Customer Reviews

The Ultimate Kauai Guidebook: Kauai Revealed

5 star:		(112)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

My comments are specifically addressing the hiking and snorkeling portions of this guide, which is what we primarily used it for: First, as another review already notes, EVERY tourist on Kauai is walking around with this book, so forget all the comments in it about "having the beach to yourself" or visiting a spot "only a few local hunters know about". Second, in an obvious attempt to separate this guide from others, the author tends to overexaggerate the beauty or uniqueness of many of the "secret" attractions or destinations that his book contains. And that's a serious problem for most of us that have only a limited amount of time on our Kauai vacation and must decide how to spend each day - what to do and what to give up.

Case in point is the book's hiking description to a pair of now-abandoned, mile-long water diversion tunnels blasted through rock near the middle of the island some hundred years ago. Following the guide's directions you drive inland, then hike 2 miles on an unmaintained hunter trail, then hike a mile through the first tunnel...to find yourself in a breathtaking, Shangri La valley! The book estimates 1.5 to 2 hours hike for the first 2 miles on an uneven, potentially muddy trail. What it doesn't reveal is that, even in dry weather, you will be trekking for 2-3 hours each way through troughs of foot or deeper mud the color and consistency of diarrhea! The hike through the tunnel is cool but the narrow valley beyond is not very exciting and the same scenery can be found in many other parts of the Island with much less time and effort. What was initially a "must-do" hike for us based on the book's description turned into a tiring, wasted day of our vacation. Sadly, while sloshing through the mud and brush on our way back we met up with 2 filthy, sweaty couples who also tried to do the hike on the same day (each had their own copy of the revered blue book!) but didn't even make it to the first tunnel due to lack of time (due to the trail condition and elevation changes the book's 1.5 hour timeline is BS for most people)and trail difficulty.

We found similar exaggerations in other parts of the book, including descriptions of snorkeling conditions at some of the beaches. So our advice is to use the guide but make good judgements as to what may be worth doing in the time you have on the Island. Just because the book touts a spot as Paradise on Earth doesn't guarantee it will be there for all your effort.

This guide book is amazing! We were in Kauai for 7 days and managed to find amazing hikes, adventures and food every day no matter what part of the island we explored. The descriptions for adventures and hikes are in amazing detail! We found ourselves hiking the most amazing (and seemingly untouched) trail overlooking Waimea Canyon and could only have found it with the help of this book since the trail head was unmarked on a back country road.

The descriptions of the sights on Kauai are realistic and are presented in a humorous way that makes reading the book interesting as well as informational. We only doubted the book once on a restaurant and soon found out never to challenge the wisdom again... sigh. If anyone of my friends or relatives were going to travel to Kauai this would be the first item I would recommend they get (the second and third being sunscreen and a nice raincoat for the quickly changing weather)!

Been to Hawaii twice before and bought the new edition of this book each time. This is the THIRD edition I've purchased. It is THE BEST travel guide for Kauai. Authors live in Hawaii, vacation (verb) every day, then rate their experiences in their books. How did I not get this job?!?!?! When you get to Hawaii, you'll see people walking around with their books. We just lucked out buying this book on our first trip and it proved to be our guide for a wonderful experience. The authors do the tourist thing anonymusly to give you a true review of what you would experience. We did what they said was good, avoided the bad, and had an absolutly fabulous time. You're going to spend a lot of money on your trip and this series of books will insure you get the best value for your dollar. I always tell people that if you go to Hawaii you need 3 things. Master Card, Visa, and The Book. The Ulitmate Kauai Guidbook - "Don't leave home without it."

If you don't buy this on here, don't worry. They offer the book in most stores across the island. It is the most popular guidebook available and I highly recommend it. It is best to use it for beach locations and restaurant reviews.

As a property owner and frequent visitor of Kauai for many years, I can assure you that the restaurant recommendations in this guide are the best I have seen by a fairly good margin. You do have to read the recommendations very carefully, because they put strong emphasis on getting your moneys worth. They also are very specific, for example if they tell you "order the fish at this plate, but not the beef", the fact that they gave it their "ono" (eat here) does not make the beef worthy of ordering. Several restaurants they refuse an "ono" are indeed overpriced and some of the "onos" are for places that fix only good, not great food but are bargains. By the way, one of the real bargains in Islands are the local foods such as Laulaus, Poki and Korean short ribs (as well as others). The same rules apply to beaches and Hikes, read the reviews and don't just go by the "onos". Their guides to other islands are similarly the best. The authors know Kauai better that the other islands because they live on Kauai, but they have the local insight to all the Islands tht makes these the best guidebooks to the Hawaiian Islands.

My Wife and I got this book for our recent trip to Kauai and it was an excellent resource to have. We left it in the rental car and brought it everywhere we went, it was especially helpful for finding good food wherever you were. They list the favorite restaurants with an "ONO" next to them, and we found all of them to be well reviewed and had excellent food. Our favorite restaurants on the trip were not visible from the road and we would have never known they were there if it were not for this book.

The snorkeling recommendations were good as well (Tunnels beach was fantastic one day we were there, and excellent the other). We didn't find anything in this book that led us in the wrong direction or to a hike/etc that wasn't as described. Congratulations to the authors on a fantastic book, I would recommend this to anybody visiting Kauai (best for the first timers but lots of great information for anybody).

The maps in this guide book are invaluable to the Kauai traveler. The written sightseeing, activity and dining information was not as accurate as the Lonely Planet guide (which we also purchased.) The book has a website with "updates" but there are still errors and omissions in this book. We ate at a restaurant that this book "panned" and had an excellent experience; we thoroughly enjoyed a Na'pali coast sunset sail with Kauai Sea Tours (this books last choice) et cetera. We used both books to create our own experience - not blindly following the recommendations of one guide.

My overall recommendation - buy the book for the maps but follow your own instincts when exploring Kauai, form your own opinions, make your own choices and have a wonderful experience.

If you are going to go to Kauai then get this book! This book helped make the most of our quick 4 days in Kauai. There is a lot of good info in this book to help you decide where and when to eat, what and when to see and also has some good housing info. It will help you avoid places that look good but aren't and help you find places that you otherwise wouldn't go to.

My two complaints are that it could be organized a bit better and the directions were sometimes not that good. However, the money for this book is a must to help you get the most from your visit.

Everyone has this book and everyone raved about it so we bought it and took it to Hawaii with us. The information was mostly spot on and occasionally pretty far off. I think it may need to be updated. That said, everyone will tell you to buy this book and it won't be a bad purchase but just be aware that some things may not be completely up-to-date.

No where in this book, no where on signs, no where at the rental place, the hotels, the airport do they tell you that petty crime is rampant in Kauai. On our first day in Kauai my boyfriend and I had our rental car window smashed and every thing we owned stolen. Long story short, talk to the locals, they'll tell you- this is a common occurrence. There's even a special "group" for victims of crime on Kauai. And when we turned in our rental car at the end of the week (for the second time) they THEN told us that they had 8 other cars turned back in that week with smashed windows! A little heads up would have been nice!