Are you sick of reading about Hawaii yet? I sure hope not, as I still have to tell you all about our brush with Pele on the Big Island and the crazy dancer-like spa treatment I had inside a pool INSIDE A LAVA TUBE. But first, let’s mix it up a bit and hop on [...]
Don’t Go Chasing Waterfalls
April 27, 2011 By 31 Comments
Toward the end of our time on the Big Island, we went on an outing with Hawaii Forest & Trail. The company is one of the biggest adventure operators on the isle and offers a number of different excursions—from volcano treks to coffee plantation tours. But we had another focus entirely: waterfalls. It’s funny that [...]
The Land of Fire & Water
April 25, 2011 By 19 Comments
I knew nothing of the Kohala Coast before we visited. In fact, my fatal error during my first visit to the Big Island in early 2007 was booking a vacation home just south of Kona. Don’t get me wrong, the place was nice—and, most importantly, cheap—but the area couldn’t hold a candle to the wind-blown [...]
Photo Friday: Hapuna Beach, Hawaii
April 22, 2011 By 20 Comments
As much as we would have preferred not to, we eventually had to leave the Fairmont Orchid. Luckily, it was only to go down the highway to Kohala Coast’s Hapuna Beach Prince Hotel. While not as luxurious as the Orchid, the Prince caters more toward families. Rooms were definitely more modest—i.e. basic, no frills—but clean [...]
A Paddle in Pauoa Bay
April 20, 2011 By 21 Comments
Our trip to the Big Island was a little bit of work, a little bit of leisure; this meant, we actually did have meetings and site inspections daily and weren’t solely left to our own devices to lounge on the beach all day, every day (which is very much how I would spend any true [...]
Paradise Found
April 18, 2011 By 39 Comments
I don’t often dedicate full posts to a single hotel—namely because this is my personal collection of stories and anecdotes, and not an online travel guide—but I’d be doing all future Hawaii goers a serious disservice if I didn’t pause to pay homage to the Fairmont Orchid on the Big Island. We arrived in Kona [...]
Photo Friday: Kohala Coast, Hawaii
April 15, 2011 By 38 Comments
I usually don’t blog about a destination when I’m actually still in the place, both for security reasons and also because it takes me awhile to process everything—photos, videos, experiences—once I return from a trip. But I’m having such a great time in Hawaii, I’d thought I’d go ahead and share a few snapshots from [...]
Anchors Away: The Big 5-0
February 16, 2010 By 28 Comments
My sister has agreed (albeit begrudgingly) to stop by occasionally and blog her trip around the world via the University of Virginia’s Semester at Sea program. Unfortunately, Internet time on the ship is minimal, so this is the first chance she’s had to write something up about her four weeks and one day on the [...]
Photo Friday: Kailua-Kona, Hawaii
February 20, 2009 By 28 Comments
I’ve only been to Hawaii once, and I’m a total cliche: I LOVED it and couldn’t get enough. It was an extra special trip, because SVV and I were reuniting after seven months apart. When we said good-bye in Copenhagen the previous June, I didn’t think I’d ever see him again (we hadn’t discussed the [...]
