Day 9: Oahu > Kauai!

Saturday, June 8

Saturday = time to move on!! As I said before, our time on Oahu was incredible. But we were also all excited to see how beautiful Kauai would compare!

Our flight was at 12:40, which I intentionally chose midday so we didn’t have to race out the door in the morning. (And would still allow afternoon/evening open in Kauai..).

We had to pack up etc but I still snuck down to the lobby for one last cup of tea:

Took one last balcony pic (yes, the same photo I took like 10 other times 😅):

And off to the airport! The car rental return was quick and easy.

We grabbed some Chinese food in a food court for lunch and waited to board.

The flight itself was short! Like 30 minutes in the air. Super quick, although I can see why people still don’t recommend going crazy with the island hopping. By the time you drive to airport, check in, pass security, etc and get out it eats up a huge chunk of the day.

(I had originally considered doing Oahu- Maui- Kauai in this 2 week trip. I am SO GLAD I read enough recommendations that said to not rush the islands and dropped one island. Rule of thumb I read repeatedly was “1 week per island or minimum 10 days for 2 islands”. I think our timing/cadence has been perfect like we have it. We’ve been able to really explore and savor each place. Cramming Maui in too would not have worked.)

Arriving to Kauai! The Garden Island. 🙂

We got our rental car (used the same company as on Oahu- Sixt- and got the exact same vehicle again (a white GMC Denali Acadia SUV).

I had read horror stories about people waiting in line for 3 hours to get their rental cars in Hawaii… We waited zero minutes either time! (I did see big crowds of people heading to the big name places like Hertz, Alamo…but I had checked those and the prices were way higher than Sixt and we had zero wait, perfect service, and excellent vehicles! 🤷‍♀️ So I wouldn’t change a thing on our rental experience!)

It was about a 50 minute drive from the airport to our condo in Princeville on the North Shore of Kauai.

Unlike Oahu, there are no 5 lane highways here! There aren’t even that many stoplights.

The eastern side of the island seemed a little less spectacular from what we saw, but as we approached the north, it got greener and greener and more mountainous. Absolutely beautiful!!

A few notes about Kauai and the different shores:

1) The general consensus I think is that the northern side is the most beautiful side. BUT, all that beauty comes at a price- lots of rain. During much of the year, especially winter and spring, it sounds like they get many rainy days up here. A few people have told me it’s often only <20% sunny time vs 80% rainy time on the north shore in the winter.

2) The north shore sea can also be very rough and may be un-swimmable in the winter sometimes. (Surely there are exceptions to all of this! I am not speaking from personal experience, just from fairly extensive reading about the island.)

3) In the summer though, the North Shore really shines! Typically gets great, sunny weather, and the ocean is calm. (In the summer the South shore often gets the bigger waves. I believe they generally get hot, sunny weather all year on the southern side so it’s highly popular year round down there.)

4) I’m mentioning all of this because while I think the North Shore is 100% the most beautiful area of the island, you might consider staying on the South shore if coming in the winter and just day tripping up to see the North shore. There’s a probably a little bit more to do on the South side of the island, too. (Though we’ve found plenty on the northern side also.)

Poipu, on the south shore, is the most popular area to stay (so I’ve heard). There’s a lot more near there in terms of stores and restaurants and nightlife etc. The north shore is pretty quiet.

5) Some other people prefer to stay in Kapa’a, which is on the eastern side and sort of splits the difference between the north and south shore. (While convenient, I think that area looks a little… meh, in my opinion, though.) This would make it easy to visit both sides of the island, however, without so much driving. It’s about 1-1.5 hours from the south shore to the south shore, but only about 45 minutes from Kapa’a to either shore.

6) And then other people will split their stay, a few days on the North shore, and a few days somewhere else on the south shore!

Anyway! Do whatever you want. 🙂 I’d suggest you research extensively what you want to do in Kauai, look at the season, and then decide which area(s) you want to stay in.

Since we were coming in the summer, and coming off a week in (busier) Oahu, I knew I wanted to stay on the gorgeous, peaceful north shore the whole time in Kauai.

Okay, long digression over, but maybe helpful to someone!

So, we drove up from the airport in Lihue and got to our VRBO condo by around 3:30 or so.

Thankfully, the condo looked exactly like in the photos- maybe even better! It’s a 3 bedroom, 3 bath, two story condo with 3 separate decks/patios. IT IS AMAZING. We all fell in love immediately and wished we could just move in permanently.

It has killer mountain views and is just so, so nice!!

We got settled in and then made a grocery store run to the nicely stocked (but expensive…) Food Mart in Princeville.

Nearby was a lookout point, so we pulled over to check that out:

Just gorgeous!!!!!!!

Driving back into our condo complex. A very quiet place! Have barely seen any other people. Seems many are owned by actual residents, and just a few rented at any given time.

The main living room deck/patio:

Ivan’s and my room, with another deck:

The boys’ room is down by the entrance with their own private bath, and then my parents’ room is downstairs with another walk out patio and a 3rd bath with a jacuzzi tub and shower.

Sometimes finding a condo for all 6 of us with enough space and privacy for everyone can be tricky, but this one is really great!

Also a nice swimming pool and hot tub! (You know we love a good hot tub.)

It was tempting to just sit on the deck all night, but we decided to venture out to explore Hanalei Bay. It’s one of the best spots on the north shore and it was a gorgeous sunny night, so seemed like a good idea for sunset.

Hanalei Bay

We drove the 10-12 minutes down the road to Hanalei Bay.

Oh, my goodness. This place is a sight to behold. It is sooooooo stunningly beautiful!

There is this cool iconic pier:

It is just too beautiful to even be real!!! The pictures just cannot fully capture this.

I took another 9,000 photos, sorry.

Between the mountains and the pier and the water…. It’s just gorgeous. An absolute must-see spot in Kauai.

And clearly a top 10 spot for a sunset:

Love this one of Ivan:

And us:

And Asher with my dad!

We waited til the sun went down and then drove back into Princeville for dinner. Things close up pretty early here- it’s nowhere near the nightlife epicenter that Waikiki is!!

We wanted something low key and easy for our first night, so we ended up at Hideaways Pizza Pub which was open until at least 9 and was luckily DELICIOUS!!

After dinner, Ivan and I went for a little soak in the hot tub. There are so many stars here!! If only we could control the little pool area light.

Oh, and this is funny. So there are chickens everywhere on Kauai. Like, everywhere. It’s a whole “thing” here. Apparently the locals get a little fed up with this, because we saw this sign posted by the pool area:

And that was our first (partial) day in Kauai!

First impression = Wow, this place is possibly/probably the most breathtaking scenery I have ever seen!