Hawaii, you are a dream!
We’ve been back home for over a week now, but I finally have some time to sit down and compose this blog post with highlights from our trip to the Big Island. This was our first vacation as a family of four, and we all had a blast! The boys did great on the plane, there was minimal fighting, everyone was in a good mood all week, and we are ready to move there!
As my blog has morphed over the years, I’ve done less blogging about daily life stuff and have mostly just kept it to running highlights. But every once in a while, I have to throw in something else because this has become my diary over the years. I know not everyone follows me on Instagram where I do post more daily highlights (and low-lights), so I wanted to share more details about our trip to the Big Island here in this post.
This was my second time to the Big Island but everyone else’s first time. The first time I went was in 2019 with my employer, Skinny Raven Sports. In 2019, I was newly pregnant with Bjorn–no one knew except Craig and I knew, and I was paranoid that whole trip my coworkers were going to figure it out since I didn’t drink alcohol (luckily I barely drink anyway, so that didn’t come as a surprise), didn’t go in the hot tub, and didn’t eat any sushi/raw fish, or anything of that nature. Luckily no one ever picked up on it.
This time, it was fun to travel with Craig and the boys and share our love of Hawaii with them. Craig and I have been to Kauai and Maui multiple times, and Cullen came to Maui with us on one of those trips, but he barely remembers any of it since he was only four years old. Craig decided he wanted to try a new island this time, so the Big Island it was for this family vacation.
This trip was a big part of their Christmas gift, and if anything, I’m all about making this a gift every year. Flying to Hawaii from Alaska isn’t so bad–it is pretty much the same distance as it is to fly from Seattle, but traveling from Minnesota was significantly farther. We spent 17 hours traveling from door-to-door, but once we were there, it was worth it all!
We were in Hawaii for a week, which did feel like a good amount of time with kids. (But don’t get me wrong, if our trip would have been longer, I would have been just fine with that too.) The first three nights we stayed in a vacation rental, so that we could cook our own food. And the second three nights we stayed at the Hilton resort hotel.
We did a lot of breakfasts in our vacation rental, made sandwiches for lunch, and then did Costco meals for dinner.
Meal hack: Buy the pre-made meals at Costco to save on money and avoid wasting food. The food is incredibly expensive on the island. (Although I will say the prices at Walmart weren’t as astronomical, which is where we saw most of the locals shopping.) So to save money, we picked up a couple of the pre-made meals at Cost for about $20, which was a good amount for a family of four. This way, we also weren’t wasting food, buying a bunch of ingredients, spices, or condiments to make a meal.
For the last three nights of our trip, we stayed at the Hilton to take advantage of all of the pools, and we thought the boys would like all the different activities. We did enjoy both places and each location had it’s perks, but now that we’ve had the hotel resort experience, we will just stay at a vacation rental from now on.
We had a good balance of chilling but also seeing a lot of the island. We went to multiple beaches, Cullen tried snorkeling, we drove around a good portion of the island, went on a hike, did one excursion, explored Kona, saw some whales splashing in the ocean, and just took in all the sights.
We made it to two beaches: Waikoloa and Mauna Kea, which were both great! We tried to go to Hapuna Beach, which is arguably the best beach on the Big Island, but it was super windy that day and the surf looked to be too much for the boys. That day we ended up at Mauna Kea, which still had pretty high waves, but overall the beach was a little more protected. It was actually a great day for Craig and Cullen to go boogie boarding.
There were quite a few acai bowls, gelato, and shave iced consumed. A lot of the acai bowls tasted very similar, but we did think the shave ice varied from place to place.
By far, our favorite place for shave ice was OBISIC (Original Big Island Shave Ice Co.)! They put a scoop of ice cream at the bottom (which other places do as well), coconut cream, and other yummy toppings depending upon which flavor you choose. Bjorn had the root beer flavor, and it was super good–and I’m not a big root beer person.
We ate out a few times but tried to limit it since you can easily spend $50-$100 per plate. We did go to Roy’s because it was close to where we were staying and we had a recommendation. While the food was very good, it didn’t blow our socks off. The kid’s (4-course) meal was pretty reasonable at $16 a person though.
Our favorite lunch spot was Poi Dog Deli for sandwiches. It was definitely more of a local’s place, and instead of chips, you got unlimited popcorn with toppings, which was fun and different.
My favorite breakfast place was Island Vintage Coffee. I had a lavender latte and a croissant that was really good, while the boys had acai bowls. This was also within walking distance of our vacation rental, which was nice.
We spent one day on the Hilo side of the island where we went to church, and then went and saw the volcano that was erupting. We couldn’t see into the volcano, so we didn’t see any lava, but the steam vents were cool and it was fun to watch the steam come out of the volcano. We also walked through the lava tubes, which was a highlight for the boys. But because the volcano was erupting, it created ‘vog’ (volcanic smog) throughout the west side of the island (where we stayed), so it was very hazy every day while were there.
The one excursion we did pay for was the manta ray snorkel. This came highly recommended, so I wanted to do it with the boys. Sadly, it ended up being a lack-luster show for us. We took a boat out at night to a spot not too far off the shore (about a 3-5 minute boat ride from the boat launch we chose), and then you jump into the water and snorkel for 20 minutes, looking for manta rays. You hold onto a large rectangular board with everyone else in the group, so there are a lot of other people around.. The water was very choppy that night, which stirred up a lot of sand and made the view cloudy, and my arms got tired by the end trying to steady myself. The manta rays eat plankton, close to the surface of the water, and then usually swim all around you during this time. The guides have big, bright lights under the surface of the water that lights up everything. Typically you can see anywhere from a 5-20+ manta rays, but since the seas were so rough, the manta rays were not as active, so we barely saw any. Craig saw one, I saw three, and Cullen saw five. Bjorn didn’t want to put his face in the water, and then he wanted to go back to the boat after about 15 minutes, which I don’t blame him. A five year old, snorkeling in the middle of the ocean at night. . . .what was I thinking?! Good thing he has the most positive attitude about everything.
They extended our viewing to 30 minutes, but we still didn’t get a very good showing. By then I was shivering a lot anyway and ready to get warm. Once we got off the boat, I was definitely feeling a little sea sick, so it wasn’t the experience I was hoping for.
Other than that, most of our time was spent at the pool, beach, and just enjoying being in Hawaii. My favorite part was just laying on the beach and relaxing! I attempted to read this book on our trip, but I only made it through a few chapters.
I did continue to train for my marathon while we were there. I know everyone has different feelings about running while on vacation, but I like to stick to my plan. Luckily Craig knows how important my running is after 16 years of marriage, so he’s okay taking the boys to the pool for an extra hour each day. Most of my runs were about an hour or less, so to sacrifice an hour of me time and then spend the other 22-23 hours with the boys was worth the trade-off. I did do a 23 mile long run one morning and started as early as I could with the sunrise. It was a bit of a doozy in the 80 degree temps by the end, but I got it done.
On our last day, it was my 42nd birthday. I spent it on the beach, which I was happy to do. But then that night, we had to take a red eye back to the mainland, which is never fun as I think I got 3, 1 hour naps on the plane.
Overall, it was an incredible trip, and I am so glad we got to travel as a family of four. We will be back and are already planning our next trip. Most likely we will go to Maui next time–it’s my favorite island. Those might be fighting words!
