Hawaii vacation question

All the Islands are beautiful and fun in their own way. If you want volcanoes, go to The Big Island (Hawaii). Kauai would be the best for mountains, hikes, and outdoor activities.

Expedia usually has good deals for hotel + flight. Hotwire usually has the best car rental deals.

Big island for the flow of Kilawea. BUt warning you black sand beaches are mostly what you will see. The middle of the island looks like the Moon. Barren & rocks. Maui has amazing waterfalls & 7 sacred pool (which could be puddles depend ing). Kauai is the most remote, as in not much but nature & that's a good thing! Oahu offers the familiarity of home (ihop & Denny's, Outback, etc) in Waikiki but the North Shore on Oahu is beauty beyond belief! Plus North Shore has all the surfing comps right now. Hailewa is the town to be at right now there. Sunset Beach too.

frbo.com or vrbo.com would have good deals on hotel. Best to do that now b/c you need a room.

http://www.carrentalsavers.com/ for the car

I'd recommand Big Island for nature sight seeing, hiking, horse riding, whale watching, biking, helicopter ride to volcano/waterfall, kayaking and scuba diving. More than enough for 4-5 days and you can plan most of your activity rental online.

We went to both Waikiki/north shore and the big island..and actually took an early fight out of the big island because we were so bored. Black sand beach was nice and there is an awesome waterfall/hiking area there...but that was it. We drove through the volcano area but most of it was closed off because it was active (or something along those lines). Had we done a helicopter tour it probably would have been a lot better. If you are able to see a lot of the volcano area it may be worth it to, but you never know what is going on there until you get there really. Hilo didn't have much to do nor many places to eat. Next time we will go to Maui...I wish now we would have went there instead of the big island.

Boyfriend and I did about a 5 days in Big Island and 8 in Oahu (in that order) during Christmas and New Years 2008. I must say that I was extremely depressed in Oahu, to the point where I almost wanted to cry. If you go to Oahu you might as well just go to southern california because honestly there is nothing special. The beautiful blue beaches that I was hoping to see at Oahu were not at their full beauty due to the constantly cloudy weather. The mountains are gorgeous, there are lush gardens. But the crazy traffic and commercial feel of the island killed it for us. It is always nice to visit and get your own opinion. For us, its like a been there done that type of thing and we will only use it to connect to other islands. Except New Years Eve on the beach was awesome because we were in the ocean, drunk as sh*t and watching fire works being launced from the boats.

As for Big Island, we rented a jeep (it was pricey) but to this day we still talk about how that was the best money we spent. We stayed at not the best places, but it didn't matter since we were never there. There are white sand beaches, black, sand, brown sand, crushed shells sand, you name it. Beautiful waterfalls, lava caves (not the ones in Volcano national park), better snorkeling than Oahu. The vibe is COMPLETELY different, really kick back and chill. We took our jeep to places where we shouldn't have (luckily nothing happened, but something seriously could have) and it is honestly one of our best care-free, not life-threatening adventure vacations we've had.

As for the other islands (which I've never been to), I really want to hit up Maui because it has a red sand beach and this really awesome hike that looks absolutely breath taking (really weird, ailen landscapes). And as for Kauai, there is also some really good hiking there and supposedly tons of naturey stuff.

Oh while we were in big island, we were able to watch lava go into the water. We didn't get close, it was pretty far actually, probably 400 yards at minimum. But we were there at night and you could see the reaction of the water and lava meeting (explosion like). It was really cool. There were boat rides that would give you the best seat in the house, but it was way out of our budget (min of $150.00 per person).

Anyways, PM me if you want more info about big island and some pretty sweet places to visit with a jeep.

As for deals, we booked our flight and hotel separately. We found that many hotels would actually match or even beat the deals that we found on sites like Expedia and what not. Some gave us an extra 10% off that price. Others gave us an upgrade. Again we weren't too concerned about the hotel, just wanted a clean bed and bathroom.

OH! And Ken's pancakes in Hilo is THE BEST!

check out priceline and bid 2 days before going to get good deal on hotel...do the "name your own price" option