Hawaii Travel Tips

Take our advice: spend less time spinning your wheels, and more time having fun. Fly to your destination island (Maui, Kauai, Kona, etc.) direct, rather than connecting in Honolulu. This will give you many more hours of vacation time and minimize complications.

If you are visiting both Oahu (Honolulu/Waikiki) and a neighbor island, you'll save vacation time by making Oahu your first destination.

Landing in Honolulu, changing planes, and then flying on to a neighbor island ON THE SAME DAY will eat up that entire first vacation day, and add as much as 3 hours or more to your travel time! Many morning flights from the US and Canada mainland will put you down at Honolulu as early as noon, with plenty of time to enjoy your first day. Consider this when scheduling the time of your flight. We'd rather get up early on travel day and get to Honolulu early...its like having an extra vacation day.

Enjoy OAHU first, Then fly to a neighbor island on another day. But keep hotel check-in times in mind: 3 PM, in most places. If you arrive on the neighbor island earlier in the day, you can drive around and explore until hotel check in time. Don't leave your luggage unguarded in your car! Many hotels allow you to drop your baggage off for them to store until you check in. Ask before you fly in. If you do check your bags, keep your valuables with you.

DON"T MAKE MOLOKAI YOUR LAST STOP IN HAWAII:

If your last stop in Hawaii is MOLOKAI, then the mandatory agricultural inspection becomes a real pain, as there is no agricultural inspector at Molokai airport. You must claim your luggage from your Molokai-Honolulu flight at the Interisland Terminal in Honolulu, drag it to the main Overseas Terminal, have it inspected, then stand in line to re-check it. Ooooh my back!! If Molokai has to be your final stop, then book your connecting flight home to allow time to do all this. To avoid the hassle, don't make Molokai your last stop before returning home.

Honolulu's Interisland Terminal is right “next door” to the International Terminal, but it's still a hike you'd be wise to avoid. Free Wiki Wiki buses run every few minutes between the terminals, but signage within the Interisland Terminal indicating where to catch the Wiki-Wiki can be very confusing. ASK.

LOCAL AIRPORTS

If flying to a neighbor island, consider flying into the airport closest to your hotel. You'll save up to two hours (or even more) if you're staying near Kauai's Princeville Resort, or Maui's Ka`anapali / Honokowai / Kapalua Resort areas, or Maui's Hana area. You will be flying on a small plane, so ask the airline what kind of craft they fly, if that matters to you. There may be 60 seats on the plane to West Maui Airport, but perhaps only 11 on the plane to Hana. Generally speaking, Hawaiian Airlines flies the biggest planes into Hawaii's smaller airports

HILO INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

Hilo Airport signage is preposterously and glaringly absent —preposterous because people have been complaining about it for years, and how hard is it to make a sign and hang it up, anyway?

There is no indication curbside which airline is located where. Ticket counters are located at both extreme ends of the terminal. so good luck guessing which area your airline is flying out of!

SAVE VACATION TIME

Packing, checking out, getting to the airport, waiting, flying on to the next island, renting a car, driving to the hotel, checking in...that eats up an entire vacation day. Minimize the vacation time loss by traveling very early or late in the day. Notify your next hotel of your check-in time so they don’t sell your room to someone else.

Tips On Visiting Hawaii’s Neighbor Islands: Fly Direct

TripAdvisor.com

We contribute reviews and opinions to TripAdvisor.com, and when we are making travel plans ourselves, we check out readers’ restaurant and hotel reviews for insight. Not that we always agree with some of the more off-the-wall diatribes, but we do learn valuable details, as well as find great deals by comparing airfares and itineraries, and compare rental car deals as well. Click the link to have a look, and search for reviews of the hotel or restaurant, beach or park, city or province you have in mind.

For the best prices in air, hotel and car rentals or a package deal, we recommend Travelocity:

HAWAII AGRICULTURE DEPARTMENT INSPECTION IS MANDATORY

When leaving Hawaii from a neighbor island, make sure you have your luggage inspected by the Agriculture Dept., located right there in the ticket area, before standing in the ticket counter check-in line. This way you can check your luggage through, worry-free, to your final destination without the hassle of an agriculture inspection in Honolulu. (The AgriGuys often use drug-sniffing dogs, so don't try to bring home any paka lolo).

Hawaii Travel: An Unbeatable Research Tool