Visiting from va - - - need advice :-) - - - kauai or big island? (Hilo: rental car, rentals)

[A-BIG-NOTHING]

hello all...or should i say Aloha? :-)

we're planning on making a trip to Hawaii in Nov. of this year, we are 28 and 30, we like hiking, the beach, biking, etc. .......had a few questions....

1. is Nov. a good time?
2. we were thinking 9 days or so....is that sufficient?
3. should we mostly stay in Kauai (6-7 days) and a couple days to see the big island? or the reverse?
4. any recommendations on accomidations near the beach at a fair price? (about $100)

thank you :-)

[KoaKine]

Lol its always good to say Aloha I live in NY and always say it!

Nov and any month is good time to go.
9 days is a good start jus as long as you dont try to put to many Islands into the trip 2 is good.
I think you should flip it Kauai is smaller and easy to see (to see it all would take a helicopter and I recommend it) The Big Island is that! big! It takes longer to see the volcano will take a couple to three days to see it all if you want to then Kona , Hilo there almost 2 hours apart.
About the places to stay by the beach you'll be hard pressed to find a hotel that cheap let alone a resort. I would try a condo but you might have to talk to them personally to get a better deal they like weekly rentals but with the slow rentals they would work with you

Good luck and have lots of fun
Aloha

[KonaKat]

Early Nov. is usually not an extremely booked time of year for vacation rentals. This year obviously everything is "down" quite a bit.

$100 a night probably won't quite do it but maybe close. Don't forget there will be taxes added on to the room rate, & you'll need a vehicle to get around. As soon as you decide on where you will be for what days, reserve your rental car. There have been some shortages in that department due to some of the agencies shipping some cars back to the mainland several months ago.

5 or 6 days on Big Island and 3 or 4 on Kauai is a pretty good split.

My suggestion is, for a stay of only 2 or 3 days, just stay in a hotel. With most vacation rentals you have a cleaning fee and a security deposit which is hardly worth the effort for 2 or 3 days. For more than that a vacation rental condo makes more sense because you have a full kitchen and would spend less eating out for some meals.

[A-BIG-NOTHING]

thank you :-)
we heard that Kauai is much more exotic than the big island!
we care about these the most:

- Views! (must have mountains, jungle, and ocean....all in one place :-)
- The beach has to be perfect
- Not over crowded with tourists. not commercialized too much.
- have hiking, biking trails

given that bit of additional info, which island should we spend the most of our time at?

[KoaKine]

I still thinking that 4 days on Kauai will be plenty unless you repeat your outings.

[HankDfrmSD]

Originally Posted by A-BIG-NOTHING

thank you :-)
we heard that Kauai is much more exotic than the big island!
we care about these the most:

- Views! (must have mountains, jungle, and ocean....all in one place :-)
- The beach has to be perfect
- Not over crowded with tourists. not commercialized too much.
- have hiking, biking trails

given that bit of additional info, which island should we spend the most of our time at?

North Shore of Kauai.

Princeville Information (http://visitprinceville.info/Princeville_Information.html - broken link)

Hank

[hothulamaui]

what about beautiful maui? some say if you can only do one island you should do maui. can you add one or two more days and do the three islands. I would hate to see you miss maui even if you were only here for 2 days!

your list of wants, the view, wanting mountians, jungle, ocean in one spot would be kauai, (which I could do for the entire 9 days easy) or Hana, maui. I would hate to see you miss hana, maui. remote and beautiful. people hike there for days!
all of hawaii is touristy and sometimes crowded. stay away from the big resort areas. how much activity do you want? what about water sports and golf? how important is fine dining and shopping? tripadviser dot com, the forums there have tons of info on every island very informative

[A-BIG-NOTHING]

Originally Posted by hothulamaui

what about beautiful maui? some say if you can only do one island you should do maui. can you add one or two more days and do the three islands. I would hate to see you miss maui even if you were only here for 2 days!

your list of wants, the view, wanting mountians, jungle, ocean in one spot would be kauai, (which I could do for the entire 9 days easy) or Hana, maui. I would hate to see you miss hana, maui. remote and beautiful. people hike there for days!
all of hawaii is touristy and sometimes crowded. stay away from the big resort areas. how much activity do you want? what about water sports and golf? how important is fine dining and shopping? tripadviser dot com, the forums there have tons of info on every island very informative

thanks :-)

maybe Kauai and Maui then???

water sports and golf? how important is fine dining and shopping is NOT important to us AT ALL!

[hothulamaui]

Originally Posted by A-BIG-NOTHING

thanks :-)

maybe Kauai and Maui then???

water sports and golf? how important is fine dining and shopping is NOT important to us AT ALL!

then I think kauai for sure, very lush and jungle like. maui hana side same also has that feel. tripadvisor you can learn just about everything you ned to know. a forum for all the islands with posters rating and posting about what their experiences were, from hotel to zipline adventures.

[Ellwood]

To match your criteria I would recommend Kauai (North shore) and Maui (Hana). Although the big island is interesting, the beaches are limited (mainly to the resorts) and far and few in between, much of the island is lava.