Our Fantastic 2-Week Hawaii Vacation… Would I Go Back Though?

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Hey, everyone – we just got back from a two-week Hawaii vacation… super cool trip.

We flew down to O’ahu with our best friends, Dave and Kellie, who we’ve known for over 25 years! They stayed at an Airbnb in Waikiki for the first week. We stayed the first week with some of my other best friends, Matt and Mandi (who I’ve known even longer!), and who live in Pearl City

We did a ton of cool stuff throughout the first week – everything from shark cage diving (yikes!), a luau, e-biking through Kualoa Ranch (where ridiculous numbers of movies and shows are filmed), visiting Pearl Harbor, and so much more.

It doesn’t hurt to have connections either. We had an opportunity to visit parts of Pearl Harbor that not many folks get to. Plus, my daughter and I got to learn to fly Black Hawks and other helicopters in the same simulators that pilots are trained in. Later, we flew in a less precise, but insane, combat simulator.

It was a jam-packed, fun-filled week… but it was tiring. Rest wasn’t a problem on this Hawaii vacation, though, because we then flew to the Big Island with Dave and Kellie for another week of enjoyment. Most of that week was spent enjoying the beach life at our Airbnb overlooking the ocean.

Doesn’t sound too bad, right?

I’ll give you the highlights and tell you about the unique stuff we got to do on this Hawaii vacation… and fill you in on the two things that weren’t so great. Plus, I’m going to tell you if I’d ever go back and why or why not.

As a side note, you can click on any of the images throughout this post to enlarge them.

Problem #1 on this Hawaii vacation… it’s far!

Remember the maps of the U.S. or North America you’d see in elementary school with Hawaii in the bottom left near California? Yeah, well, guess what – it’s not even remotely close to the West Coast! 🙂 Check out a world map and you’ll see just how far it is from everything.

Luckily, I had already known that beforehand. But that’s actually a big problem for me. I struggle with long flights. I can do 3-4 hours without much of an issue, but after that, I get real antsy. Cleveland to Las Vegas… I’m good. Cleveland to Los Angeles… no bueno!

That’s why when we did our big 38-day Europe trip, we used points to pay for lay-flat seats and then took a cruise back to the U.S.

With this trip, I was hoping to find something similar with points for the flights. However, there were 5 of us (our two friends, Lisa, Faith, and me), so finding a good deal on that many business-class seats for 5 for our Hawaii vacation just didn’t work out.

So, economy seats it was. But my stipulation was that I couldn’t do each leg in one flight. I wanted to have a night of rest in between. So it went like this:

• Cleveland (CLE) –> Los Angeles (LAX) — 5 hr, 14 min
• Stay overnight at a hotel
• Los Angeles (LAX) –> Honolulu (HNL) — 6 hr, 10 min

And on the way back:

• Kona (KOA) –> San Francisco (SFO) — 5 hr, 5 min
• Stay overnight at a hotel
• San Francisco (SFO) –> Cleveland (CLE) — 4 hr, 45 min

Having the wind on your butt on the flights back makes for shorter flights.

We paid for all the flights with points earned through credit card rewards, of course. Folks, I can’t say it enough – if you want to travel the world for free or close to it, make travel rewards a part of your life. As long as you’re a person who pays off your credit card balance every month, there is a ton of opportunity ready to drop in your lap, all without needing to increase your normal spending. Read my Travel Rewards page, set up a completely free Travel Freely account, and go enjoy the world of travel!

But how did I do on these long flights? I actually did ok on the flights to Hawaii (Cleveland to LA and LA to Honolulu). Maybe it was the anticipation of a Hawaii vacation that made it a little more tolerable.

Those flights back, though… oh, sheesh. I struggled on both flights, and by the end of the flight to Cleveland, I was a mess. My butt hurt so bad, and my back was messed up for a full week after that. And this wasn’t on those seats that feel like wooden benches on something like Frontier or Spirit – these were United flights.

After this trip, while digging into my back problems, I ended up stumbling onto something called a foot hammock designed for long travel. Here’s an image I had Gemini create to give you an idea of what this is:

Supposedly, this helps take the pressure off your back, your legs, and your feet. Count me in to give it a shot!

I ended up buying a two-pack of the airplane foot hammocks. I’m going to try them in the back seat on a long car trip to North Carolina we have coming up this summer while Lisa drives. And then I’ll give it a test run on our next long flight.

Otherwise, I think I need to face the facts. I’m over 50 now – it might be time to do business class on flights longer than maybe 4 hours at a time.

One last note on this, just because I thought it was so cool and different. Our flight back to the continental U.S. was out of Kona International Airport (KOA) on the Big Island. The airport is an open-air terminal, which was so cool. It’s basically just several pavilions throughout, so you’re enjoying Mother Nature while waiting for your flight.

I didn’t take any photos, unfortunately, but I had Gemini create another image just to give you an idea of what I’m talking about…

Don’t worry – that’s the last AI image in this post! 🙂

Learning to fly Black Hawks and Chinooks and Apaches… oh, my!

This might sound weird, but this was one of my favorite parts of our entire Hawaii vacation.

My friend, Matt, with whom we were staying while on O’ahu, served in the military for many years. He retired from there but now teaches military personnel to fly Black Hawk helicopters. That’s his job while he “has to” live in Hawaii… I’m pretty jealous of this whole thing. How badass!

Anyway, he brought Lisa, Faith, and me there, and Faith and I took advantage of the opportunity to learn how to fly a Black Hawk, a Chinook, and an Apache helicopter. Before you dive for cover, this was all in different simulators and not actually up in the air. These are the same simulators that the military uses to learn to fly these or to learn advanced techniques in them.

It was awesome.

We each crashed once or twice, which was to be expected. However, I did get the hang of it by the end and actually successfully took off in an AH-64 Apache (still on the simulator), flew it, shot some things, and then somehow successfully landed on a random island near South Korea.

This was just such a cool experience.

E-bikes at the Kualoa Ranch

The Kualoa Ranch is a gorgeous 4,000 acres of undeveloped land on O’ahu’s eastern shores. It’s so beautiful there that it’s the location set for a ton of movies and shows you’re probably familiar with.

More than 200 movies and TV shows have been filmed at Kualoa over the years, including George of the Jungle, Paradise, Hawaiian Style, Jurassic Park, Jurassic World, Mighty Joe Young, 50 First Dates, You, Me and Dupree, Hawaii Five-0, Magnum P.I., Pearl Harbor, Windtalkers, Fantasy Island, Godzilla, Kong: Skull Island, Jumanji, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, Snatched, and Lost.

Wikipedia — Kualoa Ranch

We did an e-bike tour of about 2 hours through some of the lands and it was really intriguing to see and learn about the history and how it’s sustained now.

I’m scared of sharks… but we went shark cage diving nonetheless

Swimming near sharks isn’t my idea of fun – didn’t you people ever watch Jaws?!!! But somehow Dave, Kellie, Lisa, and Faith sold me on it anyway. I mean, what would a Hawaii vacation be without jumping into cold water with a bunch of man-eaters surrounding you? 😉

It turned out to be great. After doing some digging into which one to go with, we chose Hawaii Shark Encounters with a Groupon offer, which we were extremely happy with throughout the experience.

On the morning we went, they took our group of 5 plus another group out on the boat. We saw whales several times as we made our way out to the location, which was worth the price of admission already.

The two guides were knowledgeable and provided clear instructions and the gear. The other group went first and spent about 20 minutes enjoying the shark views from the cage. Then they got back on the boat and our group went into the cage for 20 minutes.

Our friends who live in Hawaii had let us borrow their GoPro for this, so we got some cool shots.

I enjoyed this a lot. See what happens when you step out of your comfort zone?!

It’s probably mandatory that everyone who visits Hawaii goes to a luau, right? Isn’t that in some legal document or something?

We had booked ours in advance (along with everything we did on our Hawaii vacation) because things sell out quickly in a state that thrives on tourism. There are a lot of choices, but after some research, we decided to go with Toa Luau. I can’t say whether it’s the best because it was the only one we’ve ever gone to, but we were very happy with our choice regardless.

It was fun, the food was good, and the performers were awesome.

Before this, we had some time to spare, so we went to the Dole Plantation. It filled the gap we needed, but we were unimpressed. It was a little boring.

That said, we did get Dole Whip while there, which is basically like soft serve – that didn’t disappoint… so delicious!

Every Friday in Waikiki, they have a fireworks show on the beach. Not much to say about that except it was a nice chill event (maybe too chill as the waft of weed made its way across the beach), but it was a nice, enjoyable evening with Matt and Mandi.

Matt seems to dabble in every hobby in the world. He just started woodworking and he made us a nice bowl that we took back with us. He taught our daughter and me how to make ’em – although I can pretty much guarantee we couldn’t do that on our own as easily as he does.

Not something we would have expected to do on a Hawaii vacation, but no complaints about learning something new!

Yeah, I’m one of those guys who just isn’t into the history of things. I’m fine with reading about it, but I get bored when visiting something and just staring at ruins in Europe, for instance. I’m a tech guy and I’m intrigued by the future more than the past.

Well, Pearl Harbor fascinated me for some reason. The memorial area is huge with a large amount of information and walk-throughs.

Here were a couple of interesting pieces of info I learned:

• Roosevelt had written a letter asking for peace that was telegrammed over to the emperor of Japan the night before the Pearl Harbor bombings took place. That’s crazy.
• Radar was new at the time and it picked up the Japanese bombers coming in, but the junior duty officer assumed they were some returning American planes they were expecting and told the operators not to worry about it.

We took the ferry over to the Arizona Memorial and that was somber in itself. I didn’t realize that this was built over the ship itself, which is still there underwater.

But then we got to visit areas that non-military folks don’t have access to. Matt still has a military ID because of his job training pilots… it’s nice to have connections!

We all headed over to Ford Island and we were able to check out the Oklahoma and Utah Memorials. Unless you’re with someone with a military ID, the only way to see this is on an official Ford Island bus tour since it’s on a military base.

Matt should be a tour guide there. He knew so many details that we would never have known otherwise. I just followed him around, learning more than I ever could have otherwise.

These memorials added even more reflection to Pearl Harbor. Seeing the strafing marks still in the sidewalk where the gunfire hit makes it real.

Thank you to our service men and women.

The Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum was interesting, too. Normally, I’d lose interest in that sort of thing, except that Matt knew a ton about everything here as well, which made it worthwhile.

But the real party ended up being the Fighter Ace 360 Flight Simulators. This is definitely not as technical as the simulators we did flying the helicopters, because the combat plane simulators are targeted for regular people, not pilots.

This was so much fun. With the helicopter simulators, the displays moved, but you never physically moved. With these combat plane simulators, the entire pod moves in whichever direction you’re flying – up, down, left, right, spirals, backwards, etc.

This was crazy, but awesome. My daughter went with Matt and then I went in myself.

I can’t even explain how enjoyable this whole thing was and I don’t know where else we would even have had an opportunity to try something like it.

Afterward, while at lunch, I bumped into an old friend from the financial independence community… Doug “Nords” Nordman from the Military Financial Independence blog! I actually had him on my list to hit up while we were in Hawaii, but I wasn’t sure if I’d have time to get together regardless with our crazy itinerary. So this worked out nicely.

The last time I saw Nords was at a FinCon personal financial conference, probably in 2017 or 2018, so it’s been a while. We only had a short bit to chat and catch up, but it was great to see him. I’m only disappointed that I didn’t remember to get a photo with him, but that’s life. I guess I’ll just need to meet up with him at another conference!

White Plains Beach

A Hawaii vacation wouldn’t be complete without a beach visit. We actually hit a handful of beaches throughout this trip, but I wanted to mention White Plains Beach in O’ahu. It was pretty relaxed there and not as crowded as the beach in Waikiki.

It also gave us a chance to try paddleboarding. Now, we’ve paddleboarded before, but the difference between a calm lake and rolling ocean waves is pretty darn dramatic. I could only stand up for a second or two. Otherwise, I was just paddling along while on my knees or butt. Still pretty fun though!

Volcanoes National Park – Kilauea volcano, Nāhuku Lava Tube, and a night in a cold cabin

After that fun-filled week, it was time to continue the Hawaii vacation and fly from Honolulu in O’ahu to Hilo on the Big Island with Dave and Kellie. We then picked up our rental car and headed to Volcanoes National Park.

We had booked a couple of single-room cabins through the Hawaii Volcano House at the Nāmakanipaio Campground. Now, here’s the thing – we knew what to expect on this. These cabins have no heat and, at that elevation, it gets pretty cold up there in February. But the regular rooms were about $300-$400/night and these were $95 for the night. We were willing to push through and make this happen for our single night there.

Kilauea volcano had been erupting while we were on O’ahu, so we were pretty excited about getting here… but then it stopped erupting about two days before we arrived. And, of course, it started erupting again about a week or two after we left. Figures.

Seeing the volcano and the steam vents was just ok… alright, it was a little bit of a letdown. Obviously, if the volcano had been erupting, it would have been more exciting, so this was just what it was.

What was more interesting was the Nāhuku Lava Tube. Lisa had found out about this while digging around on the internet so we thought we’d check it out. That was a lot more captivating. It was formed by molten lava and once it stopped and cooled, it left behind the empty cave…

It was pretty chilly outside with the wind blowing hard during the day and then colder that night. It wasn’t as cold as it could have been, but it was in the 50’s during the day and then dropped to the higher 40s at night.

We survived the night though! It wasn’t that bad, actually. It took some time to get warm once we headed into the cabins that night, but then it was pretty comfortable throughout the night.

The funny thing is that we found small cabins with fireplaces a short distance away. The only upside is that they are at the Kilauea Military Camp (KMC), so we couldn’t have stayed there anyway, since we’re not military. But that’s worth noting for any of you who are.

Punalu’u Black Sand Beach and green sea turtles sunbathing

We decided to take the more scenic route from Volcanoes National Park on the east side of the Big Island to our Airbnb on the west side. We went clockwise instead of counterclockwise, and that turned out to be a good decision.

We only went maybe 90 minutes down from Volanoes National Park and that was enough to warm things up tremendously. We got to sea level at Punalu’u Black Sand Beach and it was definitely time to change into shorts and t-shirts.

We had never been to a black sand beach before, but Punalu’u Black Sand Beach filled that void real quick. It was super cool. As Wikipedia puts it:

The beach has black sand made of basalt and created by lava flowing into the ocean which explodes as it reaches the ocean and cools.

Wikipedia — Punaluʻu Beach

Not only was this just incredible to look at, but it’s also a place where Hawaiian green sea turtles (known locally as “honu”) love to bask in the sun.

I enjoyed this beach a lot. It’s kind of surreal to think that you’re standing on actual hardened lava. And those sea turtles were just icing on the cake. Even though we only spent an hour or two there, it was a pretty cool stop!

And with that, we finally made it to our final place for lodging for our Hawaii vacation… a week at an Airbnb in Captain Cook with Dave and Kellie.

Ya know how sometimes you go on vacation and you’re so busy that, at the end of it, you wish you had another week of vacation to recoup? Well, that’s the beauty of retirement (and early retirement) – you can actually make that happen!

So this place we stayed at was all about being laid-back. It had a perfect screened-in lanai overlooking the ocean.

From the lanai, we saw whales on two separate occasions and saw pods of dolphins on our last day. To top it off, the sun would set right in front of us over the ocean every evening. I mean, what else can you ask for?!

It was a short walk to the beach… but it was crazy steep! I liked the challenge, so I chose to walk there and back each time instead of taking the car.

As you can see, the beach is made up of rounded basalt pebbles that were broken off old lava flows and then smoothed by wave action over time. In some spots, the same basalt was ground even finer into black sand.

I can tell you this – black sand and rocks are hot as all get-out! Walking around without any shoes or flip-flops isn’t the best move.

The ocean waves running across and pulling at the rocks on the beach make such a cool sound.

The other fun sound was the coqui frogs “singing” throughout the evenings. It was loud, similar to how overwhelming crickets or cicadas can be. The sounds are actually mating and territorial calls. I recorded them, too, just for you! Have a listen…

It was just very different and hard not to start imitating the sounds ourselves after hearing them over and over.

Other than the beach and hanging out on the lanai, we ventured out to Kona to explore and for lunch and a farmer’s market on a different day, but that was about it. Just a nice, relaxing week!

Problem #2 – Hawaii is way too expensive

If you haven’t been there and never thought about it, Hawaii’s pricey… like really pricey! Going out to eat, getting groceries, gas prices – you name it – it’s expensive.

And it makes sense. I mean, pretty much everything needs to be brought over to these islands. Plus, being a tourist destination, prices are naturally higher anyway.

Going to dinner at just a regular restaurant (nothing fancy) was an easy $40/pp, if you were lucky. Most of the time, it was a lot more expensive. Even at Sbarro at a mall (don’t ask), for 3 slices of pizza, 1 calzone, and 2 fountain drinks, it was $60.

Gas was around $4.50/gal while we were there (and that was before the Iran fiasco), though we went to Costco and paid about $3.75/gal. We got the perfect amount of groceries at a regular grocery store (not Costco) for the week, and it was well over $500 for the 5 of us.

For a vacation where we expected high prices, it is what it is, and it wasn’t a big deal. But how do people live there? Granted, we live in Ohio, where prices are pretty modest compared to most places in the country, but sheesh… crazy.

Would I do another Hawaii vacation?

That was a question I was pondering at the end of our Hawaii vacation. We had such a blast there… but would I plan another trip to Hawaii in the future?

Probably not. I’m not going to rule it out, but there are three big reasons why I don’t think I’ll go back (at least in the foreseeable future).

1. Been there, done that. We did some cool @#$% on this trip: shark cage diving, a luau, visited Pearl Harbor, explored cool lands and unique beaches, and so much more. But, do we need to go back there and do that all again?

Of course, there are other things there that we haven’t seen or done, but there are so many other places in the world we want to visit as well. So another visit to Hawaii isn’t at the top of the list.

2. It’s stupid expensive. No need to reiterate this one.

3. It reminded me a lot of Boquete, Panama. Here was something interesting – the lush scenery all around that is so joyful reminded me a lot of Panama, particularly Boquete. It made me almost feel like we were back “home” again.

When you look at points 2 and 3, why wouldn’t we just go back to Panama to visit again? You get a lot of the same scenery at a fraction of the price – not to mention that the flight time is a heckuva lot less grueling (still not my favorite though).

So, yeah, I truly loved our Hawaii vacation and I’m so glad we had the opportunity to do this. It was an absolutely wonderful experience. But it’s not going to be on the radar to head back there anytime in the near future – too many other cool places to visit first!

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Thanks for reading!!

— Jim