Yesterday after my day at the nursing home I decided with no substantive planning to book myself a week's R&R at some tantalising destination. Honolulu came to mind.
I have visited Honolulu at least six times but the last visit was more than 35 years ago. In all those visits I ventured little beyond Waikiki Beach other than for transport to and from the airport. I hadn't even visited Pearl Harbour.
I checked the flights and checked my preferred hotel and with little more than thirty minutes spent online a week's holiday in Honolulu over Christmas has been booked.
Easy Peasy.
I suggested we go there this year, but R was set on South Africa. Just about everyone I know has been there at some time.
ReplyDeleteSouth Africa is good too.
DeleteOahu is one of my favourite places in the world. I have a long list of must visit things but based on the small amount of info you have given AKA you never went out of Waikiki on previous visits plus the posts I have read on your blog, my number one recommendation is Oahu Photography Tours with their Circle Sunrise Island Tour. It is a small tour in a small van and it does a circle loop of the island. It does start super early because they take you to Sandy Beach to capture sunrise.
ReplyDeleteI learned more about photography in the first half hour of this tour than I ever did during several years of photography in high school. It was one of our favourite tours ever that we have done.
I will post a link to their site in a separate comment.
The other thing I highly recommend is a visit to Pearl Harbor. At this time, the USS Arizona memorial is not visitable - they are doing cruise bys on the Navy boat instead. I do hope they would have that fixed by December.
Before you go if you are at all into history there are a lot of books one can read about Pearl Harbor. There is a really very large and long book (928 pages!) which I managed to finish called At Dawn We Slept: The Untold Story of Pearl Harbor by Gordon W. Prange and Donald M. Goldstein but it may be way too long for most people. Not to mention it is very heavy to hold!
The book I would most recommend is Resurrection: Salvaging the Battle Fleet at Pearl Harbor by Daniel Madsen. It is very detailed and technical but I found it fascinating for exactly that reason. I'm going to have to re-read it now, it has been on my re-read list for a little while.
I am excited on your behalf. The shopping is incredible, I went with just 7kg of carryon luggage and returned with 82kg. ;) I did not need to buy anything for quite a few years after that trip.
https://www.oahuphotographytours.com <-- as mentioned in my previous comment. :)
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