Kauai, Hawai’i
After soaking up three days in Oahu to begin our baby moon, Matt and I headed to the Kauai, aptly-nicknamed “the Garden Isle.”
Na Pali Coast 
Our resort 
The fourth and oldest island in Hawai’i, Kauai features extremes in geography: Waimea Canyon, the “Grand Canyon of the Pacific,” with its deep valleys as well as the famed Na Pali coast with its lush jungles and coastal cliffs. Flying over Kauai, it’s easy to see why the island has served as a backdrop to famous Hollywood movies like Jurassic Park, George of the Jungle, Pirates of the Caribbean, and King Kong.
We started our first day in Kauai by checking into our hotel, the Royal Sonesta Lihue Resort, the first ever resort Matt and I have stayed in together. The resort sits in a cove on Kalapaki Beach just minutes from the Lihue airport on the southeast side of the island.
Because Kauai is so small (only about 30 miles long!), with our rental car, we found it easy to reach all of our destinations from this hotel. We took lunch outside on the pool deck facing the ocean before heading out to explore the area.
If Matt and I were uber-wealthy, we would have stayed at our next itinerary item: the Grand Hyatt Seaview Terrace.
Instead, we bought coffees and sat on the terrace watching surfers catching enormous waves on a dangerous shorebreak.
We spent the rest of the day driving around Kauai, passing through the famous Tree Tunnel to explore Old Koloa Town near Po’ipu Beach, where commercial sugar production was booming in the later 1800s.
Next, we drove up to Waimea Canyon, a canyon running ten miles long and up to 3,000 feet deep, formed by erosion from the Waimea River and extreme rainfall on the island’s central peak, Mount Wai’ale’ale, which is one of the wettest places on earth.
To our surprise, it did not rain on us while we were visiting the canyon. There are several different outlooks along the canyon drive in the state park and we stopped at each of them, none of which required much hiking to reach the viewpoint. By mid-afternoon, we were hungry enough to stop for lunch at Koke’e Lodge, a rustic restaurant next to the Koke’e Natural History Museum. It was so chilly up in the mountains that I ordered chili!
On our way out of the canyon, we continued heading west toward the famed Na Pali Coast. It is known for its steep, narrow cliffs that jut out from the sea, creating a dramatic coastline of green valleys, waterfalls, and stone terraces where Hawaiians once lived and cultivated taro.
It is, without a doubt, one of the most famous and recognizable coastlines in the world.
It is also famously difficult to access. Many people opt to take a catamaran tour on the ocean to the cliffs to see them from the sea, but since I was 25 weeks pregnant, I was barred from participating in any boat tours (next time!!) Another route was similarly off-limits for me: the Kalalau Trail, an 11-mile trail that crosses the sea cliffs and five tropical valleys before ending at Kalalau Beach. Because of unpredictable weather patterns on the cliffs, the trail is infamously dangerous. Matt and I, therefore, opted for the very safe final option: driving to a lookout point that offered a decent look at the valleys, but certainly wasn’t as exciting as seeing it from other angles. I’m confident we’ll be back for sure, hopefully with our daughter.
Our next few days on Kauai were spent in a combination of hiking to waterfalls, watching surfers, relaxing in the pool at our resort, eating shave ice, driving to hidden beaches, and snorkeling.
My favorite snorkeling spot on Kauai was Tunnels Beach in Haena on the North Shore of the island.
The beach is shaped like a crescent, fringed with palm trees and mountains. Lava tubes under the water shelter lots of sea life, so we were able to spot lots of fish, some eels, and a few sea turtles at this location.
It was on Kauai that I also bought my very first lei, made of beautiful pink-and-yellow plumeria flowers. It’s bad luck for a pregnant woman to wear a closed lei around their necks, so we cut the strand in half for me before I put it on.
Kauai was my favorite of all the Hawaiian islands we visited. We loved the natural beauty of the island, the chance to explore jungles and go hiking in the rainforest, and the incredible snorkeling on the North Shore.
Location for filming of Gilligan’s Island 
