Loose Ends In and Around Kona

Kailua Town is also known as Kailua-Kona and loosely folks just refer to it as "going to Kona" when visiting. Kailua-Kona is the seafront tourist area along Alii Drive that extends approximately one mile from the waterfront and probably five or six miles running north and south.

It has become a very busy tourist area, to include the port that the large cruise ships come for their passengers to come assure. The harbor is too shallow for actual docking so they must transport folks between the ship and the dock itself.

Here in Kailua Town you will find a wealth of shopping and dining. The shopping is frankly largely tourist trap type stuff and is pretty overpriced. Dining, however, is good with a lot of options including chains such as Outback, Hooters, and Hard Rock Cafe...and unique local offerings including Huggos and Kona Inn.

In addition to some nice dining options, you will find a vast array of options for accommodations ranging from hotels to expansive resorts. None of the resorts here will be truly beach front as the coastline is largely lava rock with a very rough surf and no beach. There are a couple, however, that are oceanfront or ocean view.

If you're looking for a nice luau location, the King Kamehameha Beach Hotel has a nice property on the water that also provides for a decent sunset viewing.

Quick Tips:

In this area you will find large mass retailers such as Walmart, K-Mart, and Costco. Each offers a fair amount of local island resort wear and traditional gifts such as chocolate covered macadamia nuts and Kona coffee. You will find that for things like brand name mac nuts, coffee, and even postcards, you cannot beat the prices you'll find at these stores. The local ABC store is also a decent shopping experience, providing good value for your tourist bucks.

As you walk through the various shopping areas along Alii Drive, you will find "activities centers" which are really there to promote the timeshare industry and touring the resorts in the area. For your 90-120 minutes of time spent taking their tours and hearing their sales pitch, you can score a fairly decent amount of cold hard cash plus earn the right to buy many popular activities at substantially reduced prices.

I would suggest you check out "Big Island Adventures" which is promoting the Shell Vacation Club and the Kona Coast Resort. They have the best cash offer plus wonderful discounts on everything from luaus to horseback riding to helicopter tours of the island.

Best Way To Get Around:

The airport serving this side of the island is approximately 20-30 minutes from Kailua Town. When you land here, if it is still daylight, you will probably be shocked and perhaps even disappointed in the lack of vegetation. It has been best described as looking like the surface of the moon.

If you are planning to limit your vacation to Kailua-Kona proper, you probably won't need a rental car. If however, you plan on exploring and having some island adventure here, you will want to spring the -/week for a rental car.

When you venture in or out of Kailua-Kona you want to be mindful that there is a lot of local rush hour traffic on Hwy 19. Allow an hour to get from Waikoloa (to the north) or Capt Cook (from the south) to get to Kailua Town.

The other thing to be aware of is that parking is a premium here. There is a small amount of public parking for a fee at the King Kamehameha Hotel, as well as the small shopping area about two blocks south of there on Alii Drive.

From there, your next best option is the free parking behind the Coconut Marketplace shopping center. This is on the southern end of Alii Drive just before you leave the waterfront area.

While you are wandering around Kailua Town, you will stumble upon these storefronts offering assistance in planning for your vacation activities and tours. Shell Vacations has several in the Kona Inn shopping area, plus one in the Coconut Marketplace, another where Pancho & Lefty's is, as well as inside the King Kamehameha Beach Resort.

You will find the people managing these kiosk areas very helpful and informative about what to see and do on the Big Island. This is especially true if you've never been here before. And while they would be happy to book your activities at full retail, what they really want to do is book you for a tour of the Kona Coast Resort about five miles south of Kailua Town.

If you take them up on the tour and sales presentation, you will be expected to spend 90-120 minutes with them to learn about Shell Vacation Club and the benefits of timeshare ownership. While I am perhaps one of the greatest advocates for timeshare ownership and vacationing utilizing them for your lodging needs, I would never recommend that you make your purchase directly from a developer during one of these sales presentation.

Instead, you would be much better off researching timeshare ownership and buy via the resale market either through eBay or a respected resale broker/agent. For more information about this, you may want to go to the Timeshare Users Group at www.tug2.net for access to the most valuable information you can find...and best of all...it's free!

I would encourage you, however, to have a strong resolve to say "NO" and still take them up on their timeshare sales presentation. We take advantage of them every opportunity we have, as time and scheduling permits. On this trip we received $150 for our time. Even better, with Shell and Big Island Adventures, when you take the tour they provide you with a "Diamond Discount" card which will save you a ton of money!

Here are some of the things that we did:

-Circle Island (Air) Tour with Island Hoppers - list price approx. $300, discounted price approx. $170 per person.

-Sunset Cruise with Body Glove - list price approx. $67, discounted price $30 per person.

-Waipi'o Valley Wagon Tour - list price approx. $55, discounted price $37 per person.

-There is also a dining discount card that they will give you which isn't much, but hey...every few bucks helps!

Part of the travel challenge in going to Hawaii is that from the Midwest you're five (or six during non-daylight savings time) time zones away. Travel to Hawaii typically starts early in the morning, and by the time you arrive you've been traveling some 14-16 hours.

When you leave the islands, most will take the redeye overnight, leaving between 8 and 10pm, providing an opportunity to sleep on the plane home. This creates another opportunity, one last day in paradise after you've checked out of your hotel or resort.

While this is always a welcomed addition to our vacation planning, it also poses a bit of a challenge since you won't have the comfort of your own private hotel room to shower and change before heading out for the airport.

We typically use this day (almost always a Saturday) to do our gift shopping, a trip to the coffee plantations to buy our six month's supply of Kona coffee, and any other sightseeing activities that will keep us out of the salt and sand at the beach.

This year we spent some time exploring the area immediately around Kailua-Kona including the Kahalu'u Beach (aka The Children's Beach).

At the beach at Kahalu'u Beach you will find an array of services including decent restrooms and fresh water drinking fountains. On this particular Saturday afternoon, there were a number of vendors providing food and beverage as well as snorkel gear. There was also a mobile locker set up for folks to secure their valuables. That was pretty cool, as I had never seen such a service in a public beach or park area.

As you head south on Alii Drive from Kailua Town proper and before you get the above beach bark, you will come to a very sacred area where the Ku'emanu Heiau is located. A heiau is an outdoor temple that served as a place of worship. This one was originally used by the royalty to pray for favorable surfing conditions. According to Doughty in his book "Hawaii The Big Island Revealed" it is only known temple dedicated specifically and solely for surfing.

Adjacent to the heiau is the "Little Blue Church" which is more formally known as St. Peter's Catholic Church. It is a very small church located among the palms and lava rock.

If you have some free time (perhaps an hour or so) I would suggest you make a stop here to enjoy the serenity as the ocean waves are heard in the distance crashing against the shoreline.

After catching a light dinner in town, we headed out to find a great vantage point to take in the evening's sunset. We settled for an open area at the end of the road that goes to the Honokohau Harbor just north of Kailua town. It was very quiet and tranquil. When we arrived approximately 30 minutes before sunset, there was just one couple sitting on the rocks watching the world go by.

As time drew closer, we were joined by another eight or ten people, many with cameras ready to catch the last glimpse of the sun. While I had hopes of catching "the green flash" there were too many clouds right along the horizon that prevented us from being able to see the sun actually set into the ocean. Still, it was a beautiful sight, especially as we watched a couple of fishing boats and a sailboat return to harbor before nightfall.

This may be one of our most favorite restaurant stops during our vacations to the Big Island. This particular visit was my fifth in the last two years. They are open for breakfast and lunch and offer plenty of local options including preparations using macadamia nuts, coconut syrup and fresh fish to assure authentic island cuisine. Prices are good too, with most breakfast meals running about $10.

On this visit, we stopped in for breakfast on our way out to the Kona coffee region. I went simple with the daily special of strawberry topped pancakes. The two stacker was plenty and complemented with a side of bacon. I must admit, I would have preferred fresh strawberries rather than the variety that has the overly sweet strawberry sauce holding the berries together. Truth is, I wanted a side bowl of fruit, which they said they didn't have...so I ordered the strawberry topped pancakes, with the strawberries on the side. Oh well, it was still delicious, just not what I really had a hankering for.

David had some omelet burrito concoction that had way too many things it in for my tastes. Besides the expected eggs, ham, and cheese his burrito had onions, green peppers, Mexican salsa, and sour cream (on the side). He loved it, although he did have a bit of heartburn for the better part of the afternoon.

When I go to the Aloha Angel Cafe, one of the highlights (besides the good food) are the green geckos that provide entertainment as they run along the railing of the outdoor patio area. They are not pests in that they will not get onto your table or plate. If you put out a small dab of jelly or honey, they will come to slick the sweet delight.

When you leave stop to check out the fresh baked goods in the case at the register. The brownies are heavenly but my favorite is the chocolate chip with macadamia nut cookies. We always pick up a couple for later in the day.

If you are heading out of Kailua Town for either the coffee farms or even Volcanoes National Park, this is an ideal place to stop in for breakfast or lunch.

For our first morning in Hawaii, we had no food in the refrigerator so we had to venture into "town" for breakfast and a grocery store run. Because we enjoyed the Island Lava Java together back in December 2005 and subsequently I had a good breakfast there with my friends in April 2006, it was a logical choice.

They were rather busy with all of the patio tables occupied. I suppose most people lounge around on a lazy Sunday morning, enjoying the sound of the ocean waves across the street. It was happy to see some table clear out as we completed our order inside at the main counter.

This street-side cafe has a nice assortment of freshly baked items including their huge cinnamon rolls that are about the size of a Frisbee. The also have a deli case full of rolls, muffins, and cookies. While I was very tempted by the breads, I did pass in favor of a more traditional breakfast. Besides, I was REALLY hungry. My body was telling me it was midday as it was 3pm CDT and I hadn't eaten since the airplane lunch somewhere between Seattle and Hawaii.

I ordered the eggs and bacon, which also came with potatoes, toast, and a small bowl of fruit. David went for the steak and eggs with a side of potatoes and toast. With a large cup of Kona coffee and a bottle of water, our breakfast came to nearly $30. Welcome to Hawaii!

It was delicious though. I really enjoyed the sweet, juicy fruit and frankly could have made a full meal of just fruit. I'm glad I had a more rounded meal, however, as it was late that evening before we finally did stop for dinner.

After you complete your meal, it is best that you take your disposable dishes and cutlery to the trash as there were a lot of little birds waiting for leftovers. They would literally swarm the table when a patron would leave with food still on the plate.