How did we pick Hawai’i as our honeymoon destination?

 

O’ahu + Maui

Scott and I chatted about what we wanted for a honeymoon destination. We both agreed that going to someplace warm with great beaches and lots of possibility for adventure was in our cards. We took a quick look at the Caribbean, but really didn’t want to go to a destination where we’d end up staying in one spot the entire time, like we would at an all inclusive resort. A lot of our couples go to all inclusive resorts and they love them. Their honeymoons sound amazing and I am positive that at some point Scott and I will go to an all inclusive resort somewhere so we can spend all of our time at the resort, but for our honeymoon, we wanted adventure mixed in.

 

We took one look at Hawaii and knew it was the perfect destination for us. The islands had a nice mix of romantic beaches, great food, awesome hiking and the opportunity to go on other adventures, too. We debated on how many islands we would go to and how long we would stay in Hawai’i. We figured two weeks was the most time off we could fit into our busy schedules. Remember, we were married in May, which means we were heading into the busiest part of our wedding season – May and June weddings! We had already spent a week in the Outer banks for our actual wedding. We called that time our mini honeymoon since we got married on a Tuesday and didn’t leaving the Outer banks till Saturday, so we had a couple days to honeymoon which held us over until we could go to Hawaii.

 

After we decided on Hawaii and had the initial YAY, we are going to Hawai’i moment, we really had to sit down and plan what islands we would go to and how long we would stay on each one. We actually ended up doing what the wedding planners in my previous post talked about. We prioritized, and came up with a list of ‘must do ’ things that we didn’t want to miss doing or seeing while we were there. That list determined what islands we would go to.

 

Scott and I both wanted to visit Pearl Harbor and spend time on Waikiki Beach, as well as hike Diamond Head. So, that meant our first stop would be O’ahu. We planned a little under one week on O’ahu based on our list. We looked all over the island to figure out where to stay and decided that Waikiki was the best location for us to get our hotel. We ended up staying right next to the Zoo and had amazing views of Diamond Head! If you watch Hawaii Five-0, you can see our hotel all the time when they do pans of the Waikiki beach area and Diamond head. We always get so excited when we see the hotel on the show! I know if we had stayed at another hotel we probably would never be able to find it in the sea of hotels on the show.

 

The other items high on our list were the Hāna Highway, Haleakalā Crater and Molokini Crater. All three of those items are on Maui and took up enough days that our Hawai’i adventure turned out to be only two islands, but we were totally okay with that. We actually could have used probably another 3-4 days of relaxing on Maui, but we did squeeze in a couple of days of that between driving all over the island. Yes, we actually drove all the way around Maui and O’ahu on all the crazy little roads. We chatted and went back and forth so many times on whether to go on a bus tour instead, but our love for adventure told us we needed to drive it all on our own.

 

The Hāna Highway was a breathtaking experience. I cannot wait to share with you our trip on the Hāna Highway. Everyone talks about how crazy the turns are, how narrow the road is, and the fact that you are hugging rocks on one side and on your other side is a cliff that falls into the ocean – all of it is totally true! But, going around to the other side of Haleakalā at sunset, on the back portion of Hāna , is stunning, and a view I will never forget!

 

Stay tuned for more of our Hawai’i Honeymoon Trip!

Here are a couple pictures from our honeymoon that I have had framed and are hanging up in our house! I love to decorate our house with pictures of us, our family and our travels!