After only two days of being stuck in the concrete jungle of Waikiki we needed a break. We were planning on hiking Diamond Head the next day and visiting the Polynesian Cultural Center the day after that. But on this day we really could not find anything that sounded exciting. Since we did not have a rental car our transportation was limited to walking, city buses, or taxis and that left out just driving aimlessly or checking out the surf on Oahu’s »

A few weeks before heading to Waikiki we watched an Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations which happened to be about Hawaii. While he was visiting Waikiki he stumbled across a little place called Puka Dog (pronounced poo-ka not puke-a) which serves Hawaiian style hot dogs. My daughter and I are huge fans of meat in tube form and I knew we had to try this place. Yes, our German blood is strong! Once at our hotel in Waikiki one of the first things I »

Chocolate cake. Those two words best describe Waikiki on the Hawaiian island of Oahu; good in small doses, but sickening if you get too much. After returning for a week, we overdosed! Three years ago we spent three nights in Waikiki before heading to the island of Kauai. We had expected to hate Waikiki, but ended up liking it a lot. Here is what I wrote about it: “While we were expecting our trip to Oahu to not be a good one, we were really »

On our recent trip to Kauai we had Sydney, our 6-year old daughter, keep a travel journal as part of her school work. Here is what she wrote: The comment on this last one was from Sydney’s Kindergarten teacher.

On our previous visit to the island of Kauai in 2009 we had hoped to hike the Kalalau Trail, which is the only land route to the Na Pali Coast. But Sydney was only 4 years old at that time and too small to tackle this difficult hike. Out of curiosity, though, we did venture up the mud covered trail over rocks, roots, and along a shear drop-off to a viewpoint. The people we saw on the trail heading back down were covered in mud and looked exhausted. »

Hopefully Child Protective Services is not reading this, as once again we saw the words “dangerous” and “beach” in our guidebook for Kauai and couldn’t resist. We were looking for something to do and just down the road from where we were staying in Princeville was Hideaways Beach. The beach itself was not dangerous and was said to be very beautiful and without crowds. The reason for the lack of crowds and the part that made it “dangerous” »

Queen’s Bath on Kauai’s North Shore is supposed to be an amazing place to go snorkeling and swimming. It is also one of Kauai’s most dangerous places to visit killing numerous people that have visited there. Since it is located in Princeville it was just a short walk down the road from where we were staying and we thought we would go check it out. How dangerous could it be, right? After strolling through a residential neighborhood we came to »

Sydney’s foot was still a bit sore from the bee sting, so we asked her what she would like to do on the morning following our helicopter tour of Kauai. She responded that she wanted to go to the Kilauea Lighthouse, which sounded like a very educational experience (remember, we were trying to homeschool her while we were there.) The Kilauea Lighthouse was built in 1913 and sits on a narrow peninsula on the northern most point of the main Hawaiian »

Since we were visiting Kauai to celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary, we wanted to do something special. We had seen most of the island on our previous visit (it’s not a big island), but one of the things we had not done was take a helicopter tour of the island. In fact, we had never even been inside a helicopter before. But we had heard that a helicopter tour of Kauai was a very impressive way to see the Na Pali coast. With Sydney hopping around »

After spending the day flying to the Hawaiian island of Kauai from the mainland we made our way to Costco and Safeway to buy groceries for our stay. While the food is really expensive in Hawaii, Costco’s prices are generally the same prices as they are on the mainland. We filled every nook and cranny of our rental car with luggage and groceries and then made our way to the north shore of the island where we would be staying 7 peaceful days, or »

We are flying out Sunday morning to spend a week in Kauai for our 10th wedding anniversary, with our wonderful 6-year-old daughter of course. As the weather turns cooler here in the Pacific Northwest, we find tropical getaways like this most beneficial in helping us get through the dark and rainy fall, winter, and spring… basically the 10 months of the year that do not have sun and warmth. We are really looking forward to this trip, but I have »

I am not sure if it was the Cops episode with the meth dealers and prostitutes, the Hawaii Five-O episode with the murderous hillbilly cannibals (the strangest Hawaii Five-O ever!), or watching the morning news on the other Hawaiian islands that showed Honolulu’s 6-lane freeways with bumper to bumper rush hour traffic. All I knew was that I had no desire to take a trip to Honolulu and Kerri agreed. But after visiting the Big Island of Hawaii twice, »