Discounted Activities in Hawaii

You’re walking down Kalakaua Avenue in Waikiki or through Kona Village or Lahaina on a balmy evening. It’s your first or second day in the islands and you’re thinking, yeah, okay, I would like to see a luau. Or yeah, I would like to go on one of those obnoxious polluting ATV tours. (A-hem.) Or …


…read more.

Christmas Lights, East Side

Technique notes: When your non-American companion says, “Oh.My.God.” pull over and dig around behind your seat for the camera. Don’t bother checking the camera settings. Instead, just shoot the photo. When the shutter refuses to close, say,”Oh, that’s not going to work!” and then wave the camera around for a little bit until the shutter …


…read more.

Lost Perspective in Waikiki

Around 8pm on our last night in Waikiki, we tried to return our rental car, but the place we needed to go was on fire. The streets were packed with diverted traffic, impatient police officers, fire trucks, and slews of slack-jawed tourists. There were lights and water and sirens everywhere as fire trucks attempted to …


…read more.

USA Weekend Gives Soup Swap the Love

My head still thinks we’re in Hawaii even while my heart is turning to the next adventure, Vietnam. My body, though, knows the hard cold facts: We’re in torrential rainy Seattle. Our first day back we did two things: Went to Trader Joe’s to get some groceries and stopped for pho, the soup that soothes …


…read more.

Nerd’s Eye View’s Hawaii Favorites

Best products: Luana Spa in Hana. That lemon grass body scrub? Oh my. Best meal: Chef Mavro in Honolulu. Fireworks for the mouth. Wow. Best smoothie: A tie! The hippies on the road to Hana or the Vietnamese guy in the Honolulu Chinatown market. Best bathrooms: Molokai Ranch. Deep claw foot tubs and big showers, …


…read more.