Allerton Garden, Kauai

By far my favorite part of our trip to Kauai was going to the Allerton Garden. Not everyone is a botanical garden type of person, but I sure am. Designed and built by art collector and patron Robert Allerton and his partner John Gregg, the garden is organized into a series of “rooms” that each have a theme, like the bamboo room and the mermaid room, and it became a sort of living museum for the plants and statuary that Allerton and Gregg collected during their world travels.
My favorite part was seeing the giant fig trees that were featured in the movie Jurassic Park. Inspired, we picked up a cutting from a plumeria plant in the gift shop before we left, the beginnings of our own international plant collection.
On a side note, we saw a lot of these spiders in the garden which on the one hand remind me of something out of a Super Mario Brothers video game but on the other hand give me horrible, horrible nightmares.

Kauai Waterfalls and Canyons

Kauai has some really spectacular waterfalls. A couple of days into our trip, we took off toward the inner part of the island in search of a few of them. We saw Wailua falls up close from a scenic turn out on the road and it was gorgeous, I wish we’d had the time (and the shoes) to hike to it.
We also stopped and saw Opaeka’a Falls, a lovely, lacy waterfall that sadly can only be viewed from a distant vantage point (though the zoom lens on our DSLR certainly helped).
Then we took a trip out to Waimea Canyon, also known as the Grand Canyon of the Pacific. It had stunning views, just really gorgeous.

We were able to catch a glimpse of the Napali Coast along the north western shore of the island, which is inaccessible by road. You can only hike or helicopter to that part of the island because of the mountainous terrain. It looks like totally unspoiled land, like something that has survived under the radar of human interference for thousands of years, it was really incredible.

If I had done any research at all before our trip, I would have known that there is some amazing hiking to be had in Kauai, unfortunately I was not prepared for this at all and only brought the most flimsy of footwear, flips flops and converse sneakers. If we ever go there again, I’d bring hiking shoes and hike along the Kalalau trail. Also, I’d take a helicopter tour because I’ve heard they’re amazing.

Kauai Beaches

I always get bummed out about New Years every single year. Every time! I always have such high hopes, expecting it to be awesome and it always falls so spectacularly short of the mark. So two years ago, Brian and I decided to make New Years the best part of the year and spend it on the island of Kauai in Hawaii. It was such a great trip!

We spent a lot of time snorkeling and playing around with Brian’s new (at the time) digital camera that can take pictures and video underwater.
One of the best snorkeling spots we found on the whole island is called Tunnels Beach on the northern tip of Kauai. It was gorgeous when we went there and I saw some really amazing fish and the sunset was nothing short of amazing (unfortunately, the photos just don’t do it justice).
We also spent a lot of time at Poipu Beach Park on the south side of the island, closer to where our vacation rental condo was. This beach was pretty crowded when we went there, but the geography of it is really nice. If you look at an areal photograph of it, you’ll notice that there’s a rather large sticky-outy piece of land that juts out from the middle of the beach that gets revealed when the tide goes down. Also, they have seals there.
One of the first places we went when we got to Kauai was Spouting Horn, which was just a few blocks down the road from where we were staying. It’s basically this little hole in the rock surface on the beach that focuses a stream of water through it when a wave comes in. It’s pretty dramatic and also a little mesmerizing.
During our trip The Ultimate Kauai Guidebook: Kauai Revealed was a huge help in figuring out what to do every day.