See all our photos from Honolulu.
Today we have rented a Honda Pilot from Turo and are talking a self-guided road trip around this tropical paradise. We have purchased a tour that is on our phone and connected with GPS to both guide us and describe what we are seeing and where to go next.
We started in Honolulu and drove to Kailua to begin a counter clockwise circle. After leaving the city, we headed up and then through a tunnel to emerge in a beautiful, lush setting with the steep mountains on our left and the sea on our right.
Our first stop was a Japanese Temple. Weirdly, we had to drive through a cemetery to reach it.
After leaving the temple, we continued our drive, stopping along the road for a quick stroll to an ancient “fish pond” that was built by the native Hawaiians in a bay where they could keep live fish for easy access. Basically, they built a rock wall in the mouth of a cove so that small fish could enter and water would circulate to keep it fresh, but large fish couldn’t escape.
We stopped for a moment at Pounders Beach, where the surf was very small and then drove to an overlook to see a cool rock arch just off shore.
Lunch was at a roadside restaurant: Hawaii’s famous Garlic Shrimp and Shave Ice (no pictures, sorry). We continued our travels to the North Shore and Shark Cove. We also took a detour up the mountain to some ancient temple ruins.
We left the North Shore and headed south, stopping at the Dole Plantation for a quick look and a Dole Whip.
On the drive back to Honolulu, we got stuck in traffic for over 2 hours but eventually got back to the port area. We stopped at a Whole Foods Market to pickup an Amazon order and they found a salon to get a manicure for Karen and pedicure for Ken. It was a great day, except for the traffic jam.