Hawaii wasn’t on my agenda, but it just happened to fall on the cheapest route to South America. I am all about saving a buck and when I saw cheap flights from Sydney I jumped on that option. I was lucky enough to find a friend with some holiday time and a birthday the same week as mine, so we set off to spend birthday week in Waikiki.
It didn’t take long before we realised we were in one of the biggest honeymoon destinations in the world, surrounded by couples wherever we went, being mistaken for a couple many times and certainly feeling very single the entire time. There were also plenty of families getting around, but certainly very few people in our position.We had ten days and planned to spend most of it tanning as we had just come from a touch of Australian winter. It was our first time to the States, and there was a buzz feed article to sum it up perfectly, our main confusions- why is everything so big? what the hell is a dime? and what is with that weird yellow cheese stuff? Safe to say we left feeling significantly heavier.
Apart from eating, sleeping and tanning we made the trek up to Diamond head the iconic volcanic cone of Hawaii, it’s a nice casual hike up, although a lot tougher when you decide to walk from Waikiki and back in the midday sun like we did. It leaves for some amazing views over the sea and Waikiki as well as Downtown Honolulu.
After spending over an hour on a bus to get to Pearl Harbour it was a quick decision to hire a car to head to the North Shore, well worth the fear of driving into oncoming traffic. We stopped for lunch at Haleiwa a quant surf village that resembles what Hawaii looks like in years past. We then headed right around the coast to the Polynesian cultural centre, resisting the urge to stop at every beach we saw on the way! The Polynesian cultural centre is a theme park dedicated to the villages of Polynesia. You could easily spend a day if not more wandering between the different island villages and watching the performers. As we were strapped for time we spent around 2 hours there, watching the introduction movie and the canoe parade of all the individual tribe dances before it was time to move on to some of Hawaii’s most amazing beaches.
Turtle bay was next, and to our disappointment without a single turtle in sight, we had spent some time searching for the turtles in Waikiki after we had been assured they were everywhere, and having no luck we were certain turtle bay would provide the goods, but alas there were no sea creatures swimming beside us. After some time in the sun we started the drive back, stoping at sunset beach and getting a glimpse of the famous 7 mile stretch of surf that is said to be some of the best in the world.
If it weren’t for the fact travelling via Hawaii saved me some cash, and gave me a decent transition from full time work to full time travel, I’m not sure it would ever be my holiday destination of choice unless of course it was a honeymoon or family holiday. It does have a fantastic landscape and some surreal views and great beaches, but for two people celebrating birthday week, not the most exciting place although we did leave extremely tanned.
HannaH Backwards. 