Island hop on that first Hawaii trip: A Kauai regret

By Chris Baldwin

While planning my first Hawaii trip, I received tons of advice from people who'd been there before. Mention you're going to Hawaii and you get more unsolicited opinions than Hillary in a Iowa coffee shop.
Much of the counsel centered on whether to island hop or not. The opinions pretty much came out about 50/50 for and against.
Well, now that I'm 10 days into the trip, I say you want to hop like Paris Hilton used to for Las Vegas nightclub cameras. Maui - which is the island most people who aren't hopping spend their time - is nice. But limiting yourself to Maui really cuts down on the adventure.
I've been to the small wonders Lanai, checked out the underrated Big Island and my only regret is I didn't get to see even more. Especially missed is Kauai's reputed lush jungle scenery and its bigger-than-Lanai, smaller-than-Maui unique vibe.
The argument against island hopping is that staying in one spot allows you to see a lot more - not to mention relax more with less travel stress. You could spend 10 days on Maui alone and never come close to running out of golf courses to play and beaches to discover.
But there's too much more you're missing. Think about it this way. Even if you're coming to Hawaii from the West Coast, it's a good six-hour flight to get here. That's a trip across the country. And if you're traveling in from the East Coast - well, you're on an odyssey.
How many times can you realistically make it back, considering modern workplace schedules these days? See as much as you can - in as many different places as you can.
The flights between most islands are easy. From Maui to Lanai, it's a mere 45-minute ferry ride (though mere goes out the window when the sea's a mad drunk). And the long-awaited Superferry finally starts running this week between the Big Island and Maui.
Hop on. You won't regret it.