After debating Maui vs. Kauai for some time, we finally settled on Kauai at the suggestion of many people familiar with the two, some of whom lived in Hawaii for anywhere from 1-4 years. With a glowing recommendation like that, Kauai must be pretty awesome.

Kauai Vacations

Kauai is small but it has a lot of stuff to do on the North and South parts of the island. To make the trip interesting we're splitting time between 2 of the main tourist areas on the island: Princeville and Poipu. Apparently the best places to stay are the Grand Hyatt in Poipu and the soon-to-open St. Regis in Princeville.

We booked our trip through a travel agent rather than the internet travel sites like Expedia. Surprisingly our trip booked through a traditional travel agent turned out to be $170 cheaper than the best the internet could offer (Expedia) AND it had a bigger mid-size car, as opposed to economy

Another tidbit to know is that booking hotel and flight together really does save a lot of money. I had gotten into the habit of booking hotels and flights separately. I found that Expedia has the best booking interface for multi-destination trips or partial hotel stays because, unlike the other internet travel agents, Expedia does not require that you fly to another destination nor stay at the same hotel the entire duration of your trip.