2024 Best Sights Around Hawaii
Intro
Can you go wrong in paradise? At the time I visited Hawaii, I was living in Miami Beach, another tropical location and I thought I wouldn’t enjoy Hawaii as much as I was used to living in the tropics by the time of our trip. Probably the most wrong I have ever been. I am not one for laying on the beach for days on end. Hawaii can be like that if you want it to be, but it doesn’t need. There is so much to see and do in Hawaii, and not just in the states capital (Honolulu). While it could seem daunting spending the money and traveling to an island isolated in the Pacific Ocean, it is well worth the investment. Below I outline some of the highlights from my trip to Hawaii as well as the highlight reel of some of the best sights and travel tips to Hawaii.
Honolulu, Hawaii
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In February of 2013 my family and I went to Hawaii to celebrate my Mom's 60th birthday. She made it 60 years and took care of all of us, the least we could do is celebrate her in one of the best places in the country, Hawaii. I am not sure if Hawaii is a perfect place, but during my two week visit, it sure seemed perfect. We lounged on some of the best beaches, toured the Dole Plantation, visited the USS Arizona Memorial, saw some marine life while snorkeling around coral reefs, and walked up Diamond Head. Initially when my Mom picked Hawaii as the destination for her birthday vacation, I was happy to visit and would have gone wherever she wanted, but coming from South Beach, Florida; I assumed it would be just another beach vacation. What I didn't anticipate when visiting the Aloha State for the first time was seeing some of the most beautiful white sand beaches, exploring hiking trails with an incredible view of nature, or partaking in water sports while relaxing around the hotel, making this one of the most amazing places to visit.
O'ahu North Shore vs. South Shore
I flew up to Newark, New Jersey from Miami, Florida to take a direct flight into Daniel K. Inouye International Airport on O'ahu with my family. The flight took about 10-hours direct from New Jersey to O'ahu. Recently I had lived on the west coast of the United States for years and if coming from that part of the country it would only be a 5-7 hour flight depending on what city you are coming from.
We stayed at the Waikiki Beach Marriott Resort & Spa in Honolulu for our first leg of the trip. This hotel was not directly on the beach but was across the street from the beach and did have views of the water. Honolulu is more of an inner city than the typical beach destination you expect from Hawaii. Other parts of the island are possibly different but the beach in front of our hotel weren't sandy beaches as much as rocky beaches and you didn't see many people relaxing on this beach, but more at the hotel pool. What I will say about the Hawaiian beaches is that they definitely are more pristine beaches than you will find in South Beach. I would say Honolulu is a hot spot for going out if that is of interest to you, there is more nightlife in Honolulu than on the other islands. We were only on O'ahu for three days so we did not get to spent much time on the north shore of Oahu as the Pearl Harbor National Memorial, Dole Plantation, and the hike up Diamond Head were all closer to the south shore of Oahu and the center of the Island, which is why we stayed in the hotel we did as it was beach front and close to many of the sights we were visiting. Getting around these islands, if you are on the opposite side, can take awhile.
We did go do dinner and watch the sun set on the north shore of the island our second night, the restaurant was close to Sunset Beach. We had dinner at a place called Ola. I checked on Yelp and it is no longer there. The first night in Honolulu we just ate at Steakhouse in our hotel. My family loves a good Steakhouse so that is what we tend to veer towards when going out for special occasions.
Pearl Harbor National Memorial
We visiting Hawaii in the middle of February. It was similar weather to what I was used to in Florida, just a little cooler and less humid. So when we were touring around outdoor sights, it was quite nice.
We visited Pearl Harbor mid-day after breakfast and it was still quite pleasant out. There was a little snafu when driving to Pearl Harbor in our rental car, because my brother decided to listen to the GPS on his phone rather than us following the big green street sign on the highway that the Hawaiians put up telling us to go the other direction, so what should have taken us 25-minutes took us over an hour to get to. Luckily we wound up finding the right place. I had learned about WWII and Pearl Harbor in school, but I always find it interesting to be in the place learning about the history rather than sitting in a room reading a book. We had a self-guided tour that provided us with a headset to learn more. My family always loves a good visitor center and reading as much of the verbiage they can get their hands on. This is one of the most historic sites on O'ahu and had an ample amounts of information.
Diamond Head & Dole Plantation
On our second day in Honolulu, we spent the morning hiking up to Diamond Head. It only had an elevation of 762' feet, so it wasn't a super intense climb and we did not need any equipment other than proper clothing and footwear, but there were more intensive trails than others. My family is more of a superficial hiking family. We like the outdoors and nature, but don't expect us to be mountaineers any time soon.
We only spent a couple hours at Diamond Head before heading over to the Dole Plantation. It was interesting to see how pineapples grow. Being from New Jersey, that is not a fruit that grows naturally in that part of the world. It was interesting to learn about how the plantation operates and taking a train ride around the fields to see what goes into it. When I was little I thought I could just plant apple seeds in my backyard and an apple tree would grow, so clearly I had no idea what it takes to make produce grow successfully.
Maui Hotel
Day 3 through Day 6 was spent on Maui. We stayed at the Ritz Carlton in Kapalua. At the time I was working for Marriott International and I was able to snag some pretty nice employee discounts at these hotels. Clearly I was the favorite child at this moment. After I started working for hotels, we definitely upped our game on the hotel chains we stayed at. Growing up we were more the Best Western and Holiday Inn sort of family. With nice hotel discounts we became the Ritz Carlton and Waldorf Astoria family. Clearly we were out of our element. We walked into the Ritz Carlton and everyone's jaw dropped, it was such a gorgeous property. They had someone welcoming you into the lobby with a lei and a refreshment. When we went to the pool they handed out frozen grapes. Before this moment, we had never thought about freezing grapes and how magical they would be.
Swimming in the Pacific Ocean
What we also didn't realize in Hawaii was how different the temperament of the ocean could be depending on what side of the island you were on. For instance, if you are on the south shore during a certain part of the year, the ocean would be like bath water but if on the north shore during that same time of year it could have huge waves. There really isn't a best time to go to Hawaii, all year round is pretty great but during the winter months was delightful.
I say this as when we first got to Maui and checked into the hotel, my brother and I went right down to the beach. The waves seemed manageable enough, but I will disclose now that I am not a Michael Phelps sort of swimmer. I can swim and float in good conditions. The waves kept coming and I was barely jumping high enough to get my head over. At one point after a bit of time being in the ocean and the current bringing us further out, we saw a wave building up to be quite big. We were too far into the ocean to be able to run to shore and too far away from the building wave to be able to swim under it before it broke, so this huge wave broke directly on us, and flipping and turning us in all directions. I remember opening my eyes at some point, still submerged in water and having no idea which way was up. The only thing that saved me was buoyancy. By the time I came up to the surface I was thankful, even though half of my bathing suit was missing - so I thought this might be a good reason to get out.
It is funny to think that I lived on the West Coast of America for eight years and this was my first time in the pacific ocean. In Hawaii, one of the best things to do is water sports. I would just be mindful of the water conditions before committing.
Haleakala National Park
Our first full day in Maui, we drove up to Haleakala National Park for sunrise. We went all the way up to Pu'u Ula'ula Summit, which had an elevation just over 10,000 feet above sea level. Quite a difference from the 762' elevation at Diamond Head in O'ahu. What we didn't anticipate was how cold it would be due to the high elevation and early hours of the morning. So in addition to the jeans and light sweatshirt I had on, we also had beach towels wrapped around us for warmth. Even with the lack of wardrobe choices and extremely cold weather, this experience had some of the best views at sunrise, which made it well worth subjecting ourselves to the early hour and cold.
Big Island of Hawaii
O'ahu, Maui, and the Big Island of Hawaii were the three main islands we visiting during our almost two week trip. There are eight islands in total in Hawaii and the three we visited aren't necessarily the best Hawaiian islands, they just were easy enough to get to, offered a variety of things to do, and had Marriott hotels we were looking for. From what I hear of the other islands, they all have something worth visiting.
On our third day in Waikoloa, we went up to Akaka Falls. We didn't head over to Kauai, but another beautiful falls I heard of was the Wailua Falls. After Akaka Falls, we then headed over to the Sadie Seymour Botanical Gardens where we spent the rest of the early afternoon in the lush gardens.
This day was an action packed day as we then headed over to the Kilauea Volcano Summit hike where we ate lunch at the Volcano Lodge before heading out to the tour. It was a dormant volcano between 1952 until 1982 but since 1983 this area has had active volcanoes.
We had five days on the Big Island, with two partial days of travel. We stayed at the Waikoloa Beach Marriott Resort & Spa. On our first full day in Waikoloa, we took a drive to the south shore and stopped at the South Shore Temple with Rocks before going to Pu'Uhonua o Honaunau National Park with Totems to do some snorkeling. This was a great way to snorkel. There was not a parking lot, you just parked off to the side of the road which felt very local. There were a ton of reefs and tropical fish swimming around us, and we were lucky the water was clear enough to see both. There were no picnic tables but people did bring blankets and snacks to eat on the rocks in between water activities. Some people were paddle boarding, snorkeling, and scuba diving. The best way to get in the water in this part of the beach was to jump in (or slide in if you're like me) from the rocks.
Our last day on the Big Island was spent on the north shore of the island. We went to the Pu'Ukohola Heiau National Park before a tour of the Macadamia Nut Factory. We drove to the Kamehameha Statue and watched the sun set on the beach in Hilo and on our Hawaiian trip.
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Hawaii has its own time zone.
Aloha means hello and goodbye.
Hawaiian pizza was not originated in Hawaii.
Hawaii became the 50th state on August 21st, 1959.
Macadamia nuts, while grown in Hawaii, originated in Australia.
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Unless you live in a Hawaiian Island, Hawaii is pretty far away from most other countries as well as the other US states. So when planning the trip, you have to plan accordingly with that in the back of your mind that it will be at least a 6 hour flight, if not longer, from the continental US. You will also have to keep in mind that there are 8 main Hawaiian Islands and 137 islands in total. The main city in Hawaii is Honolulu, so getting flights into Honolulu from other states or countries most likely will be the easiest, most frequent, and cheapest. With that said, Honolulu has more of a metropolitan feel than a lot of the other island. If time allows, I recommend visiting a few islands to make it worth the flight time.
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Akaka Falls - Big Island, Hawaii
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Kalalau Trail - Kauai
Lanikai Beach - O'ahu
Kualoa Ranch - O'ahu
Hanauma Bay - O'ahu
Mauna Loa - Big Island
Iolani Palace - Honolulu
Byodo-in Temple - O'ahu
Kealakekua Bay - Big Island
Ho’omaluhia Botanical Garden - O'ahu
Kalaupapa National Historical Park - Kalaupapa
Dole Plantation - Honolulu, Hawaii
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When I travel I prefer seeing local areas versus tourist attractions, unless it's a worthwhile attraction like Big Ben or the Louve. Occasionally, due time or energy, we ate at the hotel restaurant for lunch or dinner. Most times we found restaurants with a nice menu or view. The highlight meal we ate was a luau. It was definitely a meal in Hawaii one would deem 'touristy' but it had good food, entertainment, and a great view. There was the traditional ham you would think of but it was a large buffet with many different items, if ham is not your thing. Below is a list of other restaurants we ate at for lunches and dinners.
Sansei - Maui
Ola - Honolulu
Roy's - Big Island
Maui Brew House - Maui
Seafood Cafe - Big Island
Canoe House - Big Island
Charley’s Thai - Big Island
Volcano Lodge - Big Island
Strawberry Patch - Big Island
d.k Steakhouse (Wakikiki Marriott) - Honolulu
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Kilauea Volcano - Big Island, Hawaii
Conclusion
I cannot pick the best island in Hawaii because I don't think there is just one. All eight islands have reasons they are a great place to visit. Whether you are nature lovers or are a fan of Fantasy Island in search of the most beautiful beaches. I never thought I would love Hawaii as much as I did. It became a magical gathering place for my family to celebrate our Mom during our 11 days across the three different islands. I was never one for spending a week or two just laying at the beach or pool. I am too antsy and too pale for that. I loved the mix of gorgeous beaches, nature, water sports, attractions and adventure.
If you are planning a Hawaiian getaway, I recommend finding what fits best for you. A few ways to do that are by checking flights from your local airport to the airports on the different islands. Liked I mentioned at the beginning of the post, we were able to get a direct flight from Newark Airport to the airport in Honolulu, so that played a key factor in our decision as well as hotel deals I was able to obtain and sights we wanted to see. If you are someone who prefers sitting at the pool and beach, adventure, or tours all could play a factor in the island you pick. Whichever island you do pick, won't be the wrong one.
Quote
“I believe Hawaii is the most previous jewel in the world.” Don Ho
Next on the Blog…
If you are looking for another gorgeous beach vacation, check out my post of Thailand.
