Hawaii 2026 - From O'ahu to Hawai'i

There is a famous and somewhat difficult to reach beach near Kailua.  We had some early morning time before we were going to have to go to the airport.  Thus, at 5:30 AM we ate those pineapple turnovers from yesterday and drove to the neighborhood perched along Lanikai Beach.

The small strip of the softest golden sand imaginable is protected by a reef and has views of nearby Moku Nui and Moku Iki, two seabird sanctuary islets

Hans had a rest on the beach blanket and went for a walk while I went for a short dip.  The water was a little too playful for very good snorkeling but I saw some tiny striped fish during the lovely sunrise.  About an hour later it was time to go.

It's kind of unreal how beautiful this beach is.  The sand felt like fine cornmeal on your feet.

Thankfully the rental car return was quick.  I had dropped Hans off at the hotel (after we returned our rental gear from Snorkel Bob’s).  Now it was time to shower and pack.  Ha.  It took me a solid hour to get all of my things organized but we were ready to hail a rideshare outside of the hotel on time for our flight to Hawai’i.

We shared a quick and ridiculously expensive (by Hawaiian standards) “lunch” of a tiny pizza and one beer.

The inter-island flight went exactly as I remember from 23 years ago.  In one hour there is just enough time to gain altitude, drink the cup of fruit juice that's practically thrown at you, have the garbage collected, and land.

For our arrival at the Kona airport I had pre-arranged a little surprise for Hans.  A bored looking young woman was waiting ouside of the security area with a sign that said “Hans and Dani”.  I said “Oooohhhh, what’s this, Hans?”.  We were each adorned with a purple flower lei and welcomed to Kona.  The leis had to be stowed in the backseat of our new rental car, a Chevy Equinox, for the 2.5 hour drive to Volcano Village Estates, our B&B for the next three nights.  Hans suggested that we take the saddle road between Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa.

I knew that the “big island” was big...but...wow.  The landscape is so different from anything that I expected.  It’s certainly a place of many micro-climates.  The old lava flows are really cool and the old volcanoes just dominate the view everywhere.  Once we crossed to the windward side (east), the high clouds enveloped everything and the visibility was very poor. Once we passed Hilo and made our way to Volcanoes it was still misting but not as hard.

The B&B cottage had a small kitchenette, where our breakfast would be placed in the minifridge for the next morning each day.  There was nothing left to do except unpack and find somewhere for dinner.

Across the highway was the tiny restaurant for Lanikai Brewing Company.  In the cool and drizzly weather it felt good to have proper beer and pizza.  The few TVs in the space had either World Cup footage or the USGS livestream of the Kilauea Volcano.  The food was pretty darn good and our favorite pizza was the one with pesto, goat cheese, and hot honey.  I made the mental note that I would like to replicate that combination of pizza toppings at home.

Afterwards we went to the nearby general store to check it out for supplies.  We did not buy any food but I purchased a bottle of wine from the local Volcano Winery – their Volcano Red! It seemed on-brand for the coming days.  Back at our cottage we had a little bit of the wine, which was alright...it was fruity and a bit tart.  Fine for sipping in front of the gas fireplace before bedtime.  It sounds ludicrous after sweating our bums off for the last several days.  Here at the higher altitude of Volcano Village it feels a little bit Alaska-y.  We like it!

Inside of our cottage

The main historic inn

The outside of our cottage

Hawaii 2026 - A Garden and Museum

This morning we needed to slow down a bit.  It was difficult to feel motivated.

Leonard’s Bakery was even busier today than on our first visit.  We had different malasada flavors this time and bought pineapple turnovers for tomorrow.  Yum.

We drove over to Koko Crater, not for the well-known and very difficult rail-tie stairs hike to the rim, but for the city-owned botanical garden inside, which is free to visit.

We spent a little under a couple of hours exploring the many rambling groves of trees and shrubs.  The plumeria grove knocked my socks off with the variety of scents and colors.  Any hibiscus that we saw looked a little bit past its prime bloom season.  There were cacti and species from Africa, the Americas, and specifically Hawaii.

Unlike the Diamond Head hike where we quickly moved above the treeline, for this one we had lots of opportunities to enjoy some shade.  This didn’t mean that it wasn’t still super hot outside!  It was a relief to be back in the air conditioned car when we were done with the garden.

Modeling an imaginary head-piece

The islands have quite a lot of mongoose, which were introduced in the 1800's to combat rats

In need of more sunscreen and other supplies, we drove to the town of Kailua for their Target store and then we had lunch at a small Hawaiian place called Kono’s.  I had their pork plate lunch and Hans got the pork bowl.  Both were nice and filling.

While driving around we stopped at this overlook near Makapu'u State Park

I am on a mission to create my own guava barbecue sauce

This day was going to be our last opportunity to visit the Bishop Museum, so up and over the mountain ridge we drove (this may have been our fourth time driving past yet another old crater, the Punchbowl).  Also along the way we passed through the high cliffs behind Honolulu where (in 1795) King Kamehameha completed his campaign to take control of O’ahu by driving 700 captured and enemy soldiers over the Nu’uanu Pali cliff, a fall of about 1,000 feet.

At the Bishop Museum we started with the Hawaiian cultural gallery, an impressive space with information and exhibits on how Polynesian people arrived to the islands, their religious beliefs and practices, ways of life, navigation skills, and eventual political rise and fall with the introduction of European and other western colonizers.

At three O’clock we went into the observatory for a presentation on celestial navigation by Polynesian people.  The film is a New Zealand production for the Te Papa Museum in Wellington.  It was really well done.  I learned that the Scorpius constellation is also known as Maui’s Fishhook (it’s turned around in the southern hemisphere) and Maui used it to catch a large manta ray.  When it was brought to the ocean surface next to the south island Te Waipounamu (“the place of greenstone”) it formed the north island of New Zealand, Te Ika-a-Maui (“the fish of Maui”).

When the 45-minute show was over I was pretty tired.  We looked briefly through their science museum before heading through the gift shop.

The original museum building, which houses the Hawaiian exhibits

Traditional hula costumes (for men and women)

This spooky statue of a shark god has a spooky history.  The man who discovered it claimed that he was guided to its buried location in a dream (the statue was buried during a time when all Hawaiian religious icons and temples were being actively destroyed).  He also claimed that the statue constantly pleaded to be brought indoors from the cold.  It was delivered to the Bishop Museum in 1906 and set permanently into the floor.  Despite subsequent attempts to relocate the statue to another place in the building, it has "refused to be moved".

The beach on the big island of Hawaii where this sand comes from is difficult to access and so I'm very glad that I took a photo at the museum.  The green sand beach is one of only two in the world (the other is in the Galapagos).

After a bit of rest at the hotel it was time to take a rideshare to Skull and Crown Trading Company, a relatively new tiki bar in Honolulu’s Chinatown with a speakeasy-looking entrance.  This place has slowly grown a great reputation despite nearly closing down during the pandemic.

We were shown to our seats at the bar and the staff took great care of us from there.  I started with a classic Navy Grog (including a traditional ice volcano) and Hans had their Dagger Mai Tai – all made with secret ingredients.

We put in an order for their grilled salmon skewers and wonton nachos and then another round of drinks.  I had their Crystal Skull, a clarified Zombie, and Hans had the Trader Noa’s Old Fashioned.  Hans’ drink was theatrically prepared with Hawaiian mesquite smoke that was produced from a ceramic skull.  I wasn’t sure that I would have a third drink but once Hans was half-finished with a Jaded Jungle I ordered their other secret-ingredient drink, the Rum Barrel (plus some roasted potatoes).  Finally, Hans had their Hanalei Moon.

At this point we were prettttty tipsy.  We paid our check and the manager came over to tell us about his artist friend that had made a bunch of the decorations for this bar and he encouraged us to check him out.  To help spread the word, he is on Instagram at @geckozsouthseaarts.  He is VERY talented.

The streets of Chinatown had already been fairly quiet when we arrived several hours ago and now they were very silent.  Finding which street we were on and what the cardinal directions were was also lost on us for a little bit.  Eventually we figured out where we were and hailed a rideshare back to the hotel.  Our driver was listening to a local radio station with all 90’s rap music.  When he dropped us off I said “Thanks for the Tupak”.  Bedtime.  Now.

Getting silly as the night went on

Hawaii 2026 - North Shore

Early risers that we have been so far, we walked the three blocks to Waikiki Beach and went for a morning swim.  I get why visitors flock to this stretch of soft sand and calm waves.  The water temperature was very mild and the sun was not super strong early in the morning.  What a refreshing way to start one’s day.  On the way back to the hotel we stopped at Lawson Station convenience store for some breakfast musubi (I’m obsessed) and karaage chicken.  Hans’ onigiri had curry pork and was quite tasty.

Our late morning was quite frustrating.  The Thrifty car rental office downtown had bad reviews online but since it was the most convenient location I booked a two-day rental with the hope that it wouldn’t be so bad.  Yikes.  Our pick-up time was at 9:30 AM and we didn’t get to the front of the line until 11:30.  The best part was having to wait outside of their lobby in a mall hallway, which was under construction (repairs from the flooding last month).  The crew disassembled an entire set of metal scaffolding while we waited.  But enough complaining…

We hopped into our Ford Mustang, pre-paid for overnight parking at a nearby garage, and got going up to the north shore of the island.

Even though I was very annoyed by losing several hours this morning, I think that we benefited from arriving at Poke for the People between lunch rushes.  This small poke shack had exactly what I have been looking for in terms of ingredient – it was so good!

This super cute poster was up on a wall around the corner in the restaurant

Our next stop was Matsumoto Shave Ice, an institution here on O’ahu.  Hans reconciled with his teenage memories of surprise beans in his shaved ice and willingly elected to add them to his POG-flavored (passionfruit, orange, guava) order.  I got the “tropical” flavor combo of passionfruit, mango, and guava, azuri beans, and sweetened condensed millk.  I totally get the hype.  I enjoyed the shaved ice much more than I expected.  Their gift shop had a small stack of colorized reproduction vintage photographs and I bought one from the 1930s.

The remainder of the afternoon was spent driving the circumference of the island.  We stopped for a quick swim at Pupukea Beach, which was very close to an area known for it’s winter Banzai Pipeline surf waves.

Even though the ocean was quite calm today, the steeply-sloped beach made for some bigger waves and a stronger current.  I grew tired quite fast and had to take breaks on the beach. Hans stayed out longer but within an hour arriving we decided that we’d had enough.  This was our second swim of the day, after all.

This picture is a little bit deceptive.  Past the sand in the foreground is quite a large hill that gets you down to the shore.  Once you're in the water the bottom drops pretty fast.  You can see how this area gets a lot of big waves during the winter.  The tiny dark speck in the middle is Hans!

When we were done with swimming we continued our drive around the rest of the island.  I needed a break from driving and we stopped to stretch our legs at Kualoa Regional Park.  One thing that I'm really appreciating about Hawaii is the large number of state or regional parks and how many of them have decently-maintained bathrooms.

Once we were back at the hotel for the night it was nice to use our complimentary coupons for their on-site restaurant.  We ate a decently chill dinner and then had a pool-side cocktail.