A Weekend Getaway: Kauai, Hawaii

I’ve lived in Hawaii for the past two years now, which is unbelievable when I think about it because it really doesn’t seem like it has already been that long. But what’s even more surprising is the fact that I haven’t hopped over to any of the island’s before a couple of weeks ago, considering how convenient and cheap it is to do so.

Thanks to one of the best, most adventurous people I’ve ever met, not only did I fly stand-by for the first time ever, but I also got to hop over to the garden island of Kauai. We only had 3 solid days on the island because we are both taking summer school so we took full advantage of the three-day weekend we were lucky to have. It took one failed attempt and three hours of waiting for a second flight to finally get to the least populated island in the state of Hawaii, but it was well worth the wait.

There were so many things I appreciated about Kauai –

1. Everything was close.

The plane ride over to Kauai was only 30 minutes or less, we both fell asleep before the plane even took off and woke up 5 minutes before we landed. After getting off one of the smallest planes I’ve ever been on, we waited an hour to get our rental car. As soon as we got the keys, we walked outside to a torrential downpour and ran to our extremely boujie car we had not planned on getting, but due to the increase in demand for the long weekend, we had no choice, and I don’t think either of us complained. After finally getting some wheels, we went straight to our hotel, which felt like it was right down the street from the car rental parking lot. When we…. excuse my overuse of the word ‘FINALLY’ but I guess that was the word to describe our first day there….got to our beach front room at the Marriott, which again, was not what we were expecting. Seeing that we had spent almost all of the day trying to get to the island, we decided to look for a place to get a drink. We ended up at what seemed like a wanna-be country bar that had only one bar tender and a few military karaoke singers occupying the place, but nevertheless, we made the best of it. The second night on our hunt for food we decided to walk down the stairs closer to our room which led us to the exact bar we had the night before, except this time it only took a 4-minute walk. We realized that we were walking distance to THE nightlife Kauai had to offer.

2. There was no nightlife.

Since I had never been to the island before and Jaime had a few times before, I didn’t know nothing stayed open on Kauai past 11 PM. Which was astonishing, to say the least. But I realized, Kauai wasn’t the Oahu I was used to; with bars that stayed open till 2 and clubs that opened at 3 am. Kauai was simple, relaxing, and quite. This was a nice change of pace from the late night on the Waikiki strip. But still, our two nights there consisted of walking to Duke’s Waikiki and drinking overpriced, but well-liquored, Mai Tai’s or some cheap bottle of champaign that I couldn’t pop properly for the life of me.

3. A tropical rainforest covered MOST of the island.

Our second day, we woke up early to find ourselves slipping our way down to Wailua Falls. It was by far the shortest hike I had done in Hawaii and probably the most rewarding because the waterfall was unapologetic. As soon as we were in close proximity of the heavily gushing fresh body of water, we felt its power and cold mist cover us with goosebumps as it made its 83-foot plunge down the stream. Surrounding the miniature Niagra-Falls-like waterfall, were fresh, untouched vegetation that a camera couldn’t do justice. The colors were vibrant with deep golds, every shade of green, and the richest color of mud I was happy to dip my toes in. The sun illuminated the little enclosure of greenery as if it were a secret garden I had wandered into.

4. Waimea Canyon

My favorite about Kauai, among many things, was seeing Waimea Canyon. It’s a lifelong dream of mine to see the Grand Canyon and this was as close as it got in the middle of the Pacific. It was 10 miles of rich soil and shrubs. It was a site you had to take a moment to look at it and realize YOU WERE THERE. YOU ARE ALIVE. AND THIS. This is what the world had to offer and it was just a taste of everything extraordinary about the Earth. You could see the 3,000 foot descend closer to the edge, which I annoyingly made Jaime walk to even though he’s extremely afraid of heights. Yikes! Sorry, Jaime. But DID YOU LIVE? or did you feel more alive….My eyes loved every minute of this Grand Canyon-esque view, especially with you Jaime.

Thanks for the mini adventure, Kauai. We shall meet again!