After leaving two years ago with our kids to experience living in some non-usual areas in Europe…to slow traveling several months in Africa and Asia as we made our way finally to our second home (New Zealand)…
…we’re now slowly island hopping our way to California (for Matt’s client work which needs him in person for a bit) via Samoa and two Hawaiian islands…
When I was growing up, stopovers in Hawaii to visit extended family were a normal part of life. Flying back and forth between home (at the time) in Japan and visiting family in the U.S., stopping over on Oahu to visit uncles, a beloved aunt, and some fun second cousins was always part of the trip back and forth.
My favorite book at that age was one on Hawaiian mythology — wild, exotic stories that always seemed to involve water (ocean or waterfalls) and someone dying.
Birthday cards from my sweet aunt in particular were always, always, always an education in Hawaiian language she peppered through the letter or card (I’d have to look it up or just guess what the words meant, and they were always so fun to say). Incredibly sadly, she passed away years ago…I’ve kept all her beautiful cards from childhood to adulthood, all written in her distinct handwriting I’d know anywhere… 🙂
Some of my most foundational outdoor garden preferences were set by childhood times set in Hawaii…it’s probably no wonder I’m hired for outdoor & landscape design by clients just as much as we’re hired for doing interiors! 🙂 Hawaii does have some fantastic outdoor gardening inspiration! (I always go to as many botanic gardens as I can, everywhere we go…)
So please don’t mistake it as an aversion to Hawaii when I say that I just can’t get too excited about Hawaii, even when I try. We’ve honestly just never “recommended” Hawaii to people as a trip unless they are 1) Americans who refuse to travel outside the U.S. and simultaneously 2) want a South Pacific-esque experience.
Otherwise, we’d recommend several other places first…
And to be fair, most people have already been so Hawaii doesn’t need to be recommended, right? 🙂
Maybe I’m (admittedly) desensitized from going to the Hawaiian islands often as a child…I later wondered as an adult if I was being too “blah” on Hawaii. Maybe I would see what all the fuss was about if I went again in my 40s, with kids, and looked at it afresh…right?
And everyone said, “Kauai! You would love The Garden Island! THAT’S where you’ll fall in love with Hawaii!” (That was one island I’d not yet been to, so I was excited to try it!)
And so enroute from New Zealand to Samoa to LA, we continued island hopping by stopping over in Oahu for a week to go all over the island and show the girls (plus you have to go through Honolulu anyways so why not), then Kauai for two weeks, before continuing on to California to move into our new house.
Two weeks, we reasoned, would be plenty of time to get a taste of Kauai and see if we really had been missing out on something so close to home. It’s so easy to fly back there from California if we really suddenly found we wanted to.
What’s the verdict? I’ll share what we liked in Kauai…and what was “not our favorite” (as we taught our kids to say when they taste but don’t like a certain food). 😉
Hawaii is nice, but — and please laugh with me as I say this, because I’m laughing at myself but it’s all one part of my brain kept alerting me on:
“It’s full of Americans!”😆
I love so much about America, I’m genuinely thankful to be American and never pooh-pooh it, and I like Hawaii, and there are perfectly lovely, dear American people who love going to Hawaii because they enjoy the culture and landscape, yet — at least on our trip — it was full of the kinds of American travelers who make traveling not enjoyable.
Maybe we noticed such a stark difference just because we came from allllllllll these other countries across other continents full of a variety of cultures from everywhere else. Even in Samoa, we ran into zero Americans. Plenty of other nationalities, but literally no Americans.
Above: at one of the botanic gardens on Oahu I was delighted to introduce my children to “Sensitive Grass,” which Matt and I were first introduced to in Fiji 20 years ago and finally we found some for the kids! 🙂
The mountains in Kauai and even some in Oahu were truly beautiful, but still…they looked similar to many other islands like French Polynesia, Reunion Island and Mauritius, so it was pretty but…admittedly we probably were spoiled given where we’d been over the past prior years and so it probably just felt repetitive at the time so maybe you shouldn’t listen to me. 🙂 This is just my write-processing how I felt about Hawaii at this point in life, with where we’ve been and where we’re at. If you love Hawaii, awesome. If you’re up for something else, go for it! Let’s say Hawaii was Mauritius but a loooooooot of Americans and no Decathlon.😂😂😂
The beaches in Kauai were okay (I’d honestly been looking forward to those from what I’d been told!), but after going there ourselves we saw they couldn’t compare with dozens of our favorite beaches in other places…so that was disappointing. We’d heard the snorkeling at places like Tunnels was amazing, and it was not…
HUH-WHY-EE
The Good in Kauai: Waimea Canyon, Hanalei Dates & Allerton Garden!
We DID really enjoy Waimea Canyon! That was unique for sure!
We did 2-3 different hikes and they were all beautiful.
We got up early one morning and I ABSOLUTELY recommend that because it wasn’t as full of people. By the afternoon when we left, it was packed with people and felt less special.
One of the things we kept doing with the girls everywhere in the world we went was to have “dates” with them 1:1. So we have many sweet memories of going into Hanalei (we rented a place nearby so it was easy to pop in) and enjoying a coffee, or a poke or asai bowl…or just “poking around” in shops with my girls. (They love that!)
We also REALLY enjoyed the private dinner and fire show we did at Allerton Gardens. I nerdily wanted to go there because one of my favorite childhood “Home + Garden” combos was from a movie shot at the old Queen’s House there, so it was super cool to go. Plus they only took very small groups, so it felt nice and quiet and relaxing…I’ll move in anytime. 🙂
So we started on islands and ended on islands…see where we started our around-the-world adventures in The Azores two years ago!
Next…
We fly to LAX and head to our new house!
Well, a hotel for the night (since we get in at midnight), and then to our new beach house where a storage pod awaits us in the driveway…a different kind of adventure!😅
