Honey, Let's Fly to...

When you think about honeymoons, there are the two extremes - jam-packed days of activities and sight seeing or toes-in-the-sand, lounging beach trips.  We wanted to fall somewhere in the middle of that.  We love kicking back on the beach with a drink in hand, but we knew that we wanted some interesting activities and fun new experiences.  I was really tempted by some cool tours when MOH/Sis Curls was planning her graduation European vacation, but ultimately we decided that we wanted something more relaxing.  And as Sphinx pointed out, those kinds of tours will be more fun to do with friends and family later on - our honeymoon should be something that we prefer doing without other people around.

We knew that we wanted to use this as an opportunity to travel somewhere that neither of us have been before, and somewhere that we'd always wanted to go.  Early on, we had a dream destination in mind and have finally made the decisions to make it happen!

The Pyramids will be traveling to...

Kaanapali Beach in Maui.  Let's all just take minute to let this soak in./Photo via Dowdle Daily

Hawaii!



So far, we have hotel rooms and flights booked.  I got a little creative with the flights, since traveling from the middle of the U.S. isn't the easiest for air travel to the Pacific.  We'll depart NOLA Sunday night following the wedding, on a direct flight to L.A. We will stay the night there and fly to Oahu early Monday morning (and because of the time change, it'll only be about noon Hawaii time!).  For the return (if I can manage to be torn away from the islands), we have an overnight flight into Las Vegas, and then a direct morning flight home.  This way we spend the least amount of time sitting around airports and wasting our very valuable vacation time.  It also worked out because I could use my Southwest rewards points to book our mainland flights, and Sphinx only had to purchase direct flights on Hawaiian Airlines.

We will be staying in Oahu for four nights, and Maui for four nights, and we want to take a day trip to the Big Island volcano one day.

The very first thing to do is familiarize yourself with the islands./Photo from Alegre Travel

I found researching the trip to Hawaii to be a bit overwhelming, just because there's so much to learn and I knew pretty much nothing!  You get a pretty large distribution of recommendations online, since everybody has a favorite island and preferred way to do Hawaii.  Ultimately, we decided that our time in Oahu will be our activity time, and Maui will be the relaxing time.

For the first leg of our trip, we booked a nice hotel on the beach with a view of Diamond Head, just off the main strip in Waikiki.  For Maui, we will be staying at a timeshare resort (booked through VRBO), on Kaanapali Beach on the far western side of the island.  I'll save my tips and learnings for after the honeymoon, but for now I'll just say this: Hawaii ain't cheap and the hotels don't look too fancy.  Even the expensive ones are still just "nice" when you compare it to lots of other places to travel.  Of course, you're not going to Hawaii to sit in the hotel room, so that shouldn't be much of a problem, but it was a little bit of a shock for me at first when looking at room prices.

Here's where I need your help, Hive!  We still need to plan our activities, and I'd love any recommendations. If you've been to Hawaii, what's your favorite thing to do or place to eat?  What should we absolutely not miss while we're there?  We were thinking of some of these activities:

U.S.S. Arizona Memorial
Sphinx is a history buff, so of course we'll be visiting the Pearl Harbor Memorial.  My cousin actually works here as a historian and guide (aka the coolest job in the world), so we'll be checking into her schedule to see when we can get her for a tour.

U.S.S. Arizona Memorial/Photo via PortAloha

Luau

Mrs. Sparkler listed this as her top thing to do in Hawaii, and of course we want to see one while we're there! I've heard of good recommendations on Oahu and Maui, so we'll just see where it fits in the schedule.  

Surfing

That's right, this klutz wants to ride a wave!  Even if I can't hardly get up, I really want to try and take lessons one morning.  Just to say I did it. 

This will most certainly not be me, but we can dream./Photo from Tom Barefoot's Tours

Hike - Diamond Head & ?
I certainly wouldn't call us hikers, but we could be down for some moderate treks to get to a nice waterfall.  We'll be staying right next to Diamond Head, so we'll definitely go ahead and hike to the top of that for a great view one morning.

Big Island Volcano
There are options to fly out to the Big Island four a day tour, and that's what we're looking to do to see the lava flow, the lava tubes, and the black sand beaches.

The idea of seeing this in person makes Sphinx super duper excited./Photo from Wordless Tech

And in the spirit of complete and utter indulgence, we'd like to find massages on the beach somewhere.  Because we'll be NEWLYWEDS.

We also love trying local food hotspots (foodies? Can we still be called foodies if one of our favorite places is Steak 'n' Shake?), so I'd love some recommendations on that too!

It feels so good to check this off the list, and now there's this awesome light shining at the end of the tunnel.  When things get tough, I'll just try to remember the sun, sand, surf that will be ours in just a few short months!