Customer Reviews

Kauai Trails: Walks, Strolls and Treks on the Garden Island

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This is easily the best Kaua'i hiking book - buy it if you intend to do any hiking on Kaua'i. A small nit, the information on the Alaka'i Swamp Trail is out of date. This trail is now boardwalk right through to it's end at the Kilohana lookout (an amazing feat of engineering!). Far from being the endless slog through inhospitable "telephone pole bogs", this hike is now a snap, rewarded by an awesome view of the whole NE quadrant of the island from the edge of the Wainiha Pali (weather permitting!).

A trail guide should do two things:

1. Accurately describe, in detail, trails, access, condition, etc.

2. Inspire the reader to hike said trails

Kauai Trails: Walks, Strolls, and Treks on the Garden Island is mediocre when it comes to the first, and horrible when it comes to the second.

The author seems to do her best to convince a hiker planning a trip to Kauai that (s)he should visit California instead. She rails on about garbage, introduced species, erosion, hippies, etc throughout the entire books. Let's keep it to one chapter, Kathy!

Worst of all, she bashes the Kalalau Trail, discouraging any Kauai visitor from hiking it. Nevermind that it's ranked one of the best hikes on the planet. Nevermind that on every internet hiking forum, trip reports are invariably glowing. Nevermind that many people who live on Kauai or visit Kauai regularly think it's a DON'T MISS hike. Kathy says, "It's overrated. Don't bother."

I'm sad that we don't have a guide to hiking the Garden Isle that's more positive and informative, better organized, with better maps...one that actually makes you think you'll have an enjoyable time hiking in paradise.

Purchase this book only because it's the best one there is, not because it's good. I personally recommend The Ultimate Kauai Guidebook. While it doesn't go into as much detail on the trails, it's far more informative, positive, and better updated. Kathy's book lists many trails as CLOSED which aren't closer, or may be damaged but are still hikable.

Has good detailed hiking information, but not well organized. Book is essentially a list of trails. Trails in same area tend to be grouped, but there is no real breakdown by area to give a better idea of choices and how hike routes could be put together by combining connecting trails or to help choose hikes by by area. The information is there, but you have to work to sort through it and make your actual plan. Improves upon a key flaw of Robert Smith book(s) which is poor directions to finding hike starting points (except where does things like tells you to refer to #92, and #92 then refers to #85), but would recommend it more as a supplement than a substitute.

This book was very helpful as we used it during our first stay on Kauai. We have two young children, and we found the Hiking Table very useful to easily locate hikes we could bring our kids on. We felt that we saw alot more of the island using these hikes then we would have with other guide books.

Just returned from 6 days on Kauai, where we enjoyed a number of the shorter hikes using the 2002 edition. The author's fondness for Kauai really comes through in each hike's description. The ratings of length, elevation gain, and particularly of what kind of footwear is needed for each hike were invaluable -- we didn't have hiking boots and focused on the "tennis shoe" options. As the author recommends, DO get supplemental trail maps even for what you might *anticipate* will be a straightforward short hike - we relied on Kauai Trails in attempting to find the Berry Flat & Discovery Center trails in Kokee Park since it looked so simple, and ended up spending a panicked hour on trails through thick growth of strawberry guava trees as the sun was setting because trail names/signs had changed. (If you do attempt Trip 40 or 41, check with the Kokee Museum for a map. Trips like 9- Kuilau Ridge on old roads are indeed straightforward and also rewarding.) Another possible frustration is with the driving directions, which don't use the ubiquitous mileage signs: On Kauai many spots of tourist/hiker interest are not clearly marked and with the one-lane roads you may not have an immediate opportunity to turn around to access the pull-over, so do read driving instructions carefully before you set out and pull over whenever you think you might have found the spot. As previously noted, instructions to refer to a previous hike listing can be frustrating and it would be helpful if the exact break point into Hike A and Hike B were marked in the text and on the maps. I was also concerned by the reference to picking up (a few) shells on Anini Beach given that if everyone took shells off beaches there would be none left for others to see or for mollusks' homes.

This is the best book I found for hiking in Kauai - it's also the one all the stores over there carry. Definitely also ask the locals about the condition of trails when you get there - they usually have good recommendations.

11-06 Just returned from Kauai traveling with an impaired walker.
The book was fabulous for planning side trips. Level of difficulty,
distance and even type of shoe required are all here. Good maps & info.
I can't wait to return with a fellow hiker to take advantage of all the
great trips and tips in this book.

We just returned from a vacation in Kauai and found this book very helpful. We're not hard core hikers but we like to stroll the beaches and wander down a path or two and this book was very helpful in determining which hikes were "at our level" or not. The author is right on with the assessments of levels of difficulty and time it took on the hikes we took.

This book may once have been useful, but we found it outdated to the point of uselessness. Some of the trails described no longer meaningfully existed as such, and one was a dirt road with a heavy 4wd traffic. After having been mislead one too many times, we abandoned this book completely and relied only on the trail descriptions in The Ultimate Kauai Guidebook: Kauai Revealed (Ultimate Kauai Guidebook). That said, we looked to this book only for hikes, not beach walks and the like. It may be that it is a very competent guide for strolls. This book doesn't describe that many more hikes than the Ultimate Guidebook does, but the way some trails are broken into several hikes makes it seem at first glance that it does.

I can't imagine the trip we took without this guide. It took us along trails that were stunning and amazingly little traveled. I felt like we saw the REAL Kauai. Surely it wasn't the hotels at the shore. Our only complaint is that some of the trails narrowed without warning at high altitudes and in places that seemed less than safe - especially along the Napoli coast. But all in all it made our trip the excellent journey that it was.