Kauai is one of the best spots for a family vacation. Here’s some things however I Wish I Knew Before My Kauai Family Vacation. I want to share with you some tips, tricks and simply things I just didn’t know.
Previous Research
I like to research and plan ahead before trips. Here are some helpful things I found useful when researching Kauai:
- Pinterest: I look up travel blogs, best places to go, places to eat etc.
- Instagram: I like to use the Poll feature and ask questions to my Instagram followers. This is how we decided the island Kauai because lots of people really liked it. It’s a fun way to research because it’s a lot of times people you know!
- Travel Books: “Kauai Revealed” is the book I purchased. They also have an app. We used their app a lot on the island.
What I Wish I Knew Before My Kauai Family Vacation:
I did learn a lot from the research I did beforehand, however there were a lot of things that I just wish I would’ve known or been prepared for.
Pack light:
I definitely overpacked! We spent most of our time in swimsuits. So I brought a few swimsuits which I am grateful for, but I don’t think I needed as many nice or normal clothes. I think you can make it work re-wearing each outfit at least once.
Bring Cash:
This might be obvious to anyone who travels, but not to me. I love the simplicity of swiping my card. MOST places do take the card, and these days with an iPad signature, it’s becoming much easier, but there were still some places that were cash only.
Rocky Beaches:
The beaches are pretty rocky. We planned to buy some sandals or swim shoes at Walmart that would be good to wear with the rocks. Unfortunately we forgot them at the store. I really wish I would’ve had better shoes! The non-rocky beaches that I liked were: Anini and Polihale and Mission.
No AC in Kauai:
Because the weather is so moderate on the island, there aren’t a whole lot of places that have air conditioning, including our home rentals. Being from Texas, which doesn’t survive without AC, I was worried about this. Especially at night, I need it to be chilly to sleep! Well, turns out the night air cooled enough, and with ceiling fans, I slept pretty good.
Motion Sickness:
One of our scheduled trips was a boat tour to the Napali Coast. My husband is susceptible to motion sickness, but I’ve always been fine. He took precautions, I didn’t, but I wished I had! I should have just assumed it would be rough, and taken something anyway.
Shop at Costco in Kauai:
After landing at the Lihue airport, we headed straight to Costco to get food for the week. Though I had a few local food stops I wanted to try, we mostly planned to eat our meals at the home rental. I also heard that Costco prices were similar to the mainland prices, while Walmart and local grocery stores were much more! The gas was also a good 50 cents less than anything on the island, which was nice to fill up just before returning our rental car.
It’s hard to shop at Costco for just one week, but we managed to do it. Here were our staples:
- Breakfast—cereal, milk, eggs, bananas
- Lunch—bagels, croissants, lunch meat, yogurt, cucumbers, peaches, goldfish, chips
- Dinner—salmon to bake, chicken to grill, prepared chicken alfredo, freezer taquitos
Pretty simple!
Moldy bread:
With bagels and croissants as our main daily staples, I figured they’d last a while like they do at home, in my controlled air conditioned home. Most of the locals keep the windows open all the time for breeze, so we did as well, but our bread got moldy fast. In hindsight, I would have put the bread in the fridge. Though it tends to not feel as soft/fresh after day 2, that would have been a good option. It was on day 4 that the mold came.
Check Social Media:
I used my google maps not only for getting me places, but to check on the open and closing times. There was a certain shave ice place we were going to try, and I decided to jump onto their Instagram account just before, and they shared there that they decided to close that day and the next, which was really helpful. I was bummed to miss this treat, but happy they posted online about their closing.
Bugs:
I’m not prone to bug bites, but my son is. Wished we had some bug spray on our jungle hikes, but he survived.
Travel around:
There is no transport system there, so we rented a car. From the top of the island to the bottom of the island, it was about a 1.5 hour drive, and really just one main highway. No one is much in a hurry, but we didn’t feel too hurried either, so it was ok.
Shave Ice:
Not all Shaved Ice is created equal! I was surprised that there were so many, and with different options. We’d heard about JoJo’s, a favorite of a friend’s family, it had Macadamia nut ice cream on the bottom. Uncle’s was good on the South shore because it had shaved ice cream (see picture below), but those were the only two we tried.
Kauai with Kids
I had heard some people tell me that Kauai was more of a vacation spot for couples, and not to plan on Kauai with kids, but I’m not sure why that is the case. My kids loved it! Maybe it’s because of the more rocky beaches, or the lack of “landmark” places to visit, but it was just as much for the kids as it was for the adults.
OPTIONS:
The two activities we had planned had some restrictions, and I’m glad I read the fine print. My kids really wanted to do a zipline tour, including my youngest, but most of them had age/weight restrictions! I was so glad we found Koloa zipline, because we had a tandem option for my daughter, to ride with an adult on some and solo on others. She would have been so bummed not to be able to go!
Then on our boat tour, we wanted a speed boat to see the Napali Coast, but with my husbands recent knee surgery, it prohibited him (also those pregnant or small children). I didn’t want a slow catamaran, so I looked around and found a company that had a great middle option. I’ll post about both the boat and the zipline tours soon!
