Best Places to Kick Back: Kauai

Surprising to me, but probably not to others, many of the beaches in Hawaii are not sandy. 

Our hotel on the North side of the island, The St Regis Princeville did have a sandy beach but we found others nearby which we liked better.

Secret Beach

The Secret Beach and Lava Pools were our favorite hidden place to relax.  Getting there requires about a 5-10 minute hike down hill between a few beautiful homes.  There were several locals doing this barefoot, carrying surf boards.  It's not that hard of a hike, but I did get winded on my way back up.

Lava Pools in the distance

Sadly the tide was too high to get to the lava pools, but the beach was large, nearly empty and beautiful.  You can tell the people here are locals and watching the surfers on huge waves was an added bonus.

Flowers in our VRBO condo in Poipu

On the south end of the island, we rented a super cute condo from VRBO.  We loved this as much as we loved our fancy hotel on the north shore.  The condo was private and the owners thought of everything.  Fresh flowers, coffee, beach chairs and cooler all included!!  From the condo it's a 5 minute walk to a nice beach and park as well as a pool.  Also only a short drive to "Shipwreck beach" a popular beach with tourists.

 Salt Pond Beach

We found another beach about 20 minutes away which we liked much better called Salt Pond Beach Park.  If you don't mind a camp ground full of hippees nearby, this beach has better swimming, facilities and is much larger and quieter.  

OH! Did I mention we saw whales?  Nearly every day?!  Here is the first photo I took of one, right off the beach near our condo.

 

Best Eats/Drinks in Kauai

We took full advantage of the fresh fish and fruit while on our honeymoon.  I also discovered muesli on our breakfast buffet at The St Regis Princeville.  It was the most delicious thing ever and I'm going to start making/eating it all the time.

We love fish tacos and Kauaii is full of them.  We probably ate fish tacos at least 4 times in our 5 days.  The best fish tacos?  Hands down Verde.  This place is unassuming in a strip mall between the airport and the north side of the island.  I'll admit, after flying all day, our judgement may have been clouded.  That being said, the fresh mahi tacos and special margaritas were the best we had our entire trip.  You could easily drive right by this place, but I don't recommend missing it.

Mai Tai at Tahiti Nui

Best dinner on the north side of the island:  Tahiti Nui.  Jay had macademian nut encrusted mahi and I had ahi tuna with wasabi sauce.  The mai tai's here were the best we had on our trip- one was enough for me, they sneak up on you!  The resturant was featured in the move "The Decendants" and is a lively, locals bar/resturant with live music and lots of drinking.  The pizza is also suppose to be really good as well.

View from St Regis

Best place for happy hour:  St Regis Princeville

The view at our hotel is unparrelleled.  Floor to ceiling glass on two levels and a nice outdoor area make this a perfect spot to watch the sun set.  They have live music and amazing cocktails.  Just be ready to pay $17 for one drink.  We don't recommend eating here, the food is fine, but not worth the price.  So come for a cocktail and go to dinner elsewhere. 

Interior of The Beach House

Best Overall Experience:  The Beach House

With an ocean side table like this, who could argue against it?  I've heard mixed reivews.  This place is definatley fancy and I made reservations about a month in advances.  The service was outstanding.  The food was perfect.  I'm not sure why people say otherwise, because our meal from appetizer to dessert was as good as most high brow resturant in Chicago.  It's not easy on the pocketbook, but hey, it was our honeymoon!

Sunset at The Beach House

Best Place for a Sweet:  Jo Jo's Shave Ice.  Shave Ice is popular around the Hawaiian Island.  Not to be confused with a snow cone, but basically, it's a snow cone.  They shave ice off a big block and you can pick your flavor combination.  Jay and I went there around 11 am after a hike.  I called it lunch.  He didn't argue.  Again, it was our honeymoon, normal rules don't apply.  It was such an fun and tasty treat!

Shave Ice for lunch.

Bookmark this page if your headed to Kauai soon.  I'd love to hear your favorites!

Honeymoon Adventures: Kauai

After the most unbelievable 2.5 weeks, I don't even know where to begin.  Our wedding was exactly everything I ever hoped for, I'll blog more about that once I have pictures.  The wedding was followed by two amazing weeks in Hawai'i.  We spent 5 days on Kaua'i and one week on The Big Island.  We had so many great recommendations from friends prior to our trip, I decided I'll blog about our favorite spots for eating, adventures and relaxation on each island.  Maybe someone will find our opinion useful!

Today, I'll start with our favorite Adventures on Kauai'i.  

Our first not-to-be missed adventure was hiking a portion of The Kalalau Trial along the Napali Coast.

The Kalalau Trial is 11 miles long and hiking much of it requires a permit for overnight camping at the far end where there is a deserted beach.  While that sounds outstanding, we didn't budget enough time for that, nor do we have any camping gear, so we chose to hike the first portion of the trail. This is about 2 miles each direction (4 miles took us about 3 hours) and ends at a pretty cool rock beach and river from a waterfall you can also hike an extra mile to see.  It was raining on and off, muddy and uneven rocky switch backs up and down the mountains inches from ocean cliffs, but well worth the effort.  The views of the Napali Coast were amazing and the trial was almost empty making it feel like we were on our own with nature on the edge in one of the most beautiful places on earth.

Our second favorite adventure on Kauaii was our helicopter tour.  We flew with Blue Hawaiian based on some reviews we'd read and we were not disappointed.  They were organized, safe and professional.  We had the front seat which was roof to floor windows and the most thrilling ride and views of parts of the island we'd never have seen.  We saw at least 15 secluded waterfalls, mountain goats and whales.  We flew over mountains and canyons through rain and sun, all in one hour.  I highly recommend splurging on this one!

The Waimea Canyon is often bypassed for beaches and ocean time, but this place is a breathtaking canyon full of color from the red-oxidized-lava bed and earthquake which created it.  Our third not-to-miss adventure would have to be the Waimea "reddish water" canyon, it offers more hiking trails here than anywhere else in Hawaii.  We also saw a few mountain and road bikers on the narrow 18 mile road leading along side of the canyon, but we drove up and along the canyon, jumping out for short hikes along the way (maybe next time we'll bring our bikes?)  

One of the many amazing things about Hawaii is the vast differences in landscape on these small islands.  The canyon is like nothing I've ever seen before.  It's a quick 40 minute drive from some of the popular beaches on the south end of the island and well worth the trip.

Mahalo Kauaii!  We'll never forget our first week married.

Wedding Day!

Today has finally arrived!!  Today we become husband and wife.

I'm beyond excited for today and our life together (as you can tell by this 5 am blog post)

Thank you to everyone who braved the winter storm to come celebrate with us.