Hawaii - Part 2

{April 18th - 25th}

Kauai

We spent the second 4 days on the beautiful island of Kauai.
We knew this wouldn't be nearly enough time to do everything we wanted and we could easily return and spend a couple weeks here alone.

We stayed at the Koloa Landing down on the south shore the first two nights and then splurged to stay at the Grand Hyatt the second two nights.

Since we didn't have kids, it wasn't a big deal to switch places often and jam pack our days, but if we went back, we would definitely stay at the Koloa Landing the entire time.

They were brand new, amazing condos with all the amenities... ours was 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom, had a super nice kitchen, living room, washer/dryer and huge balcony!

We also got a free continental breakfast each morning and there was a pool/hot tub on site.

We were gone all day long until we crashed each night so we felt like we really missed out on just hanging out on our patio, playing games, and a slower vacation pace.

But we sure had an awesome time staying busy with everything else!

We got in at night and by the time we checked in and got ready for dinner, it was 8pm.

Almost everything on the island closes by 8pm.

We got lucky and found another great Italian place called Pizzeta... it ended up being one of our favorites!

The first day here we spent the morning on Poipu Beach

#nailedit

After lunch at Da Crack and shaved ice, we spent most of the afternoon at Kealia Beach

... such a fun place to boogie board.

On our way back to dinner, we stopped at Wailua Falls

Dinner at Donderos

We really wanted to do a boat tour of the Napali Coast but after evaluating everything we wanted to see... we decided to do a helicopter tour instead.

This was our first time in a helicopter and it was so incredible!

Ultimately, we knew we didn't have time to fit in everything and we would still be able to see most of the island in the helicopter.

I really can't tell you exactly what each of these picture are but we basically got to tour the entire island

The Jurassic Park water fall

flying down Waimea Canyon

Headed over the Napali Coast

next we flew over Hanalei Bay

We finished the tour going over the center of the island... which you can't access by any other means.

This includes the wettest place in the US (over 400 inches of rain each year)

and flying into the crater that formed the island

We drove up to the north shore for the afternoon and after lunch at Bubbas Burgers, decided to hike the Kalalau Trail.

We just did the 2 miles into Hanakapai'ai Beach but it was a really good hike

View of Ke'e Beach from the trail

This is by far the sweatiest I have ever been.

Notice the sunscreen pouring off of me...

The views were incredible

This was a cool little freshwater pool on the beach from the rain runoff

The third day we went to Queen's Bath in the morning

We decided last minute to take surfing lessons in Hanalei Bay this afternoon and I'm soo sad I don't have a single picture of the experience.

We went through Hawaii Surfing Adventure (I think?) and it was just the four of us with an instructor for an hour and a half.

We were all able to get up and catch several waves.

Hanalei Bay was the perfect place to learn... gental rolling waves and a sandy bottom (no rocks to land on)

I think this was by far my favorite thing we did!

Tunnels Beach later in the afternoon after surfing.

The Grand Hyatt and dinner at Tidepools

Our last day we played it super low key and just hung out at the hotel and pool all day.

There are easily a dozen more places we would have loved to hit up and seen but we just ran out of time.

We had such an awesome time, though, and can't wait until we can come back!