After years of loving Maui, even back when we lived on the east coast, Kauai was the one everyone kept telling us about. Once we moved to the Pacific Northwest the message only got louder. You have to get to Kauai one day. They were right. Kauai is a vibe, and if you love the outdoors and you love green, you feel like you fit the moment you land. There are built-up pockets, but the island still feels more authentic than most, and modern enough that you never feel like you have gone without.
If you love the outdoors and you love green, you feel like you fit the moment you land.
Getting There, and the Chickens
The first thing you notice coming out of the airport is the chickens. They are everywhere, welcome guests that roam the lots and tuck into the bushes to wait out the heat of the day. The story goes that Hurricane Iniki set the island's domestic birds loose back in 1992, and they have run the place ever since.
Līhuʻe Airport is small and easy to walk out of. The rental car line can take a while, so plan accordingly, but it is all pretty low-key out there, and shuttle buses run you between the terminal and the rental car lots.
Where We Stay, Shore to Shore
Over the years we have stayed all over the island, and there is a good base in every direction, hotels and vacation rentals alike. My two favorites, for very different reasons, are Poʻipū on the south shore and the north shore around Hanalei. Just above Hanalei sits Princeville, a planned community up on the bluff with resorts, condos, and plenty of homes to rent, which makes it an easy north-shore base whether you want a hotel or an Airbnb.
We have also spent time in the middle, around Kapaʻa on the Coconut Coast, where we hiked the Sleeping Giant, the Nounou Mountain trail, up to the open knob at the top, picking wild strawberry guavas off the bushes as we climbed, sweet and delicious. Kapaʻa in the middle of the island is also our coffee stop, Java Kai right in the heart of town, a must whether we are based south, based north, or just driving through on the way up.
Poʻipū, Where the Honu Haul Out
In Poʻipū we like to stay at one of the hotels right on the water. If you are lucky enough to land a waterfront room, it is one of the coolest things going. You sit on your lanai and watch whales breach offshore and surfers trade waves in the morning and again in the evening when the sets come in, and you drift back and forth between your room and the beach all day.
More often than not you are sharing the sand with resting sea turtles, the honu, four or five of them at a time hauled out at Poʻipū Beach. Now and then a Hawaiian monk seal turns up too, flopped out asleep behind a little rope the volunteers set up to give it room, which can give you a start the first time if you are not expecting it. Everyone around simply carries on as though nothing is happening, because it happens all the time, and to fit in you learn to do the same.
In the mornings we would set out for a run along the coast while the island was still half asleep, following it to the end where the sand gives way to a trail and the rocks begin. That stretch becomes the Mahaʻulepu Heritage Trail, a wild sweep of lithified cliffs and pounding surf that feels a world away from the pool decks behind you. Scrambling those rock shelves, peering into tide pools, and timing the big sets as they exploded against the cliffs with the whole coast to ourselves, became the ritual we looked forward to most.
Right by the beach is the spot we come back for, Puka Dog. Let me take a minute on these. Puka means hole in Hawaiian, and that is the whole trick of it. The bun is toasted warm on a spike and filled with your sausage, Polish or veggie, a garlic-lemon sauce, and a tropical relish like mango, pineapple, or coconut. It is simple and it just works, and the fresh lemonade is non-negotiable for cutting the heat of the day.
Something for Everyone
Kauai has a little of everything. Sun and sand when you want to do nothing. Hikes, and the dramatic sweep of Waimea Canyon, the Grand Canyon of the Pacific, when you want to see something. Restaurants and food trucks for every mood.
Our favorite dessert was the shave ice, the real Hawaiian kind, piled high and finished with a snow cap of sweet condensed milk. Wishing Well up in Hanalei and Wailua Shave Ice over in Kapaʻa are both excellent, and we were delighted to find that Wailua has a spot in the Pacific Northwest too.
The Nā Pali Coast on Foot
Kauai has a hike of its own, and it is a different animal from the one on Maui. Be ready for it. There is real vertical, it gets technical in places, and it is long. This is the start of the Kalalau Trail along the Nā Pali coast, and the turnaround for most of us is Hanakāpīʻai Beach, about two miles in, where you drop down to the sand to catch your breath. From the beach you can also hike on inland to Hanakāpīʻai Falls, another two miles each way up the valley, which roughly doubles the day to about eight miles round trip. One caution we took seriously, the surf at that beach is dangerous and the signs warning against swimming are there for good reason.
Getting to the trailhead takes planning now. Everything runs through Hāʻena State Park, and you need a reservation no matter how you arrive. You either book a timed parking slot in advance or take the North Shore Shuttle from the Hanalei side, and if you show up without either you get turned away. Bring far more water than feels necessary, roughly a pint for every mile you plan to walk, and more in the heat. We learned that one the hard way.
The full trail runs eleven miles to Kalalau Beach, and doing it means a camping permit and at least one night out. I would love to be brave enough. What keeps me from it is a stretch called Crawler's Ledge, out past the seven-mile mark, a narrow ribbon of rock with a sheer drop of a few hundred feet straight into the ocean and a reputation for turning to grease when the red dirt gets wet. I am equal parts in awe of the people who take it on and relieved not to be out there myself.
Out on the Water
We took a rubber boat out along the coast from Hanalei, and it was an adventure in the truest sense, half the day spent hanging onto a rope and bouncing over the swell. Then they cut the engine and dropped a microphone into the water, and we could hear the mother humpbacks calling to their calves, with the long, low songs the males are known for carrying up through the hull. Spinner dolphins joined us at lunch, drifting in a pod right alongside the boat, half asleep as they swam, which is what they do in the middle of the day. On a boat that low to the water you are right there with them, close enough that it lands as one of the coolest things we have done.
It was from out there, too, that we watched hikers crossing the high passes of the Nā Pali trail, tiny against the green, making their slow way toward the beaches you cannot reach any other way.
Tubing the Old Plantation
One of the more unexpected days was mountain tubing with Kauai Backcountry Adventures. You ride out in a four-wheel drive through what was once the Līhuʻe sugar plantation, then float a couple of miles of the irrigation canals the plantation workers dug by hand back in the 1890s. Part of it runs through long tunnels cut straight into the mountain, dark but for the headlamp they hand you, and it can get genuinely cold in there, so come prepared. It ends the way the best days do, with a picnic and a swim.
Hanalei, Local and Lively
Then there is Hanalei, which is its own kind of magic. More locals, smaller restaurants, weathered wooden buildings that send people off on adventures. The beaches up here are incredible, a long half circle of bay with the old wooden Hanalei Pier reaching out into it, the kind you climb up and jump off. On weekends you can stumble onto a high school surf meet run with all the seriousness of a football game back on the mainland, which, yes, is what the islands call the rest of the country.
Keep going to the end of the road and you reach Tunnels Beach, a dream for snorkeling in summer when the water lies flat, though come winter the north shore surf rolls in big and it turns into a different beach entirely, one to admire from the sand. Nearby are the caves at Hāʻena, the Maniniholo Dry Cave that runs deep back into the mountain and the wet caves just past it. You can post up here for the day as a change of pace. This is the quieter, wilder end of the road, and it is the part I love most. Honestly, almost everything in Hanalei is worth a stop, from Bar Acuda and the Hanalei Dolphin, the fish house with its own market attached, to the poke bowls at Hanalei Poke, Tahiti Nui, Chicken in a Barrel, and the Hanalei Bread Company for a morning coffee.
Up in Princeville, the newest arrival is the 1 Hotel Hanalei Bay, which is very much a scene, and a cool one if you come ready for it and dressed for the occasion. We wandered in half joking that we might bump into the likes of Jessica Alba, more amused than hopeful, and came away with good food, fun drinks, and a happy perch at the bar, where things run a little less fancy than the rest of the place. A lot of famous faces quietly own land on this island, and they come for the same reasons anyone would, the low-key life, the incredible weather, the beautiful water, and the mountains that jut straight up to frame Hanalei Bay in one dramatic panorama.
Some places you visit. Kauai is one you fall in step with.
What Keeps Us Coming Back
It asks you to slow down, to get up early and scramble the rocks, to earn your views on foot, to sit low in the water and listen. We came because everyone told us to, and we keep coming back because the island was right about us before we knew it ourselves.
