarm for 4pm and we got some shut eye and then showered.
After a bit of time online, we went for dinner around 6; Doug had tried to reserve us a table at Lulu’s but had no luck so we just walked over and were told we had a 20-25 minute for a table with a view. We went for a short walk and returned to be told our table was ready. We enjoyed a nice dinner with a view of the sea but the sky was very overcast by now and it poured before our food arrived and it stayed overcast. We both slept quite well that night.
Saturday, Doug went for his long run; the weather was better, there’s a wind but the sun is mostly out. The temps are about 27C / 82F – quite nice. We went out for brekkie around 11 and then went to check the beach section nearest us for beach umbrella/chair rentals. Yesterday at the other end of the beach the best price we found was $40 for half a day. Here they wanted $70 for a whole day or $30 an hour! Fran went to the room while Doug went to get fountain drinks and she thought she’d look for the washers and dryers mentioned in the room ad in case we need to dry stuff before packing tonight and lo and behold didn’t she find umbrellas, chairs, boogie boards and fins for use by residents of the building!
When Doug got back we changed, grabbed some stuff including the provided beach towels and went down to grab an umbrella and two chairs. We checked out all three first so as not to get down to the beach only to find they were broken but it was all good.
The beach is like a 3 minute walk away and we found a spot not too far from some restrooms and set up (that’s our set up on the left).
The view from our umbrella:
We enjoyed the view for a while watching waves, boards and snorkelers (coral looked pretty dead to us and you can see people standing on it). When it got too warm we went for a dip and then read for a while. We spent about three enjoyable hours and were so grateful for the sunny skies.
Upon returning to the room, we showered and chilled for a while before looking into dinner options. We went over to the Westin Hotel to sit at the beach bar and managed to snag a table with an ocean view hoping to catch the sunset. Well that did not pan out; sunset was almost non-existent but we had a nice meal.
If you wish to see more photos of Waikiki, you check them out here
We were back in our room by 8 and went to bed at 9:30 as we had a 5:30 am wake up time in order to catch the bus back to the airport for our 9 am flight. We were on an Alaska Airlines flight to the island of Kauai (our first time there – we’ve been to Oahu, Maui and the Big Island before in 2013) that did not give us free checked bags so our carry on bags and backpacks, were quite full. Fran didn’t open her expando in case it wouldn’t fit in the overhead bin but Doug’s bag is soft-sided and it was pretty much stretched to its limit. We had to hope they wouldn’t weigh them!
That all went smoothly and our flight landed a few minutes early. Doug had arranged a rental car of our week here in Kauai and we took the shuttle over to Dollar Rental and by 10 we were on our way to go grocery shopping.
Here is where we encountered our first wild chickens with this sign at the rental car office:
WHY ARE CHICKENS EVERYWHERE?
When you visit Kauai or Hawaii in general, you will quickly notice that there are chickens everywhere. In fact, it’s not unusual to see them walking down the street or even crossing the road. So why are there so many chickens in Hawaii? Let’s take a closer look at this interesting phenomenon!
The Hawaiian Islands have a long and varied agricultural history. In the 1700s, sugarcane was introduced to the islands, and large plantations soon sprung up. These plantations brought with them a menagerie of animals, including chickens. When the sugar industry began to decline in the late 1800s, many of these animals were simply let loose and left to fend for themselves.
Other species of chickens continued to be introduced to the islands after James Cook’s arrival in 1778. However, they were mostly kept in cages and coops for farming purposes or cockfighting. Two hurricanes, during the years 1982 and 1992, caused devastation to the island of Kauai in which these cages and coops were decimated, allowing all the fowl to roam freely. What we are seeing today is both an ancient and modern hybrid chicken with all of these mixed traits.
As a result, chickens became one of the most common pests on the islands. They would often raid trash cans and scavenge for food scraps, leading to complaints from residents. In recent years, however, the chicken population has begun to decline as a result of predators and disease. This decline has been welcomed by many islanders, who no longer have to deal with pesky chickens raiding their garbage cans.
Here in Kauai, we’d book a Bonus Week through our timeshare agency (all we ever do with our timeshare – we don’t even pay maintenance any longer) and we got a week for $379 in a one bedroom fully equipped condo resort outside of Lihue. We have a king bed, full kitchen, balcony, living room, bathroom with dressing room, our own washer/dryer, pool and hot tub, good AC, good Wi-Fi and free parking – it also gives us access to the Outrigger resort next door. We are on the east coast but they say the beach here is not safe for swimming.
After stopping to get groceries for the week, we checked in and unpacked the car into the condo then had some lunch. Fran got some laundry going and we literally spread out all our belongings emptying suitcases into actual drawers for a week.
It’s warm here in Lihue but maybe not quite as warm or as humid as Honolulu but we’ll see. The forecast is for around 27C / 81F each day with a 40% chance of rain every day. We plan to do an outing every second day to explore the island and it is sure nice to be settled somewhere for seven straight nights.
Doug took a walk around to get his bearings and lo and behold there is a hot tub by the pool closest to us, so before dinner we went for a relaxing soak (and two more at the other resort along with a bigger pool and a bar).
Sunday, we took it easy and hung around the resort. Monday, we took a road trip along the south coast up to the west coast. There is no actual ring road around the island, the road reaches the west coast and almost the north but goes inland and stops as there are too many mountains to complete a ring road as such.
We drove to the end of the road at Koke’e State Park. The weather was a mixed bag all day with fog, rain, clouds and sunny breaks on the coast only although it stayed quite warm. Naturally in the state parks when we were in the mountains it was mostly fog and cloud with the odd shower.
Our first stop before reaching the end of the road due to the weather, was the Waimea Canyon Overlook in Waimea State Park. There is an entry fee of $5 pp and $10 for the car. This covers all the parking lots in this park and Koke’e.
The fog was just beginning to come in so we caught these views as it did:
At Koke’e, we timed it completely wrong and all we saw was a bunch of “polar bears in a snowstorm”:
We were supposed to see this:
We headed 2km back down the road to the Koke’e State Park Museum for a visit and learned a lot about the state park system and the CCC’s forest replantation on this island.
The sky appeared to be clearing some so we drove back up to the Kalalau Lookout in hopes of a view but it was no better than before.
We did make out the NASA observatory nearby though:
We stopped at two lookouts on the way back down to the coast and the fog had lifted somewhat in the Waimea Canyon; one with a clearer canyon view and one with a good view of the Wallpoo Falls:
On the drive up we’d see a cool stream coming down some red sand pools and so we stopped on the way back. This is appropriately named “Red Sand Falls”.
On the drive back down to the town of Waimea at the coast, we got nice views of the coastline as it was, of course, clearing up on our way back:
We then pulled off the highway near Pui’po to check out the “Spouting Horns” – blow holes in the lava and crashing waves:
Not as impressive as the ones we saw in Samoa but still fun to watch.
Then we went towards the town of Pui’po stopping for shave ice:
and we took it to the beach to check that out as we’d read it was one of the best on the island.
At one end of this beach was a cordoned off area with pylons where we saw four large turtles as well as one more swimming in the water. Despite signs saying “stay behind the pylons” there were lots of people checking them out, taking selfies and getting way to close. We hate when people pester wildlife and couldn’t hang around. Fran even read the sign out loud when a man came over to the pylon in front of us to get something out the beach bag he’d left leaning on the pylon! Some people’s children! There were even two guys that looked like lifeguards and they were doing nothing to stop people and were in the “zone” themselves. (Sorry photo does not show pylons.)
It was now around 3pm so we headed back to the resort in order be ahead of what we understand is terrible late afternoon traffic. We went for another hot tub soak before dinner and had a quiet night. It was a good day despite the foggy weather in the mountains.
Tuesday, we awoke to rain but it was over by 7:30 and stayed dry all day. We had a nice lie in and then went for walks mid morning – Fran on her fave place to walk: the beach!
It was not the best beach for walking as it’s not that wide in many sections but it’s a pleasant barefoot walk and the weather held nicely. After lunch we went to the pool to sit in loungers and read. Tough day!
Wednesday, we went for a drive again; this time up the east side of the island to the north. Last week while still in Honolulu, we looked into visiting Ha’ena State Park here in Kauai. You need reservations to park up there and/or to park and take the shuttle which is not free. We could not get a parking reservation for any day this week and the park and ride was quite expensive for what it is, so we’re going to skip it. Besides, with the on again off again weather we’re experiencing, we don’t regret it.
Today we did drive up as far as you can without entering the park to Ha’ena Beach and the dry cave called Maniniholo. We’d thought we’d head directly there and then see all the other sights on our way back so as not to be in too much traffic heading north. The parking area was full but Doug managed to squeeze in between the parking and “vendors only” area so we didn’t want to stay too long and the rain was threatening once again.
We saw the beach which was nice:
We used the restrooms and went across the road to the cave:
On the way back southeast, we stopped in the town of Hanalei which seems like another tourist town and saw the long lovely beach there and again, it began to rain.
We then stopped at the viewpoint that overlooks Hanalei and got these shots without rain but not perfectly clear skies:
We wanted to head over to the Queen’s Bath in Princeville and upon arriving saw no parking spots – this is a golf resort town and they frown on street parking but just as we thought we’d have to leave, someone pulled out. We walked over to the trailhead saw this sign:
The trail doesn’t seem to got straight to the Bath but we assumed you’d reach the end of the trail and walk along the rocks. Well about 8 steps down we gave up. Fran was wearing sandals and the steps and trail were so muddy even Doug was slipping in his sneakers. Didn’t seem safe. We turned around and Fran read that many people have had to be rescued on that trail, ten people have died and that the community has been trying to get it closed down for years without success. No regrets.
The locals do make good use of all the lava rock available, making walls and such. :
We drove over to the town of Kilauea where there is point with a lighthouse and apparently red footed boobies nest there; the only species of boobies that nests in trees, not rocks.
The parking lot there is small and the main road was under construction. The road into the lighthouse area was actually closed as it too was under construction but we got a spot near the lookout and walked over. Luckily Fran brought her cameras as we saw a good number of birds nesting in the trees and with her 83x zoom, we could make out that they were boobies but never did see their feet.
As it was now late morning, we were getting hungry; we’d packed a picnic lunch and stopped at Wailau Beach to eat it on our beach blanket with an ocean view away from the main beach.
One final stop today was the O’paeka’a Falls. They have a pullout there but there are a lot of trees so there’s no perfect spot to get a photo but it was quite pretty:
Across the road there is a view of the Wailua River on which we could see people floating in rafts down the river and the other direction gave us views to the ocean:
The weather turned once again and we opted to head back to the resort as the other water falls we wanted to see were quite a bit inland off the main highway and the sky was not looking too promising in that direction.
We spent a couple of hours down by the pool reading and then went for free mai tai’s at 4pm. They seem to do something everyday here at the resort in the late afternoon and this was the first one we were interested in. We chatted with several other guests including many Canadians.
The temps are topping out at around 26C / 79F with lows of 23C / 74F overnight and the weather changes constantly although we have to say we’ve had two lovely dry afternoons now.
Thursday we had a “stay at home day” – sky was mostly overcast and it rained hard mid-day. We began working on planning out time in Canada over July and August, arranging accommodations, visits and the like.
The entrance into the two resorts here has a tunnel of banyan trees which are quite cool looking with supportive branches and huge root systems that are breaking up the ashphalt:
Friday, Doug did his long run early this week and we went out after lunch to see Wailau Falls (you might remember these from the intro to “Fantasy Island” way back when). It’s a lovely set of falls but the parking lot is small – we got the last spot – and the angle to view the falls is somewhat restricted due to vegetation.
We then drove into town to Costco to fill up the gas tank before returning the car on Sunday (we don’t plan to drive tomorrow) and went to order pizza to be delivered tonight as apparently very few places deliver to our resort outside town but the local Domino’s will if you call direct not order online – but do you think you can find the local number? No, so we went in instead.
After an afternoon reading by the pool again, we had a hot tub soak and returned to our room to relax before dinner. Our pizza did arrive at the requested time and was pretty good.
On our last full day, Saturday the 24th, Doug went for one of his long walks – did a full marathon 26.2 miles much to his delight. Fran did her yoga and her last Hawaiian beach walk.
Today, the office was offering free shave ice at 3pm so we took part in that. We got laundry done, packed up (we get only two free bags on this set of flights to the east coast, so we are going to use our duffle as one, the biggest carry on as the second and the smaller one to carry all the things that are not allowed in checked bags (or that we don’t want checked) and put Fran’s backpack in it so she can just roll the carry on and not have the weight on her back.
On our last morning, waking up early as usual the night before a flight and especially due to crowing roosters!!!!, we finished up packing etc. and checked out by 9:45 heading to the rental car office to be taken by shuttle to the airport. Our flight is at 1:20 pm Hawaii time and we have a bit of a milk run set of flights; first to San Francisco, then DC before flying into Buffalo where we land at 9:30 am tomorrow. YUCK!
We a very smooth car drop off, bag drop and flight departure and we we’re off to the mainland.
Here in Hawaii we’ve been at 21-2 degrees north as we crossed the equator flying from American Samoa.
We quite enjoyed our little Hawaiian escape and can see why people want to live here: great, even climate that never gets cold, no snow, lots of beaches and mountains. IF it weren’t an island so far from everything, we’d certainly consider it.
Here is the link to all the photos we took in Kauai.
