Work To Live

The flight from O'ahu to Hilo was really simple and really quick, almost like getting a bus. Before we knew it, we were picking up our car and planning how to spend our day.  First, we headed to Rainbow Falls which was located in the town of Hilo. It was super easy to get to and the car park was a short walk to the look out. The falls cascade 80ft over a lava cave that according to legend, is home to the ancient Hawaiian goddess Hina, the goddess of the moon. She wasn't in when we visited.  We then headed north on the Māmalahoa Highway, a scenic road which circles the entire island. This took us to ʻAkaka Falls State Park. Here we paid $20 total ($10 parking, $5/person entrance fee) to hike the 0.4-mile round trip through lush rainforest, to see two more waterfalls. First was the 100-foot Kahuna Falls and then the 442-foot ʻAkaka Falls. The cost was definitely worth it although after the steps from the previous day, my legs weren't impressed with ...

The storm had passed by the second day and the slightly overcast but warm weather was perfect for the two hikes we had planned.  First we fuelled up with a really good breakfast at Rainbow Drive-In . Lee had spotted an advert for this place on the plane, and it didn't disappoint. The food was local, reasonably priced and amazing quality. The restaurant was opened in the 60's and it maintained a retro vibe which wouldn't have been out of place on Route 66.  We then headed to our first hike, Diamond Head State Monument. Diamond Head is part of the Ko’olau Range of volcanoes. A single eruption around 300,000 years ago created the 350 acre Diamond Head crater. The US military bought the crater in the early 1900's to strengthen coast artillery defences and some of the installations remain today and can be explored as you'll see from our video. The trail up the crater was built by the military and at the top, there are amazing views of Honolulu, the famous Diamon...

The was our first ever experience flying with Hawaiian Airlines and whilst the planes were old and our seats basic (most without any inflight entertainment), the cabin crew were the happiest people and the chilled out Hawaiian music seemed to melt away the usual stresses when boarding and disembarking from an aircraft.  Our approach into O'ahu was spectacular and luckily, we were on the right side of the plane to see the view of Diamond Crater and Honolulu.  We landed, picked up the car and checked into our hotel, The Surfjack in Waikiki beach. We chose the hotel for the free parking, which was a couple of blocks away in the Hyatt multistorey carpark. Walking to the car park wasn't an issue but driving to it was a nightmare. The amount of one way streets in Waikiki beach meant that we were often driving around for ages trying to find a way of turning left, or right, or anyway but forward. It also became comical how we managed to forget which level we had parked the car o...

Lee turned the big 5  0 on the 26th December and to celebrate, we decided to tackle state number 49.  We started our trip by flying from London Heathrow to Las Vegas with British Airways on the A350-1000. We'd upgraded our seats to Business before the flight with Avios. This also gave us lounge access in Terminal 5 where the free alcohol and nibbles minimised our frustration at the delay to our flight.  The business class seats on the A350-1000 are amazing. It felt like we were in a first class with our own private pod, huge TV, and flat bed. The food was also surprisingly good and after the meal and a couple more drinks, we both had a sleep.  We landed in Las Vegas at around 8pm and went straight to our hotel, the OYO Las Vegas. Lee has always been a big fan of Hooters, he tells me its because their wings are so good. The OYO used to be the Hooters hotel and whilst it was sold to OYO, it still has the biggest Hooters in Las Vegas and a lot of the original Hoote...