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Hawaii - Starting to Plan/Save
My BF and I want to take a trip for our 10 year anniversary next September (1.5 years from now), and we decided that Hawaii would be fun? and we want to start saving up for it now, since I'm guessing it won't be cheap :-)
Any insight? We would ideally go for 2 weeks (location suggestions? island hopping, or should we stay in one spot?). I was thinking looking into VRBO (obviously a lot closer to the date!), or something similar since it would be great to have a kitchen and stuff to make some of our meals there and cut costs.
Has anybody done a similar trip who can give me their trip cost? My "stab in the dark" numbers (not very extensively researched) are around 10-15k, between flights (from Los Angeles) and lodging?
Thanks!
Re: Hawaii - Starting to Plan/Save
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This seems ridiculously high, even for high-end Hawaii. I'm doing 5 nights at the Four Seasons Wailea and airfare - first class - for around $5k for the two of us. That's in an ocean view room (we are going in November so it helps as it's slightly off season). We're flying from San Francisco. If you're doing a house or something off VRBO, you should be able to stay for less than what we're spending (our room is about $800/night, with taxes and breakfast included; airfare is around $600 for the two of us but that's because I'm flying Alaska Airlines and I get all sorts of perks with them and it's uber-cheap out of SF/Oakland).
As for switching islands - if you're going to be there for 2 weeks, I'd highly recommend trying two islands. I'd do any two of Maui, Hawaii, or Kauai - just depends on the type of stuff you like to do and the environment you want.
Thanks! I looked briefly at airfare (knowing it will probably be vastly different in almost 2 years), but what I saw was like 2k each! (more expensive than our trip to Japan recently!) I'll definitely check out Alaska Airlines, I didn't look at them at the time.
That sounds super high for airfare. We're taking our first trip to Hawaii in 2 weeks. I found tickets to Kauai from the midwest for $700 a piece. We're going for 7 nights and are budgeting about $4000. We are saving some money on lodging (we're splitting a 2 BR condo with another couple). We'll also have a kitchen so we don't have to eat out every meal. Like pp said, a lot of the stuff we're looking forward to (hiking, snorkeling, farmer's markets) is free or super cheap.
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That's helpful, thanks! Very relieved to know we can do this much cheaper!
When ready to book, check flights out of San Diego - Alaska is building up their Hawaii presence down there and it isn't uncommon to see them offer $179 each way (which makes it $360 plus taxes). They do not fly out of any of the LA-area airports to Hawaii. HTH.
We went to Hawaii 6 months ago for $3800 total from SFO, for 12 days. 5 days on Oahu and 7 on Kauai.
We definitely watched our spending, but I don't feel like we missed out on anything special. There is plenty to do in Hawaii that is free or low cost. There are some great small hotels, condos, and places on VRBO. We had some of the most amazing food at little hole-in-the-wall places or food trucks. I also watched Groupon and other deal websites to book dinners, excursion, etc. We had an amazing time, for easily less than $5k.
You can definitely do it for less than 15k. We spent about that much on a 16-day trip for 3 adults (paid for DH's cousin, including flights), stayed in rental houses, very nice rental cars, ate out the entire time except for some breakfasts, etc. That said, we didn't do a lot of pricey excursions because we'd been to both islands several times. We were on Kauai and Oahu.
We've spent as little as 4k for a week and didn't feel deprived. The best stuff in Hawaii is free.
Yay! I'm going to set our goal for 5k based on this great info. Thanks!
I think you could go for way less than 10-15k, unless you go for really high class hotels and dinners.
DH and I flew from the east coast and did two weeks and spent around $5000 total. But we're pretty low key and don't really care for the hoidy-toidy stuff. Plus my dad got us one week in his timeshare, so that obviously helped with our overall costs.
For both of our trips we spent a week on Oahu and a week on Maui. We like both islands, but Maui is our fave of the two.
I've never done VRBO but have heard good things about it.
another vote that you can go for less than $10-15K :-) especially from the west coast!
we flew from the east coast 3 years ago and spent like 11 days there, and spent maybe $6000K total. we didn't stay at "high end" places, but not shacks either :-)
I would definitely recommend doing 2 islands. we did 5 days on The Big Island (Hawaii), and 5 days on Kauai. LOVED them both!! they are both not too "touristy" with lots of stuff to see. it depends on what you like to do- i think oahu has more nightlife and that kind of stuff if thats what you're more into.
we didn't spend a ton on food- especially for lunch you can find good "plate" meals with like jerked chicken and that kind of stuff. And for activities- the best stuff we saw was just driving around and getting out when we saw something that looked neat HAHA we did rent a kayak on kauai, and we took a snorkel tour of the Napali coast. but those were the only real "activities" we paid for.
I have to add - Hawaii is one of the easiest trips to do on a budget (or not, if that's your preference). We've been to many different places, and all I ever heard about Hawaii was how expensive it was. I am frugal by nature, so it made me a little nervous.
However, there are so many things to do for cheap or free that are unique to Hawaii - snorkeling, hiking, historical sights, spending time on the beach, etc. There are also amazing places to eat that are not fancy or expensive. Rental cars are surprisingly cheap (unless there is a major event happening), although gas is not cheap. I could have easily spent over $10k, but I spent less than half of that for a comparable experience and still have another $5k saved to spend on the next vacation.
If you'd like to spend closer to $5k, it is definitely doable. Spend some good time doing research, and ask friends about their experiences. Many gems are spread by word of mouth.
I just finished booking our 13nt trip for 4 to Hawaii for the second week of July. We are doing 4nts on Oahu, 5nts on the Big Island, and 4nts in Maui. The total cost for airfare from St. Louis (STL-Honolulu, then Maui-STL) for us and our 2 kids, hotels, inter-island flights, and rental cars is about 8k. All of our hotels are 4 stars on the beach.
You certainly could spend that much or more if you wanted to, but I would say it's a rather high estimate for 2 people from LAX to HI.