Hawaiian Culture & Eco-Adventure Self-Drive

Eleven nights across two Hawaiian islands with San Francisco and Seattle either side, self-drive with the flights included.

San Francisco takes the first night, with Fisherman’s Wharf and the sea lions at Pier 39, then Kaua’i for three. The oldest of the main islands is also the greenest, and the Na Pali Coast on its northern side can only be seen from the sea or the air: a wall of fluted cliffs that has stood in for prehistoric landscapes on film more than once, visited here by boat with snorkelling.

The island of Hawai’i follows for five nights, with a guided four-wheel drive trip through a private nature reserve in North Kohala, taking in ancient agricultural terraces and swimming under waterfalls, an optional night snorkel with manta rays, which come in to feed on plankton drawn by lights, and a guided tour of Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park that covers what the volcanic landscape means to Hawaiians rather than just how it formed. Seattle takes the last two nights.

Flights, fully insured car hire on each island, all the accommodation and round-the-clock support while travelling are included, and the price is quoted per person. Twelve days with five nights on one island means very little moving about, which is the right approach here. Two separate hire cars are involved, since the vehicles do not travel between islands. No wildlife sighting can be promised, and the manta ray snorkel is weather dependent. The San Francisco and Seattle nights are there because of how the flights route rather than as destinations, though both are worth the stop.