Hawaii?

Anybody here ever been to Hawaii on vacation? What did you think? Was it everything you dreamed of? Would you go back? Which islands would be the best? (Probably subjective) Is it really expensive?

My wife and I are working really hard on getting all of our debt (excluding house) paid off in the next couple of years, and as a reward, I want to be able to take my family on a nice Hawaiian vacation within the next few years. I'm going to start saving right away, because I want as little of this trip on credit as possible. At the same time, I want it to be a nice vacation and I want us to experience as much (good stuff) as possible on the trip!

So, any info would be nice! The Metalskins family hasn't been on a decent vacation since 2013.

Can give you a lot of info on it...

My wife's family is from there and I was lucky enough to visit a bunch of times.

#1: It is absolutely what you expect it to be. It is freaking gorgeous.

#2: You'll likely be flying into Honolulu. Basically all of Hawaii is amazing, but Oahu, specifically Honolulu is super touristy. Worth seeing, but don't spend too much time there. If you're going to stay on Oahu, definitely head over to Kailua. At one point it was named the best beach in the world:

http://www.to-hawaii.com/oahu/beaches/images/kailuabeach/view_to_kailua_bay.jpg

#3: You can easily island hop for not much money. My wife and I fight over this, but she prefers Kauai for the authentic Hawaiian experience. It's small and really rural. Definitely gorgeous, but I like more to do, so I prefer Maui. I think Maui is a good combination of Oahu and Kauai.

#4: Get a Loko Moco. It's fatty, delicious and will add 2-3 pounds on you:

https://c1.staticflickr.com/6/5186/5696843433_bfe3fb9178_b.jpg

Out of all of my favorite Hawaiian dishes, I love that the most. Also, I'm guessing you're renting a car, so if you do, just drive around. You can basically drive the perimeter of all the islands (not sure about the Big Island) in a day. There's always some kind of awesome food truck or restaurant to stop at.

If you do Maui, this is a must-do: Maui Bike Tours | Downhill Bike & Rentals in Maui, Hawaii (http://www.bikemaui.com/)

They pick you up at like 4am and then you bike down the volcano. By bike, I really mean just roll since it's all downhill.

If you end up going during football season, it's so freaking awesome to watch a football game at like 7-8am. I remember the first time I got to watch a game (the Giants game where Cruz burned us on the last play) and I was like, "Hrmmm, is it OK to drink this early?" and I look around and everyone had pitchers on their tables with pancakes.

Feel free to PM me because I have a ton more if you're interested...

Now I totally want to go to Hawaii right this second.

Ive heard its a lil expensive, family went last year.

It's expensive and the flight is long as hell but just so amazing.

No lie, trying really hard to find a job and move out there. Everyone is super cool and everything just laid back. Problem is real estate is fucking bananas. My wife's grandma's house is 1200 sq ft., 1960s style... Worth $1.2 mil I believe because it's two blocks from the beach.

It's expensive and the flight is long as hell but just so amazing.

No lie, trying really hard to find a job and move out there. Everyone is super cool and everything just laid back. Problem is real estate is fucking bananas. My wife's grandma's house is 1200 sq ft., 1960s style... Worth $1.2 mil I believe because it's two blocks from the beach.

This is too funny because my good friend who travels for work (Phillip Morris) use to go to Hawaii for work...seriously...and he fell in love with it. He and his wife planned for like 5 years...saving and looking to move there, actually putting off having children. They finally said eff it a couple years ago...to much bullshit. they have 2 kids now and settled.

I can TOTALLY see that happening...

It's a desirable place to live so I imagine the best-of-the-best don't mind taking huge pay cuts to go there and do their jobs.

Malcolm. I'm going to PM you some questions on it. This is one vacation that I have, personally, been wanting to take for a long time, but I know it's one that my wife would kill to go on. Well, it's between this and heading back to Italy, but I'm a beach guy and feel like Hawaii is a place I'd want to visit sooner as opposed to much later in life.

And that dish looks freakin' awesome!

I don't know if I would ever move out there. I do work in IT, but they'd have to pay me a lot more than I'm making now if I'm going to spend about a cool Mil on a house!

Well, if you move to the Big Island the real estate prices are actually really reasonable. You've probably picked up that I'm in IT too. Tons of jobs in the hospitality market, but it seems to be kind of shitty employers. I'm a higher ed guy, so unless something opens up at UH there, it probably isn't going to work out for me.

All this being said, if you're wanting a beach and Hawaii isn't a must-do, we went here in September:

http://delsolphotography.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Jeanne+Mike_W_SS_0003.jpg

Excellence Riviera Cancun. Was easily my favorite vacation of all time. Our goal was to stay at the resort and do absolutely nothing. Mission accomplished. There's tons of stuff to do if you insist on leaving, but our goal was to drink and eat our faces off.

They have a full open bar in your room restocked daily. 7 (?) sit-down gourmet restaurants with no reservations required. Sometimes we ate two dinners a night. This was $2600 for two people direct out of Richmond. You're mentioning family, so this might not be an option since it's adults-only.

If you knew me personally, you'd know I hate going to the same place twice, and I would go to Excellence every year if I could. It was that good.

Just was in Kauai, HI in October. We wanted to go to a bunch of different islands, but only really had 8-10 days and were told that would probably be too short to really enjoy more than one.

So we settled on Kauai, "The Garden Isle," and wow was it incredible. If you do end up going to Kauai, I can only really comment on what I ended up doing.

1) Do the ATV tour. I did Kipu ranch ATV tour and it was absolutely breathtaking. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQd7TeHXaPU

2) Hike the Na Pali cost. I mean where else are you going to get this view?

http://www.hawaiimagazine.com/sites/default/files/field/image/06072.jpg

3) Go to Hanalei Bay. Great waves and surfing if you are into it. You can rent a long board from one of the local towns and they are pretty easy to get up on. Be careful tho, I busted my nose up pretty bad- those waves are no joke.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdWxfnXLOA8


Finally, to answer your question; Yes I would absolutely go back. I got engaged while I was out there, and we plan on making it back in the next few years. If you need any ideas for good places in Kauai to see or restaurants to eat PM me and I'll send you over our itinerary.

Final note: This is the picture I took from where I watched the Redskins Ravens game this year (7am local time) Not a bad place to celebrate a win.
Imgur: The most awesome images on the Internet (http://imgur.com/a/59ti4)

The wife and I haven't had a real vacation in about four years, and we won't be able to do this THIS year, but this trip is something we have been wanting to do for awhile. We always joke about wanting to move to Hawaii, but some people have told me that they generally pay a lot less for IT professionals than what the mainland would. I found that very interesting. I suppose what one would need to do is to land an IT job where it can be 100% remote so that you're getting paid top dollar, and then move to Hawaii.

I don't think my community college on the east coast would be willing to let me work THAT much remotely. They don't mind if I work from home, but seeing as how wild it is at my house when my son is home from wee school, I would rather be onsite, LOL! Although, we do/did have one guy who works remotely from Australia, but I have no idea what he does. I know he's not in IT.