Travel-n-Trips

Family Gap Year Post #20: Hawaiian Island Hopping—Our Adventures (July, Part 1)

In retrospect, I would not have planned two full months of on-the-road travel back-to-back. I would have especially not planned two full months of on-the-road travel through expensive areas!

But it feels silly complaining about the opportunity to spend all of July traveling through the Hawaiian Islands. The truth is I feel very grateful for the opportunity. And on a scale from 1-10, I give our month a 9 out of 10.

Adventures

Highs

We met a sweet couple from Vancouver while driving the “Road to Hana” in Maui. They asked, “What was your favorite adventure so far?”

  1. I think the answer to that question was sailing in a catamaran up the Nā Pali Coast in Kauai. It was a full-day adventure with breakfast and lunch. We also snorkeled and spotted dolphins around our boat twice.

But I also loved the low-key days, too. I loved getting to a local beach early and jumping between the river and the ocean waves. And then tasting cinnamon whipped honey at the Hanalei Farmer’s Market for the first time.

Here’s a list of what we did:

Oahu

Kaua’i

Maui

  • Maui Sunday Market (food trucks + BINGO)
  • Glamping at Camp Olowalu
  • Road to Hana (waterfall + two beaches + natural pool by the ocean)
  • Lahaina Animal Farm
  • West Maui Forest Reserve in Wailuku
  • Coconut frond weaving at the Shops at Wailea (free)
  • Catamaran sailing
  • Upcountry Farmers Market
  • Hui No‘eau Visual Arts Center
  • Maui Golf Sports Park (for the extreme trampoline)

Lows

I think the lows of this month will show up more in later posts, since they relate to our Family Dynamic and the Budget.

I will share that the Big Island continues to be my favorite island (which we did not go to this month).

Next Time

We spent 7-10 days on each island, and I feel like a week was the minimum amount of time. So if you are planning a trip to Hawai’i, I would recommend at least a week in each place you stop. The top four islands in order from most to least favorite (in my humble opinion) are:

  1. Big Island (Hilo side)
  2. Kaua’i (north shore)
  3. Oahu
  4. Maui

Lessons Learned

  1. We need to parent within more of a tribe. As I said last month: “Our children need adults other than their parents in their lives.” And it’s rewarding to be those adults for other people’s children. I’m not exactly sure what this looks like yet. How would I make this more true back in Austin? Or do we need to move into a cohousing neighborhood? Or do we need to move closer to family?
  2. As I said last month: “Meeting up with friends while traveling is so fun!” We need to travel with our friends at least once every year.
  3. I need to get better about just listening when things are hard for my loved ones. My default state is to immediately jump in to provide a solution. Or I want to help them reframe their perspective to focus on the positive. I need to get better at just sitting alongside them with an empathetic and affirming presence.

Stay tuned for next week’s post when I talk about our Family Dynamic. In the meantime, you can see daily update on Instagram or weekly updates in my newsletter!

4 Comments

  • Mamaschlick

    Wow! Traveling around Hawaii sounds amazing! So much outdoor time is incredible. Here it is a struggle to get outside and figure out something to do.

    I love your way of assessing what works and what doesn’t. I tend to plod along day to day without examining my patterns. Or I notice them but they feel to big to tackle. Do you write down your thoughts in a journal? Or do you use the blog as a way to organize your thoughts? I have so many journals, I’m interested to learn about your system specifically for assessing your family and social life in terms of pros, cons and tweaks. And ways to change going forward.

    As always, so fun to read and always gets me thinking. Thanks for sharing Sara! I’m still so amazed at your planning skills and how you managed to pull this all off (sounds like mostly single handedly”. 👏👏

    Also, (unrelated to this specific post but connected to your Instagram posts) for homeschooling I felt most successfully with my reluctant learner when there was a timed schedule with the knowledge it can be slightly tweaked. And a video intro to a topic helped, as did incorporating a lot of breaks. Staying calm and simply repeating what step needed to be taken without judgment helped. And as Becky Bailey says, focus on what you want to happen not what isn’t happening. Notice even small accomplishments- “your writing is so pretty” or “great you took your pencil out!” I also took my learner’s feedback about which topics worked best at which times of day and it helped. And sometimes I would do the work with him too- I would complete the writing prompts too. And I tailored them to his interests like “if you could be any Pokémon character which would it be and give 5 reasons why.” Some days I was the scribe which really let his creativity shine through without the daunting task of writing. Lastly I know you shy away from “academic rigor” but I leaned the hard way that sometimes harder academics actually engaged my learner more! If too easy he felt it was futile. I always showed videos and had reading a bit above his level- even if he didn’t retain it all, he got a lot out of it and felt “smart” doing it. It also led to deeper thoughts and questions. Have you tried Kahn academy math? That worked really well for us! Good luck! ❤️

    • Sara Cotner

      Great to hear from you, as usual, Mamaschlick!

      I really only journal when my thoughts feel really overwhelming or I’m really upset about something. Journaling definitely helps me sort out deep, tumultous feelings. I would say I journal about once a month?

      I also collect long-term vision ideas in my journal (in a box at the top). So right now I have a list going about what I want our family life to be like for the next 9-ish years. (My journal is just a Google doc.)

      I definitely live in a constant state of assess–>analyze–>act. I’m not sure if it’s something to emulate or a trauma coping mechanism to avoid?

      I used to write a monthly blog post assessing how I did on my goals for the month. That process helped me a lot.

      Now, my weekly newsletter serves that function. Every week, I’m sitting down with myself and asking, “What’s going well? What’s not going well?”

      One more thing to note: I keep a list of random things that occur to me that I actually want to make happen. I used to keep it in a notebook, but now I’ve switched to the Notes app in my phone. So if I see something random on Instagram (like making baked oatmeal), then I write it in my Notes app so I remember to make it happen.

      Let me know if you have any questions about any of that!

      And thank you for the homeschooling tips! (I started researching local schools today…)

  • Mamaschlick

    I keep so many journals (one for my son and his days so he can read when older, my own, one with activity ideas, etc) and planning journals and I think I’ve not yet created the life I want so I’m trying to get organized. I like your ideas and will try to implement them. I think a weekly what went wrong/right might be helpful. I think one issue for me is I have about a million “make baked oatmeal” moments and they are overwhelming. I need to figure out how to sift through all my ideas and goals and narrow them down because I can’t do everything. Leaves me with a feeling I haven’t done enough everyday. I ge true sense you are a decisive person and move forward with your choices. I stew and then reluctantly commit, sometimes regretting it or thinking I should have done something different (we’ve talked about this). Your blog believe it or not has helped me realize that and want to improve! I still like paper systems and am trying to find a way to document my what went wrong/what can I fix. I don’t know how you make so much time for the thinking! I feel so pulled in many directions and don’t allow myself that much reflection. And when I do it doesn’t turn into action or change–that’s the part I’m working on! Any suggestions welcome. I really admire how you’ve carved out a life you love. I hope I can do it too. Part of that might also be acceptance…
    Hugs to you Sara!

    • Sara Cotner

      After reading all of these thoughts, my number one piece of advice is to get a Life Coach! It seems like you might really benefit from dedicated time each week to meet with someone and talk about your goals (virtual works equally well). They will help you identify what you want to continue doing versus what you want to change and work toward. They will help you prioritize. The combination of having dedicated thinking time each week with someone + someone asking you probing questions and holding you accountable to action might be really good! Just a thought…

      Yes, I consider myself to be decisive. I honestly feel like every single thing that happens (even if it’s bad) will eventually lead to something good that wouldn’t have happened if the bad thing wouldn’t have happened. But I also seek out the help of a lot of paid professionals! At first it was leadership coaching (similar to life coaching). Then it was a therapist. And once COVID hit, I sought out reiki healing and acupuncture as well.

      I’m wishing you all the best on your journey!

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