Planning a great trip to Kauai.
We're planning a trip to Kauai next month and despite all the resources available - or maybe because of them - it's taken us forever to figure it all out. Granted, we are pretty choosey. We want a kitchen, so we can make our own breakfast and pupus if we don't feel like going out; a couple of nice restaurants and bars within walking distance for when we don't feel like staying in or driving; a clear view of the ocean from the room; a beach where you can swim, snorkel, and surf; and of course, we don't want to spend a fortune.
I won't tell you where we ended up. But we're happy to share the sites that turned out to be the most helpful. Once we decided that there were several indispensible advantages to a condo, we start looking on www.vrbo.com - vacation rentals by owner.
Vrbo has 110,000 rentals all over the world and the recently redesigned site makes it easy to search by location. You can even search in a specific complex. Listings often include several photos, maps, and comments from previous renters.
Once we found the complex we liked, we wanted to make sure that the beach wasn't rocky, as many in Kauai are. Friends and family who had recently visited Kauai swore by a book called Ultimate Kauai from Wizard Publications. Their web site - www.wizardpub.com - features aerial views of all the properties, so you can see exactly what the beach is like, and what's located nearby.
To see what others had to say about the property, we visited www.tripadvisor.com. And www.professionaltravelguide.com
Convinced that our choice was a good one, we booked directly with the owner through vrbo. We were able to select the unit that we liked best, and we paid $75 a night less than we would have paid if we booked through the management company.
If you're headed to Hawaii, the Wizard Publication site has a wealth of information about all the islands. And the guidebook leaves no stone unturned. We highly recommend both.