We decided to try a B&B while we were on vacation in Hawaii. The first four nights that we were in Kauai, we stayed at Victoria Place in Lawai. I can't say enough nice things about this B&B and its owner, Edee Seymore! We had a wonderful time there and met so many other wonderful people while we stayed there.
Thanks to Edee's thoughtful suggestions, we decided to do the Air Kauai helicopter tour, tour Grove Farms, and went to a luau at Gaylords. I can highly recommend all of these things -- we enjoyed them all. We also went to Waimea Canyon and hiked down one of the trails about a mile, but decided not to go all the way to the river because it was getting late and the thought of being on the trail after dark wasn't too appealing. Of course, a trip to Kauai wouldn't be complete without seeing beautiful Hanalei Bay and the quaint village of Hanalei. We got a delicious shave ice at the Wishing Well in Hanalei.
One of the best deals on the island of Kauai is at the Kilauea Lighthouse. I could have spent an entire day there watching the whales (of course the whales are a seasonal thing there).
After four nights in Kauai, we flew over to the Big Island. The scenery here is considerably different from Kauai. We drove completely around the big island from Hilo we drove up to Kamuela. Kamuela was completely different from any of my expectations of Hawaii. It was certainly beautiful, and while we were there cooler than what I expected, the wind was constant. We saw quite a few whales off the northwest coast of the big island too. From Kamuela we drove south towards Captain Cook. The landscape changed once again, from the grasslands of the ranches to the lava covered Kona Coast. By the time we got to Captain Cook, we were seeing coffee trees and macadamia trees everywhere. When we left Captain Cook, we drove down to Southpoint. If we hadn't had all of our luggage with us, we would have hiked over to Green Sand beach (maybe next time!) The windmills at Southpoint were an unexpected surprise. There must have been at least 30 huge windmills on the road to Southpoint. From there we drove over to Volcano. We stopped at the Volcano winery. Being beekeepers, we were curious about their macadamia mead. It was good enough that we bought a bottle! Then we were on to Kileaua -- it's a vast expanse of hardened lava. Really, it’s an amazing sight.
After a little hiking around the volcano we headed over to Hale Makamae in Pahoa, which was another B&B that I'd made reservations at. Pahoa is a curious little hippie town, with a great Thai restaurant that I can thoroughly recommend: Ning's Thai Cuisine. While we were staying here we drove up the Hamakua coast. We stopped at the Hawaii Tropical Botanical Gardens while we were touring the coast.
Finally, we headed back to Kauai for one night at the Aloha Beach Resort. This was a reasonably priced resort with an excellent restaurant. They also have a wonderful little snorkeling beach that I'm sorry to say I didn't get a chance to use. We were sorry to leave this wonderful island of Kauai!