Waimea Canyon | The Grand Canyon of Hawaii

Kauai, the first stop on our trip to paradise. Our team left at 8:47am and with the 5 hour time difference from Dallas, landing at 2:34 in Kauai surprisingly did not feel as bad as we thought it was. The first flight was only 3 hours and once we got to the Los Angeles Airport our first stop was Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, because well…Vanilla Ice Blended. If you haven’t tried one before and you live near a Coffee Bean, try it, you won’t regret it. The next flight was a lengthy 5 hours, and yeah to some of you who don’t mind flying that’s a breeze, but for someone like me who gets anxiety while flying, 5 hours was a little too much, but we made it in one piece!

After getting our luggage, and our rental car, Hokulani (yes we named our car), we headed to our first stop, which if you know us was…FOOD! Surprise! Surprise! We hit up a little place called Island Taco. Side note: If you go to Hawaii, consider “island time” which basically means businesses will open and close when they please. We arrived at Island Taco around 4:30pm and they were closing, even though the sign said 5:00pm. BUT we got our tacos, and they were delicious, especially after a long day of flights and needing some sustenance. Just take a look at the pictures, if you don’t believe us. :)

Next stop after Island Taco, was Waimea Canyon, which people like to call the Grand Canyon of Hawaii. We took the drive up the mountain, and stopped at Waimea Canyon Lookout. It isn’t much of a walk to get to the top of the lookout. The “trail” is paved, and there is accessibility for handicap and a small amount of stairs you can take to get to the top. We went at a perfect time, because there were hardly any people there (around 5pm). There was however a group of people filming for a new show called, Hawaii House Hunters, so that was pretty cool, but also a little annoying because we couldn’t enjoy our time while they were filming for fear of disturbing their shots. Let me tell you what though, whoever decided to call it the Grand Canyon of Hawaii was right. If you ever get the chance to visit, let me know your thoughts on it if you have seen the real Grand Canyon. There are plenty of places to stop at the scenic overlooks so you can get different views of the canyon, and its definitely worth it to make the stops along the way if you have time.

We had to then make a drive to our campground which was at Koke’e State Park, and as we passed by our campsite we decided to keep driving to see where the road would lead us. We were soo glad we did, because we got to watch the sunset at Kalalau Valley Lookout. It was freezing, probably only 60 degrees, but that was freezing for me and I didn’t have a jacket at the time. Despite being freezing, it was completely worth it. The cliffs were right next to the ocean, and as the sun was setting the clouds came rolling over the cliffs into the ocean. The sun was reflecting on the clouds and created a beautiful landscape of purple and pink clouds. It was beautiful and worth the time and the “cold” haha! So if you are around Koke’e Valley Lookout, check it out for the sunset! We took our time here, and once we finished, we headed down to the campsite, and SURPRISE SURPRISE, we set up our tents in the dark haha. As per usual with The Journey crew. The campsite was very clean, well kept, not very crowded, and we really enjoyed our time there. We only spent one night, but we would definitely spend multiple nights in the future. Just beware of the roosters, they cocka-doodle-doed all night long into the morning, but we were so tired it hardly phased us.

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