I’ve almost lost track of how many trips to Hawaii I’ve taken. If my memory is correct, I’ve been seventeen times and most of those have been in the last decade. I’m not alone in my addiction to Hawaii: the annual visitors’ report stated that in 2018, eighty-one percent of the visitors from the West Coast were repeat visitors. 

The West Coast actually contributes over half of the yearly visitors to Hawaii. And, no surprise, Californians make up a large part of that number. My last trip was to Maui which, according to the Hawaii Guide site, is where about twenty-five percent of visitors go. Kauai is the least visited with only eleven percent of tourists traveling there and, of course, Oahu has almost fifty percent of the visitors.

I am extremely grateful in this month of giving thanks that I have had the good fortune of being able to just be in the middle of the ocean and enjoy the view of nothing but ocean and sky. I wish we could go there more, but it is definitely cost-prohibitive. Even though more airlines are flying to Hawaii, lodging is becoming hard to get and more expensive. 

People often ask what to budget when they go for the first time. The average daily per person spend is $200. (42.5% for lodging, 20% for food and another 10% each for shopping, transportation, and entertainment.) The average trip is 8 days long, so that means for a couple planning a week-long stay, the trip is going to be approximately $3000. Obviously, there are ways to help defray costs; airline and hotel credit cards can help a lot with flights and rooms.

So, if I now do the math again, I could start thinking about how much money I haven’t contributed to retirement and college accounts. I’m not going to, because one of my ohana rules is about making memories. Anyone who has been one of our Hawaii trips will have a story to tell. (And, there’s another blog post coming about our drive from Kapalua.)

This last trip wasn’t the most practical as we are launching the business, but it didn’t matter as this was probably the last vacation trip I’ll have with my dad. We found out in August that he has pancreatic cancer. In September I spent many hours debating on whether or not to cancel the trip; it wasn’t clear he’d be able to make it. (Cancellations are much trickier when you use VRBO rentals.) I think the cancer doctors thought we were a bit crazy, but they honored our wishes to wait until we returned to start treatments. It doesn’t hurt that the oncologist just returned from living in Oahu for ten years -- he gets the aloha thing.

Most of you who are reading this blog get it. You are in our ohana because you feel the aloha vibes too. If you’re reading this and have never been to Hawaii, try to find a way to get there. Once you do, you can sit at your desk as I am now, close your eyes, hear the ocean, feel the sun beating down on you, and know that nothing else matters.

I think my dad preferred watching the sunrise to the sunset this trip, but that’s understandable. I’m just happy he had one last cheeseburger in paradise.

Be thankful this holiday season for any time spent in paradise because not everyone is so fortunate.

P.S. A shout out to Alaska Airlines for making sure my dad was as comfortable as possible on the flight.