4 Day Kauai Itinerary

Almost every birthday since being with my husband has been spent in another country or state (minus covid year 2020). Since I had a few events this year (bach party, wedding, & Jeffs birthday cruise) and limited PTO available, I wanted to go somewhere where I could relax, but still have the option for activities depending on how I felt that day. I basically just wanted to have a lot of flexibility and no strict schedule to follow. My husband and I decided on Kauai since we felt this was the perfect mix of that! To be honest, I never thought of Kauai as a must visit place before since I always heard Kauai as the “honeymoon island” and as the island where there isn’t much to do except relax. I found my experience to be the exact opposite! I thought I would share our 4 day itinerary which was packed with just the right amount of relax time and adventure time (probably a little heavier on the adventure time lol).

Lawai Beach
View from our lanai

Day 1

We arrived early afternoon, picked up our rental car through Ali’i Rental Cars, and headed to get some lunch. Our original plan was to go to Koloa Fish Market, but we were so sad to find out it was closed on Thursdays! FYI – their Google page shows they’re closed on Thursday, but unfortunately their Yelp page only shows them closed on Sundays. Anyways, we were craving poke and found Kauai Poke Co. Thankfully the place was not crowded, maybe 2 other families, so we were seated and served our food pretty quickly! The restaurant is right next to a golf course, so we were able to enjoy our first meal in Kauai while overlooking the greenery through their large windows. I had the spicy ahi poke bowl and Jeff had the ahi katsu plate. Jeff loved the ahi katsu plate which was nice and crispy. I liked my poke bowl, but you really can’t go wrong with poke anywhere in Hawaii. I usually prefer to stop at the grocery store in Hawaii to get their poke over the counter, but I was looking for convenience after our flight.

After lunch, we stopped at Waikomo Shave Ice which was super refreshing! You choose two flavors and they add fruit, coconut cream, and honey on top. We got one with passionfruit & coconut and another with guava & lychee. There isn’t any place to sit besides a bench outside right outside the market, so we ended up enjoying our shaved ice in the car.

Once we finished our shaved ice, we picked up the keys for the vrbo. We stayed on the south shore of Kauai at a beautiful oceanfront vrbo. We opted for the south side of the island since it tends to have the best weather with more sun and less rain. Once we unpacked we went straight to the Big Save Market for more poke, water, and for breakfast foods. Since our vrbo had a kitchen, we planned to eat breakfast in the room. It’s a great way to save money and a little bit of time! After dropping the food off, we headed across the street to Lawai Beach to watch the sunset. Lawai Beach is known for snorkeling and surfing, but since it is a small beach in a crowded area, we only stopped there to for the sunset.

Day 2

On Friday, we ate breakfast out on the lanai, packed our things for the NaPali Zodiac Raft Tour, and headed out for a half hour drive to the Kikiaola Boat Harbor. We did the 6 hour Na Pali Beach Landing Tour through Go Blue Adventures and I cannot recommend this tour enough. This tour was truly a unique experience and incredibly thrilling! Honestly, just insane in the best way. Our tour guides were great and made the experience even more fun with their high energy. There are about 14ish people on this raft holding on for their dear life lol. We had our feet tucked under the rope on the ground plus had to hold on to the rope on the seat just to stay on throughout the high speed ride. We were taken through sea caves and stopped for snorkeling, swimming, and lunch. Since we took the afternoon tour, we also ended up getting to watch the sunset out on the open water.

If you get motion sickness at all, I recommend asking your doctor to prescribe you a scopolamine patch so you stay comfortable throughout the tour. Jeff gets sea sick on small boats really easily, but had no problems at all with the patch. If high speed boat tours aren’t your thing and you still want to have the best views of the Na Pali coast, there are catamaran, sunset boat tours, and helicopter rides also available through different companies. No matter which tour you choose, a Na Pali coast tour is a MUST when visiting Kauai. By the time we got back to the vrbo, it was about 8PM, so we ate some poke from the grocery store and called it a night!

Day 3

After an exhilarating day, you would think we’d want to sleep in and relax a little bit…..yea no. We got up bright and early and headed to Koke’e State Park, about an hour away from the south shore. We hiked the Awa’awapuhi trail since this is one of the hikes we repeatedly kept coming across when researching. The trail is a total of 6 miles and took us about 4 hours to complete. The hike started off mostly downhill with not very many views. It was fairly easy and straightforward hiking to the end view point, especially since there was no rain. The viewpoint was incredible, even without going past the signs that cautions you to stay back from the edge. I played it safe and just barely passed the gate, but Jeff had no fear in venturing a little farther down. I’ve seen videos of people going even farther than we both did, but we were not going to take our chances, especially since it started raining at the top. We stayed at the top for about 15-20 minutes before we headed back. It rained the entire time back and luckily we had our hiking shoes on because our Nikes would not have made it easy hiking uphill on a muddy trail.

After the hike, we stopped at the Shrimp Station for lunch and Lappert’s Ice Cream for some well deserved dessert. We planned to go to Kekeha Beach Park after, but ended up going to Poipu beach for a quick swim since it was closer to the vrbo.

Day 4

Our last full day on the island and we spent it doing another hike! We drove to Ha’ena State Park which was an hour and a half away to hike the Kalalau Trail to Hanakapiai Beach. FYI – you will need to make reservations in advance to visit this state park. Make sure you check their Info & FAQs page for more info. We did the shuttle + entry pass and arrived around 7AM to start the hike. The hike to Hanakapiai Beach is about 4 miles round trip, moderate difficulty, and if you want to go further you can hike 2 more miles to reach Hanakāpī’ai falls. We were not prepared for how muddy this trail was or the couple of small streams we had to cross. For some reason, we wore our water shoes instead of our hiking boots, which was a dumb idea on our part lol. WEAR YOUR HIKING SHOES SO YOU DONT SLIP AND EAT IT. Even with our poor choices, we still enjoyed the hike and views.

After the hike, we spent a couple more hours at Ke’e Beach which is right near the entrance of the trail. I loved this beach because of the calm and shallow waters which made it perfect for swimming. It got crowded after a couple hours, so we headed out for some food. We stopped at Da Crack, for some burritos and then went back to our vrbo to eat on our lanai. We watched one last sunset at Lawai Beach, hopped in the hot tub available at our complex, and packed up for our flight back.