After a busy and really difficult year and way too much time spent debating where to stay, what to book, and whether I actually wanted to leave my house, Keith and I finally hopped on a flight to Kauaʻi for ten days.
We split our trip between Princeville on the lush North Shore and Poʻipū on the South Shore. Our loose plan involved hiking, snorkeling, diving, wildlife, and plenty of ocean time. Tropical Storm Lala apparently also had plans for Kauaʻi and rolled in halfway through our North Shore stay, forcing us to improvise a bit.
Fortunately, Kauaʻi is a pretty spectacular place even when your itinerary gets washed away.
North Shore (August 12-16)
We flew from Las Vegas to Līhuʻe and headed north to Princeville, our home base for the first four nights. The drive alone was enough to confirm that Kauaʻi deserves its reputation as the Garden Isle—mountains, jungle, beaches, and chickens absolutely everywhere.
Day 2: Tunnels + Anini
Our first real day was exactly what I came to Kauaʻi hoping for: snorkeling.
We headed to Tunnels, or Mākua Beach, along the North Shore. Mountains tower behind the beach while reef stretches offshore, which makes it one of those places where you spend as much time staring above the water as below it. We snorkeled, wandered the beach, and later checked out Anini for more ocean time.
Afterward we stopped at Kīlauea Point, which was basically heaven for me and my camera. Great Frigatebirds cruised overhead and wedge-tailed shearwater chicks were tucked around the refuge, so naturally I spent a ridiculous amount of time photographing birds.
Knowing Tropical Storm Lala was headed our way made us extra appreciative of the calm water while we had it.
Day 3: Kalalau Trail + Hanakāpīʻai Beach
We had permits for Hāʻena State Park and hiked the Kalalau Trail to Hanakāpīʻai Beach.
The trail hugs the Nā Pali Coast through thick tropical vegetation with views opening toward impossibly blue water and steep green ridges. Our original plan was to continue inland to Hanakāpīʻai Falls, but rain had left the trail slick enough that we decided against it. Sometimes the mountain wins.
Instead, we turned around and squeezed in a little more ocean time before Lala arrived.
Day 4: Tropical Storm Painting Day
And then it rained.
Our ideas for biking, kayaking, snorkeling, and generally pretending the tropical storm wasn’t happening slowly disappeared. While searching for something, really, anything to do, we stumbled across Painting Paradise in Līhuʻe and messaged Marionette about a same-day painting class.
Somehow, one tropical-storm day later, Keith and I were wearing aprons and painting our own versions of a Makana sunset.
It was absolutely not something we had planned to do in Kauaʻi, which probably made it even better. We now have two very different little paintings hanging around to remind us of the day Lala ruined our plans and accidentally gave us a souvenir we made ourselves.
Day 5: South Shore Bound
The storm was still doing its thing, so we packed up and headed from Princeville toward Poʻipū.
With outdoor plans pretty much dead, we found Aloha Glo, a blacklight mini-golf course, and leaned into our strange tropical-storm vacation day. Neon fish, glowing golf balls, rain outside. Why not?
Then we settled into the South Shore and waited for Kauaʻi to dry out.
South Shore (August 16–21)
Day 6: Back to the Beach
The weather finally started cooperating, so we returned to what we do best: finding ocean.
We spent the day around Waiohai/Poʻipū, snorkeling, beaching, and generally appreciating sunlight again after several days of Lala.
Woah, just woah, Waimea Canyon.
I have been fortunate enough to see a bit of this planet, and Waimea immediately landed among the most beautiful places I’ve ever been.
We drove all the way into Kōkeʻe first for the upper Nā Pali viewpoints and then worked our way back down through Waimea Canyon. Eventually we hiked the Canyon Trail out toward Waipoʻo Falls.
Near the end, we climbed onto the rock where the water spilled through the canyon. We stood straddling the falls with water above and below us, peering out across layer after layer of red rock and green vegetation.
And then the white-tailed tropicbirds appeared.
They gracefully danced through the canyon below us, their long white tails streaming behind them while their calls echoed around the cliffs. Waterfall. Canyon. Tropicbirds. For a few minutes it felt completely unreal—like we had somehow wandered into a fairy tale.
They call Waimea the Grand Canyon of the Pacific, and for once the tourism tagline did not feel like an exaggeration.
Day 8: Night Diving
We booked our dives with Dive Kauai, and our night dive off the South Shore ended up being one of my favorite experiences of the entire trip.
The reef changes completely after dark.
Eels emerged. Strange sea cucumbers waved feathery feeding tentacles around like alien flowers. Giant green sea turtles slept on the bottom. We even trudged past an enormous male turtle near the dock before entering the water.
Then I discovered something that delighted me possibly more than it should have: parrotfish sleep inside a mucus cocoon. Basically, a spit sphere.
As someone who still entertains herself by blowing spit bubbles like a child, I finally felt understood. Perhaps I was a parrotfish in a former life.
At one point I floated face-to-face with an enormous green sea turtle, both of us simply hovering there together. Sea turtles have always held a special place for me. When I was younger, after a big breakup and on my first trip traveling alone, I spent a month volunteering with PRETOMA, now CREMA, in Corozalito, Costa Rica. We worked through the nights locating nesting sea turtles and relocating vulnerable nests to protect the eggs from poaching.
So there was something especially wonderful about being underwater all these years later, at night again, quietly staring into the face of a giant green turtle.
Toward the end of the dive, we switched off our lights.
Every movement suddenly triggered tiny flashes of bioluminescence around us while a few rays of moonlight slipped down from the surface.
Interestingly, this isn’t my first obsession with underwater bioluminescence. Years ago in Thailand I wrote that night diving among bioluminescence had helped make us “infatuated with diving,” and later described swimming through glowing plankton as “an acid trip without the acid.” Apparently I remain extremely consistent.
Day 9: Caverns + an Octopus
We went back out with Dive Kauai the next morning for two South Shore dives, including the caverns.
Swimming through old lava tubes was the highlight of the diving itself—floating through tunnels and arches carved into volcanic rock with bright blue ocean opening beyond them.
But the wildlife highlight belonged to an octopus.
It started as a maroon-brown blob against the rock and then completely transformed itself. Color, pattern, texture—within moments its skin seemed to become the rock it was sitting on. Octopus camouflage is one of those things I’ve seen in nature documentaries forever, but watching one essentially disappear while I was staring directly at it was incredible.
Later we went back toward the Poʻipū/Kukuiʻula boat-ramp area, walked beyond the busier beach section, and found a green sea turtle resting quietly along the shore. I hung back and photographed her from a distance while she did exactly what everyone else in Hawaiʻi should probably be doing more of: absolutely nothing.
Day 10: One Last Ocean Day
For our last day, we found a little local beach near Kukuiʻula Small Boat Harbor in Kōloa and squeezed in one final round of snorkeling and beach time.
Then it was back to Līhuʻe for our evening flight, an overnight trip home, and the cruel reminder that muddy vacation laundry exists.
Kauaʻi, You Were Weird and Wonderful
This trip definitely did not go according to plan.
A tropical storm erased several days of the itinerary. We never kayaked Secret Falls. We never did the East Side bike ride. We skipped Hanakāpīʻai Falls when the trail became too slippery.
But we painted Makana during a tropical storm.
We stood over Waipoʻo Falls while tropicbirds sailed through Waimea Canyon.
I watched an octopus become a rock.
I floated face-to-face with a green sea turtle at night.
We shut our dive lights off and danced in bioluminescence under the moon.
So maybe the itinerary wasn’t really the point anyway.
