Customer Reviews

Hawaii The Big Island Revealed: The Ultimate Guidebook

5 star:		(121)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

The plusses:
Just about every place that this book recommended, and that I've tried, has been spot on. Perhaps more importantly, it's also spot-on with respect to its recommendations of tour companies (e.g. snorkeling tours, van tours). Not one restaurant, attraction, tour company, or hotel recommended by this book has disappointed, and it recommends a lot -- you could spend a month on the Big Island and not go through half of what's in this book. For the most part, the maps are clear and helpful, and the book gives contact information as needed.

The minuses:
The information presented is very poorly organized. Largely speaking, this book breaks down into Sights, Activities, Adventures, and Dining/Lodging, and within each section, the listings are broken by geographic region. The problem with this approach is that, in order to see everything there is to do within a particular geographic area, you have to flip to each section. It would be far more convenient to reverse the ordering -- break down the book first by geographic area, and then by activities within the area.

Secondly, the "Sights" section for each area is presented as a single tour that goes through each attraction, and the directions for each site are only given in terms of the location of the previous site mentioned. The problem is, there are often many more attractions than you'll have time for in each area, so it takes considerable work to figure out the location of individual attractions if you want to skip an attraction or go in a different order than the book describes.

Normally, the I'd treat the minuses much more harshly, but the recommendations are so good that I'm going to be more forgiving here.

My husband and I travel a lot and have looked at and used many types of travel guidebooks. We have found the 'Revealed' guidebooks to be, without a doubt, the best. The authors/editors don't ever hold back when they feel that a hotel, restuarant or attraction doesn't live up to its reputation or is over-priced. You can count on these guidebooks for the truth, not just a glowing report that someone has paid to have printed in a guidebook.

We just used this book to help us navigate the Big Island for a family vacation. The maps were fantastic and the descriptions very helpful. Hawaii tries to hide it's national treasures and signage is almost invisible. This book gave mile marker references and visual landmarks to help you find where you needed to go. The amount of information was a bit overwhelming, but it was great to keep in the car for quick reference as you were trying to decide what to do next. We found the information to be extremely accurate except for restaurant suggestions - some were correct, but rely on your hotel concierge first. We would highly recommend this book if this is your first trip to the Big Island or you are adults traveling alone and a bit more on the adventurous side (lots of hiking and rough terrain not suitable for little legs).

I usually love Lonely Planet and Let's Go guides for trip preparation, but in this instance this is definitely the book to buy! It contains so much information and is very thorough. Plus, they provide extra information online. The only reason it did not receive 5 stars is because the book advertises and references an iPhone app, but I can't find it in the iTunes store or on their website. If the app is anything like the book it would be very useful!

The only thing that kept me from giving this a 5 star rating is the "web review" listings...If I am travelling around with my book, I want that to be the only thing to which I refer without having to take the extra step of going to a computer.

The book has a lot of great insightful observations about what to do and see around the island. Savvy travelers and hospitality folks love the book and rave about it all the time.

This book was a great resource during our trip. The maps were very helpful the mile posts were correct. The photos and fun things to see in each area of the island were spot on. We found the absolutely best snorkeling bay by using this book, the directions to this location were correct, the snorkeling amazing. Another location we found using this book was Hapuna State Beach, the idealic Hawaiian beach. I highly recommend reading this book before you go and take it with you. We kept it in our rental car so it was handy. We are looking forward to another trip one day.

we were told to buy this book before our honeymoon and it was the best investment ever. This book literally saved us hundreds of dollars by showing you all the little secret beach spots, waterfalls, local cheap food places,etc. Easiest quick tip: right off the plane go to costco ro wlamart and buy water, snorkel gear, food. we used the snorkel gear the whole time and gave it to one of local kids on the beach. we also bought this book for Maui too. Awesome author and love the secret local spots for snorkleing and sightseeing. I want to go BACK!

What else can you say about this book other than, "WOW...what a great book."

My wife and I just returned from 5-nights on Kauai and 4-nights on da Big Island. My only regret is that I bought the Kauai Underground book instead of Kauai Revealed: The Ultimate Guidebook.

For The Big Island we bought The Big Island Revealed: The Ultimate Guidebook. This book coupled with our portable GPS with updated maps made this the most productive Hawaii trip I have ever made. (I have been to the islands about 8 times. Usually, flying by the seat of my pants.) This trip we really wanted to do things "Island Style" and see more of what usually just the locals experience.

The Kauai Underground book was really nothing more than a big advertisement for outfitter guides and owners of businesses I would suspect are the owner's friends. They would tell you about great stuff to do, but then point you to the outfitters, not making it easy for you to do yourself.

Hawaii The Big Island Revealed: The Ultimate Guidebook was really the best guidebook I have read. It offers detailed maps that even include the highway mile markers, so you know when you are approaching where you need to pull-over and turn. When we were heading down a lonely 4-wheel drive road, it was often just my wife and I, and occasionally we would see another vehicle--usually with the co-pilot referencing this very same book. We would not have found or even known about many of the Hawaiian Archeological Sites without this book. The US and Hawaiian Government do a very poor job of letting you know how to find these sites. (It may be more by design than accident.) Andrew Doughty does an excellent job letting you know how to get there.

I will caution one thing, you might want to check into local laws and heed signs that are posted. We skipped a few things because there were official government signs posted saying no 4-wheel drive where he says you can 4-wheel. Either we were "lost" or a few places may have now banned the ability to drive to a few of these locations. When in doubt, we errored on the side of safety and chose to fore-go the site or just hoof it.

The GPS is a key to find a lot of these sites. Many roads are not marked by a sign, but show up on the GPS. The GPS will also give you a nice accurate time of how long it will take to get to a certain location, barring backed up rush-hour traffic.

I would not hesitate to receommend this book to anyone wanting to really see The Big Island. If your plan is to just go to the beach, skip the book. If you are adventuresome and really want to "experience" the island, take Andrew and his book along with you...it will be the best investment you can make. Just buy the book a month before you go and really plan your days so you can pack in the really important stuff you want to do (and leave a little time for the beach). I know I am heading back to this island again!

This is one of the books we bought before we moved to the Big Island, and in the end, was the only one we used and used regularly. We lived in the southernmost spot on the island - at Punalu`u, between Na`alehu and Pahala, and were surprised at the amount of material covered in the book about this area. We still haven't discovered every nook and cranny of this island, and know that we will keep buying updated editions of this book to tell us about such things as eateries, hidden campgrounds.
I believe this book is for the upscale traveler as much as for the outdoor/camping budget person.
When we were newbies-and later- we relied on The Big Island Revealed for restaurants, cultural information; now we simply refer to it. Sure, we could go on-line for much of the information, but this can be held in your hand and referred to at the spur of the moment.
One caveat: some information, such as restaurants, roads and some lodging info, must be updated regularly. If there are factual inaccuracies, they are probably due to changes in restaurants and hotels. For this reason it is important to have the latest edition. Historical information remains constant,of course.
This book is a keeper. It is good not just for one trip, but we consider it to be a valuable addition to our library.

Wow, this book was great for our trip. We saw many wonderful things that we would have missed using Fodor's. After the first day, the Fodor's guide stayed in our hotel room and this was our exclusive guide. This book helped us find a private tour of miles-long lava tube, Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden, and many fine restaurants. The guide is geared to driving yourself, and you can do fantastically good route planning. One thing most people want from The Big Island is to see lava, and this book has plenty of advice. You will NOT lava see from the roadside tourist locations at Volcanic National Park, which features steam vents and some orange glow. Besides the book's advice, we were very pleased with the Lava Boat (see Lava Ocean Adventure Tours at [...], which offers a close-up view from the ocean. The book warned that helicopters do not get close to the lava; and that helped us pick the boat instead. The recommendation to use Kazumura Cave Tours (page 180) to see the longest lava tube in the world was worth the price of the book. The thing is 80 feet high, has many formations, and runs for miles.