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Help with vacation ideas - Hawaii?
We want to go somewhere in May and I would love Turks and Caicos but my H is a bit uncomfortable taking the kids there for his personal comfort reasons. So I thought Hawaii would be a good compromise. Anyone help me with this? We have 2 kids - in May they will be one month shy of 5 years old and the baby will be 15 months. I don't know where to start planning this. We are willing to spend up to about $5,000 but would love to spend less. I don't want to rent a car if possible for car seat reasons (I don't want to have to use them unless we absolutely have to).
We would love to have some lazy beach days, family adventure stuff - our kids are really easy actually so they don't need constant entertainment, but I want to have fun and relax too. We can fly out of either Austin or San Antonio easily if that matters as well.
Any suggestions, recs, etc. would be appreciated thanks!
Re: Help with vacation ideas - Hawaii?
If you don't rent a car you're basically limiting yourself to Oahu, and even then any "adventure" you have will have to be done with a tour. That's not necessarily a bad thing because I think Oahu is great for kids, but it's generally nice to have a car in Hawaii. I know Alaska has a direct from Austin to Seattle and then several flights from there to Hawaii daily (all four major islands) and they do have sales several times a year, so maybe sign up for emails from them to keep an eye out for deals. Other than that there are flights from the big west coast hubs, and some other airports like Oakland and Vegas have flights, too.
Can you work on your husband about the T&C? I think it would be great with kids -- big beaches with calm water, quite safe, a lot of the hotels are condotels with kitchens and more room than normal hotels, and the flight will probably be a lot easier from Texas.
Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.
Mark Twain
My Travel Blog
Just to let you know that you can check your car seat for free. I would still want to rent a car if I am visiting HI. It will just limit you.
I think a 5k budget is doable. Be sure to set up price alerts on the various sites to watch the pricing fluctuations. They happen often. I got our tickets to Kauai for $585 pp.
The only island you can get away with not renting a car is Oahu, and you'd probably need to stay in Waikiki. I liked Oahu, and I liked Waikiki, but it's so metropolitan that it can detract from the appeal of "Hawaii", so I'd really recommend getting a car if possible and experiencing a different side of the island. (or a different island all together)
It might actually even make the trip less expensive to have a car because you can stay off the main tourist area, which means cheaper room rates, and the biggest saver, would be to look into condo rentals with kitchens because you can save a ton of money by making some meals in your room. The last place we stayed at even provided an ice chest, so we could make sandwiches and bring sodas with us to the beach.