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My family may be taking a short trip to Hawaii over the summer, and we’re looking for things to do. Naturally, we will hit Pearl Harbor and the beaches, but we’d like some other ideas of things to do or see on the big island, Oahu or Kauai. We’d also like a more authentic or historically-grounded alternative to the Polynesian Cultural Center. What do you recommend? Where are the best places to go for food or culture?

Also, if you have a good book for getting psyched about Hawaii, historical or fiction, please let me know.

I went to the big island a few years ago. There's not really a whole lot of non-commercialized cultural things to go see as the lava has taken it all. Anything else is much newer and part of a hotel or tourist trap. That being said there's a museum house in Kona for the Hawaiian royalty https://daughtersofhawaii.org/hulihee-palace/

If you do go to the big island it is very big and is not a short stop. There's volcano national part, the observatories, green sands beach (with green sand, one of one a few in the world and the only one I believe
not over by Guam), several black sand beaches. That's to also not mention all the waterfalls and hiking trails. There's only one "nice" beach on the big island (north of the Kona airport in Puako If I remember correctly) as all the others are very rough/rocky but cool to see none the less. In Hilo you can go to the Mauna loa factory tour which is self-guided so you can do it pretty quick if you're curious though it's way cheaper to get macadamia nuts from Walmart or Costco then at the factory store.

There's captain cook as well which is supposed to be a really nice lagoon/bay but I didn't go there as there was an outbreak of a mosquito borne illness there at the time (can't remember what) and it was more or less in quarantine.


The most impressive thing about the Big Island is it's got almost every biome in the world (missing swamps for example) and to just drive along the outside of the island you'll go from tropical island desert, to cacti desert, to sage brush desert(with cowboys and rodeos), to rolling hills (with the largest cattle farm in the US), to several different types of jungles to pine forests to East cost deciduous forests back to tropical island all in maybe a 5-6 hour drive depending on stops. If you go up to the observatories you can see tundra and other northern biomes. It's pretty cool and something I don't think you can experience anywhere else.

Food wise the Big Island was just "do you want canned chili on that?" Seriously, it's a thing at many a restaurant there. Also Salad that comes with any meal is Macaroni salad. There are some places Hawaiin friends mentioned to try that were worth going to:

Hilo: Kens House of Pancakes (anything on the menu)
Honoka'a: Tex Drive in (spam musubi, malasadas) -- probably the most well known go there and get one of those items if you can when on the island.

We ate at a few places in Kona and I'm not sure if any are still around but Holy Donuts were really good and Ultimate Burger (which is a small Hawaiian chain) is one of the better burgers I've ever had. I really didn't eat anything considered Hawaiin outside of the Musubi's from Tex's as I live in Utah and we have a pretty big Polynesian population and there's lots of restaurants out here severing that type of food and we stayed in Hilo which is the non-tourest area so those type of restaurants weren't common.

From what I hear, Kauai is the best. It's less crowded than Hawaii or Oahu, though I would say that Oahu is mandatory for Pearl Harbor. My Parents basically go once a year to Kauai.

Also, chickens. Lots of chickens.

 Monkeysloth wrote:
I went to the big island a few years ago. There's not really a whole lot of non-commercialized cultural things to go see as the lava has taken it all. Anything else is much newer and part of a hotel or tourist trap. That being said there's a museum house in Kona for the Hawaiian royalty https://daughtersofhawaii.org/hulihee-palace/

If you do go to the big island it is very big and is not a short stop. There's volcano national part, the observatories, green sands beach (with green sand, one of one a few in the world and the only one I believe
not over by Guam), several black sand beaches. That's to also not mention all the waterfalls and hiking trails. There's only one "nice" beach on the big island (north of the Kona airport in Puako If I remember correctly) as all the others are very rough/rocky but cool to see none the less. In Hilo you can go to the Mauna loa factory tour which is self-guided so you can do it pretty quick if you're curious though it's way cheaper to get macadamia nuts from Walmart or Costco then at the factory store.

There's captain cook as well which is supposed to be a really nice lagoon/bay but I didn't go there as there was an outbreak of a mosquito borne illness there at the time (can't remember what) and it was more or less in quarantine.


The most impressive thing about the Big Island is it's got almost every biome in the world (missing swamps for example) and to just drive along the outside of the island you'll go from tropical island desert, to cacti desert, to sage brush desert(with cowboys and rodeos), to rolling hills (with the largest cattle farm in the US), to several different types of jungles to pine forests to East cost deciduous forests back to tropical island all in maybe a 5-6 hour drive depending on stops. If you go up to the observatories you can see tundra and other northern biomes. It's pretty cool and something I don't think you can experience anywhere else.

Food wise the Big Island was just "do you want canned chili on that?" Seriously, it's a thing at many a restaurant there. Also Salad that comes with any meal is Macaroni salad. There are some places Hawaiin friends mentioned to try that were worth going to:

Hilo: Kens House of Pancakes (anything on the menu)
Honoka'a: Tex Drive in (spam musubi, malasadas) -- probably the most well known go there and get one of those items if you can when on the island.

We ate at a few places in Kona and I'm not sure if any are still around but Holy Donuts were really good and Ultimate Burger (which is a small Hawaiian chain) is one of the better burgers I've ever had. I really didn't eat anything considered Hawaiin outside of the Musubi's from Tex's as I live in Utah and we have a pretty big Polynesian population and there's lots of restaurants out here severing that type of food and we stayed in Hilo which is the non-tourest area so those type of restaurants weren't common.

The palace sounds very much like something we want to see, if we can make it during their open hours. We’re planning to visit the Iolani palace on Oahu, but the more historical buildings we can see, the better.

The Mauna Loa factory tour is something I hadn’t thought of at all. My mother has a …relationship with their chocolate covered macadamia nuts, as well as with Mauna Loa guava juice and some Hawaiian company’s Li Hing Mui . A factory tour could be like her hajj…

Thanks for telling me about the diversity of biomes on the big island. My son wants to visit every kind of ecology, so that will be huge for him.

Ultimate Burger and Homy Donuts sound very much my speed. We actually have a sizeable Hawaiian expat community here; there are four Hawaiian BBQ restaurants (and probably a few poke) within a 5 minute drive. However, one assumes these places are not “authentic”…but it sounds like maybe they’re close enough?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Grey Templar wrote:
From what I hear, Kauai is the best. It's less crowded than Hawaii or Oahu, though I would say that Oahu is mandatory for Pearl Harbor. My Parents basically go once a year to Kauai.

Also, chickens. Lots of chickens.

We’re spending a full day at Pearl Harbor. It’s the most important part of the trip for us.

Looking forward to going to Kauai.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

Ultimate Burger and Homy Donuts sound very much my speed. We actually have a sizeable Hawaiian expat community here; there are four Hawaiian BBQ restaurants (and probably a few poke) within a 5 minute drive. However, one assumes these places are not “authentic”…but it sounds like maybe they’re close enough?

They pretty much are. If you go to some of the expensive luaus you'll get a really slow-cooked and buried kalua pork which does taste better then the oven stuff and they generally have poi (which I never saw anywhere else) outside of that Hawaiian food really is a mix of various Polynesian, Japanese, Chinese, Portuguese and American food that all the mainland restaurants have. You can see on Wikipedia there's not a whole lot from pre western contact times https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuisine_of_Hawaii

Really the only thing you'd be missing out on are local fishes that make up some of the cuisine.

Disclaimer: I've only been to O'ahu. My kids and I really enjoyed touring the Honolulu Fish Auction as something different and educational, but I'm guessing those tours are shut down since COVID. And I know you're looking for something other than the Polynesian Cultural Center...but I have to say the PCC was *much better* than I expected, and I thought we learned a lot. Paying a few extra bucks for the tour guide is worth it, FYI. Adds a lot to the experience and your guide will take care of you.

Lessee...the Byodo-In temple was worth the stop. And I'd definitely take the H3 at some point for some reason to go somewhere, because that drive through the mountains is...wow. Our favorite North Shore beach on Oahu was Hale'iwa. There are sea turtles there and all over the North Shore...don't feel the need to go to Turtle Beach to see them.

Regarding different biomes, I think every island will have some stark differences between the windward and leeward sides. It's fascinating to see dry, almost desert-y terrain within miles of lush tropical terrain. Oh...make sure not to skimp on the (reef-friendly) sunscreen. The sun is really intense.

As dumb as it sounds, make sure you have a Hawaiian breakfast one morning (spam and eggs), have a poke bowl for lunch, buy a REAL Hawaiian shirt (buy 2 if you can find a cool Christmas one that says mele kalikimaka), get something with Poi, and eat some fresh Pineapple. If you drink, have a fresh pina colada in a coconut.

I can't really give advice on the big island. I went there for a couple days, hated it because of how corporate it is, and went back to Maui. I would recommend Kuai/Maui over the big island. Road to Hana was my favorite activity but I had a great time no matter what I did there. The golf courses were amazing, we took a helicopter tour, hiked in the rainforest, went surfing/windsurfing/parasailing, rented jet skis, all the typical stuff.

Toofast wrote:
I can't really give advice on the big island. I went there for a couple days, hated it because of how corporate it is, and went back to Maui. I would recommend Kuai/Maui over the big island. Road to Hana was my favorite activity but I had a great time no matter what I did there. The golf courses were amazing, we took a helicopter tour, hiked in the rainforest, went surfing/windsurfing/parasailing, rented jet skis, all the typical stuff.

Are you confusing O'ahu with Hawai'i (the big island)? As there's very little development on Hawai'i.

Well, some parts of the Big Island are pretty tourist-trappy, but yeah its not massively developed like Oahu. B

I've never been to Hawaii, but if I do go, I'll be going to China town and hotel street to see where sailor Jerry used to tattoo back in the day.

I just got back from Hawaii, had a wonderful time, and wanted to thank you all for your advice. Got to go to some amazing places and do incredibly things and eat some delicious foods.

The drive on the H3 was beautiful. The circle drive around the Big Island was a lot of fun. We got to snorkel with Manta rays, see turtles, ruins, all kinds of environments. We swam under a waterfall in the rain, hiked through the rainforest, attend a luau, see lava glowing and bubbling at night, and see the depths on a submarine. We had a moving, memorable day at Pearl Harbor. We briefly visited Kamehameha statue and palace, and the place where he threw some of his enemies off a cliff. We had Dole Whip under the big Banyan tree and watched local artisans carve tikis, make leis and jewelry.

I got to try a lot of local restaurants for food, and I loved most of them. The highlight was having malasadas from Leonard’s. The low point was having “malasadas” from Punaluu Bakery, which were just donuts, ho-hum donuts. Got a poi mochi donut somewhere that was not necessarily the best donut, but was the most fun donut. We tried all kinds of local fruit and edible flowers and such—the soursop being the most divisive in our group. Had a weird experience with poi, which supposedly people either love or hate: I found it meh, just another bland and starchy staple food that fills the belly. Apparently that means it’s fresh..? The fermented poi is the ‘real’ poi? No place I visited sold any.

Just a note, but the hotels were isolated, the food in shops was twice the price it would be on the mainland, and in the hotel restaurants, twice that. Honolulu was crowded and hot, and basically a cross of Miami and Oakland. Maui was a lot of fun and very beautiful. The Big Island was also beautiful, but involved a lot more driving, and all the beaches were closed due to a tropical storm. Maui had the best gift shop experiences, near the Banyan tree around Front street and also at Whaler’s Village. There was a store in Whaler’s Village that was like a Needful Things for information, with some great books on sale and some the proprietor allowed me to read despite not being for sale.

Glad you enjoyed the trip. There's lots too see especially when island hoping and seams like you got to experience quite a lot.

Food is more expensive there for sure. Most things are imported in from the continent but there were ways to get some things fairly affordable. When I was there, since we rented a house, we'd buy meat from the butcher which was not that much more then mainland prices (granted this was several years ago) as Hawaii has some very large cattle ranches.

The biggest price difference I saw when I was on the Big Island, and I kid you not, were just regular hot dogs. They were like $12 for a pack of 6 (which was probably around $3 at the time where I live).

Unfortunately we didn’t have any kitchens in our hotels. I would have liked to have had more days that weren’t preplanned and busy.