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The best Hawaiian island to visit on your vacation depends on your interests and the type of vacation you want to take. Each island is unique and has activites and amenities that are different then any of the other islands. In the case of the Big Island, the east side is very different from the west side. We have created a comparision chart based on our findings and views of Hawaiian island differences.
Oahu
Waikiki
- **Shopping: Oahu has awesome shopping. All of Waikiki, the hotels and the Ala Moana mall are outstanding places to shop. The upscale areas of shopping is small
compared to Paris or Rome but surprisingly Honolulu is ranked as the city with
the second highest in sales of designer clothing and jewelry.
Only Milan, Italy sells more designer clothes and jewelry. At night the stores are crowded with buyers carrying so many packages
they can hardly walk down the street. We've seen limos unload hundreds of packages
and piles of duty free goods being loaded on planes leaving for Tokyo.
- **Night Life: Waikiki has the best and most night clubs, bars, resturants and wild party places of anywhere in the islands. This is a place where people party hard.
- Hotel Pools: We aren't that impressed with the pools in Wakiki. The hotels have them, but they aren't very elaborate.
- **Beach walking: Waikiki has our favorite beach walking. The beach is long and has the best people watching of any place. If you get tired, you can sit on the beautiful sandy beach (cleaned nightly) or duck into a bar or cafe with a view overlooking the ocean.
- Nature: Unless you consider people in bathing suits "nature", there isn't alot nature in or around Waikiki.
- **Surfing If you want to learn how to surf the best place we have ever seen is Waikiki
beach, the spot where the Duke made surfing famous and used to teach and surf himself.
There are long waves within a protected bay. If you want to watch surfing, the North shore of Oahu has the most spectacular waves and surf competitions.
- Snorkeling: Nearby Hanauma bay is the best place to snorkel. If you snorkel in Waikiki, the best place is the "ponds" but you may only see plastic containers and shoes.
- Kid friendly: The large hotel complexes like the Hilton Village are kid friendly, but Waikiki isn't the type of place we would want our teenager to run free. The military guys use it as their play ground.
- Affordability: Oahu has a wide range of hotels and condos with varying prices. There are often special deals at top rated hotels. There are incredibly expensive restaurants but there are also very affordable places to get food and places like ABC that sell affordable snacks and sandwiches.
Maui
Kaanapali and Wailea
- Shopping: The island
of Maui has designer and art galleries in the Whaler Village Shopping in
the Ka 'anapali beach area. There are designer stores in the mall in the Wailea
area and some of the hotels have up-scale stores.
- Night Life: Ka'anapali has night clubs and bars in the big hotels and is the most lively on Maui. There is great music and fun places to hang out at night.
- **Hotel Pools: We have found the pools in Maui hotels to be the best of all the islands. They have incredible lagoons, slides, decorations, waterfalls wiith wonderful places to hang out. Some have bars in the pool and most have shade too keep out of the sun during the heat of the day. Hotels on Maui have created entire surroundings to relax and have a family vacation around the pool.
- Beach walking: Wailea has a great path for walking in front of all the hotels. Kanapali has a long beach and portions of it have a path. If the waves are really big, it can be hard to walk on the beach.
- Nature: Maui has a lot of outdoor adventures including hiking around the volcano, visiting waterfalls along the road to Hana, surfing, jet skiing, and scuba diving.
- **Snorkeling: Our favorite island for snorkeling is Maui, We have found it to be great at
Ka'anapali and Kapalua Bay. But we like to snorkel at Wailea as well. The
down side of snorkeling in Maui is if you happen to be there when there are
big waves, which often happens in the winter, many of the great snorkeling places
are not available as 15 foot high waves are crashing on them. If snorkeling
is a top priority pick a time with less storms (early spring is usually
better than winter). Our favorite place to snorkel is Kapalua bay because it is protected and has very colorful fish. For even betterl snorkeling, you can take a boat to nearby Molokini and have a day of snorkeling in the awesome reefs.
- **Kid friendly: Maui is very kid friendly with lots of programs for kids run by the hotels. They hotel pools cater to kids, food is kid friendly, and the malls have fun stores. Maui is very attuned to families on vacation.
- Affordability: We have found Maui to be expensive, both the hotels and food. The hotel room for the cost is much less than what you can find on other islands. There are less options for finding inexpensive snacks and sandwiches than on the other islands, so we found our food expenses to be high.
Island of Hawaii
Kona and Hilo and Waikoloa
- Shopping: Kona-Kailua has shopping on Ali'i drive and most of the major department stores. They are building a new mall in Kona. Hilo has a nice downtown area. There are small malls around the island, but nothing special. If shopping is an important part of your vacation, the Big Island will disappoint.
- Night Life: Kona has some bars and partying along Ali'i drive at night and Waikoloa has evening entertainment. Hilo is quiet at night.
- Pools: The best pools on the Big Island are in the big hotels on in Waikoloa. The Hilton Village hotel at Waikoloa has some great pools to play in.
- Beach walking: Beaches in on the Big Island are best for seeing turtles and sea life. They often have lava making it hard to walk without shoes. Hapuna Beach near Waikoloa is one of the few white sand beaches on the island and a great place to walk.
- **Nature: The Big Island has the most outstanding and unique outdoor adventures of any of the island. The island has secluded beaches, hot springs, tropical gardens and flowers, an erupting volcano, lava flowing into the ocean, snorkeling, scuba diving, and amazing water falls. It is worth renting a car and taking in the entire island to experience its beauty and diversity.
- *Snorkeling: There are some great places to snorkel around the Big Island. our favorite is Kahalu'u beach near Kona. There are several tours that take you to great spots to snorkel and night swimming with the manta rays. The thing we love most about the Big Island is snorkeling with the turtles.
It is awesome to be with them in the early morning before the crowds arrive.
- *Kid friendly: Many of the activities are really fun for kids like hiking to the waterfalls, visiting the sights in Volcanoes National park, and seeing turtles on the black sand beach. But you have to plan the trip to make sure the kids don't end up spending all the time in the car driving or find the activity too scary or exerting. Swimming with the manta rays, for example, the teenagers loved but the younger kids were absolutely terrified.
- **Affordability: The Big Island is the most affordableof all the islands.Great deals are available in Kona and Hilo and you can easily cook for yourself or get local baked goods and fruits. Activities are generally less expensive then other islands.
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