I’m not quite sure how to measure either overrating or kinoness (kinoicity?). But I have been to Hawaii several times.
I think a lot of both the positive and negative things people say are rooted in the truth. Parts of Hawaii are undeniably extraordinarily beautiful (and other parts are a tasteless plastic Disneyland just for tourists, and a few parts are homeless meth addict campgrounds). The infrastructure is exponentially better than the Polynesian average. There is substantial, widespread underlying ethnic tension, of varying degrees of subtlety (the most obvious being that many native Hawai’ians resent white Americans for colonizing them, but a lot of the long-established Asian and hapa populations don’t like one another much, either), but most visitors who aren’t looking for it probably won’t notice. Local favorite foods are not to everyone’s taste, but there’s some world-class fresh seafood and fruit around. The pace of life for many people is more relaxed than in a lot of places. The surfing includes some of the best on Earth.
And of course it’s expensive (but islands are usually expensive).
All in all, I mostly like it. Will probably go again.
I can't understand visiting such expensive places. I think the most expensive place I went to that I considered worth it was Spain but thats not even that expensive So no, for me its definitely not worth it.
if anything it's underrated. it's the nicest natural environment I've ever seen.
>such expensive places
it's actually really cheap if you camp. and it's fricking perfect year round so why not camp? You can be comfortable with just a bugnet and a plastic covering for rain.
get the exped megamat 10 and a backpacking quilt. it's just like your bed at home.
you can go to campgrounds that range anywhere from free to like $20 a night. and the $20 a night options will have showers that are SIGNIFICANTLY nicer than your shower at home. It's possible to spend less than $20 a day on a campsite and be far more comfortable than you are at home
Hawaii is shit now. It used to be good but now it's not. See OPs photo, cool right? Sorry it's closed because it's some island monkeys ancestors gravesite and you can't go there. That's what this entire place has become. That are so corrupt nothing works correctly, like some poor AF Asian country but still somehow expensive. Tons of druggies too.
Unironically 3rd countries give better experiences.
Is this true? I heard they have a huge "muh colonizers" whine problem there and they vote Democrat...plus all the rich libshits like Zuckerberg are raping locals
Here right now in Oahu. Today I went cage diving and was surrounded by Galapagos and Tiger sharks.
Very expensive. Every time I leave my hotel I’m spending at least $50.
Waikiki is full of disgusting fat boomers, but there are much better beaches (Waimanalo is a good one).
I prefer the North Shore.
As the other anon said it’s absolutely gorgeous here in places. Ghetto shithole in others.
People are generally nice.
Would like to check out the other islands some time though.
Thank you for transporting me there metaphysically if only for a few moments. That's rabbit island. Saw it many times. Beaches on that side are great. I miss hiking way far up and looking down over that area. The wind up there on the mountains is something else. When I was 20 I thought I could stay out there forever.
grateful to have stirred up fond memories for you anon. this is a truly beautiful place but I feel as though the other islands may offer roughly equivalent landscapes with half the traffic.
Extremely overrated.
Super expensive, extremely racist natives that openly discriminate against "mainlanders" ,but LOVE the revenue from tourism, and leftarded to oblivion.
>extremely racist natives
lmao I spent a month in Hawaii and EVERY single native I met was gracious and nice to me.
I guarantee you that every single person who complains about this is an butthole that treats people like shit. Be nice to them and they'll be nice to you back
>extremely racist natives
been to the 4 main tourist islands and never had this issue. they're nice as frick and welcoming 95% of the time. only time i ever had an issue was when i got too drunk at a 'locals' bar and a few guys told me to frick off before i got hurt because i was being a loud butthole watching NFL
>extremely racist natives that openly discriminate against "mainlanders"
they speak english and follow the same culture as the rest of the country. why do they pretend to be different
Great, went as a teen. But it was like double or even triple the cost of a caribbean trip. I'd recommend going once to the island with Honoluhu for a week and see for yourself. Really it is a place you can see once and be satisfied with.
Went to Honolulu for a week and it was a lot of fun. Scored some great weed off a bum and got drunk and lost downtown. Took a boat out and went snorkeling, the weather was perfect. My only regret was getting a tattoo halfway through the trip and finding out I couldn’t go swimming because of risking a staff infection. Otherwise hiking up the I believe volcano was alot of fun and the food was great. But yeah it’s expensive and I probably won’t be going back anytime soon or ever because of that.
>finding out I couldn’t go swimming because of risking a staff infection
You made the right choice, people have died from swimming after a tattoo and getting extreme staph infections
Kino for sure. Got to share a room right on Waikiki and so paid nothing for lodging. Yes food/drinks were expensive but also got a free meal. Do it if you get the opportunity. This was Manoa Falls I think.
Just did a road trip around big island (flee from boomerkona ASAP towards Hilo/volcano) + mauna kino and I loved it. Honolulu felt like all the lame parts of Miami distilled down and replacing Latin influence with Polynesian. Maybe I just didn't find a good non-touristy area.
Maui used to be nice. After COVID, the price to stay there suddenly went through the roof. Then of course there was the massive fire, and things aren't looking very good. Even if they rebuild and lower their prices (uh, sure, that happens all the time), I think this island is fundamentally unsafe.
Maybe a little off-topic, advise it is better to start a new thread.
Going to Hawaii in a couple of weeks (also first time to the US).
- Staying close to Waikiki
- do not plan to get around too much, visit tourist spots in Honolulu
- beaches
-> noted about Waiki beach full of fat boomers read in another post > Would Ala Moana beach be a better place?
(still it looks like it will rain during those days).
- safety at the beach > not a good idea to leave passport and money unattended on the beach, but how careful should I be?
- Can Anon suggest a quiet bar where one can drink something, relax and not have all the loud music? just a place to chill out.
Ideally between Ala Moana and Honolulu zoo
- tourist places to see in Honolulu
read in the guidebook about Chinatown, Capitol district.
Is there something else worth going to see?
- tipping
how much should I tip taxis and the eateries ( also tip at McDonald's?)
here in Japan there is no tipping custom. I read that tipping must be 25%-30% of the bill which is outrageous, considering the high prices.
>noted about Waiki beach full of fat boomers read in another post
What Waikiki is really full of is Japanese like you on discount travel packages, to the extent there's menus in Japanese at places to eat, something not found elsewhere in the US. I'm not to sure about post-covid but before it was more common to hear japanese than english around there. You'll run into Americans and lower class Americans tend to be fat and Waikiki tends to be more affordable than the exclusive all-inclusive resorts around Hawaii so there you go. > Is there something else worth going to see?
Pearl Harbor site lool. A lot of Japanese do go there though. >how much should I tip taxis and the eateries
Tip at restaurants where the server comes to your table and takes your order and brings your food. 18%-20% is considered polite these days, I wouldn't give more than that. Don't stress over it if the difference is 50 cents or something. It's just generally considered rude to leave a tip under 15%. Tip the bartender at bars a dollar or so for a beer or a few dollars if you order a complex mixed drink. Generally giving a good tip to the bartender gets you better drinks a on the next order. Don't tip at McDonalds, cheap places where you pick up your food and drinks at a counter, etc. You might get asked to but don't have to. If a business has a tip "jar" you can throw small change in there. Taxi drivers, 10-15% so $2 on a $20 ride but add more if you brought luggage. Same with the hotel bellhop if they bring a lot of luggage to your room maybe $10. I would suggest trying to avoid taxis since they're expensive, same with uber, and Honolulu has pretty good public transportation but its slow.
If you want somewhere better to go for beaches you'll have to leave the city. Haunauma Bay and Kualoa are cool. You can get to these places on the bus, but it will take over an hour each way.
thank you for the tips and info, very appreciated.
pity about going farther for good beaches.
We'll se how it works once I get there.
Not really asking a lot, really.
tipping: in Japan tipping is not requested and impolite if done.
In EU it's free and to the discretion of the patron.
Such a codified tipping system means that I have to review my budget.
On the other hand it shows that enterprise owners do not pay enough wages to the staff.
Weird...
If you don't want to spend a lot of money traveling in the US, eat take out food or buffets and buy alcohol at a store and take it back to your hotel. All you can eat food is a thing in the US but nomihodai is not. Alcohol is very expensive at restaurants in the US and adds a lot to the amount you need to tip. Refills of things like coffee or soda are usually offered for free but alcohol is not.
Tipping is a cultural practice that attracts people to restaurant work. I think it would persist even with higher wages as workers in states with higher wages still expect at least 15%
Reason I'm so wired up is that the hotel did not show the tax included price at the beginning.
After booking and confirmation, got the surprise that with the tax and all the extra fees, the price was doubled
>the hotel did not show the tax included price
Tax here is added at the end, unlike Japanese prices which often display the with-tax amount. Hotels have accommodation tax and resort fees that online booking tends to obscure.
>the owners don't pay enough
That's actually the scam that all the burgers fall for. The reality is that service people love to whine about not being tipped enough because tips alone can make us beyond rich working a menial job. The Berlin nightclub in Chicago, for instance, saw its bartenders earning around $57 an hour thanks to tips. That pays more than some lawyers get fresh out of law school. The more we whine, the more idiots think it's a business not paying us enough and forcing the customer to pay instead. The reality, is that the business will pay us, that if we had to give up tips we'd probably refuse the job in the first place, and that we whine because the more and more we can get from tips (15% used to be standard, now that's rising to 18-22% with some places not even having below 20% as an option on clover checkouts) the more we get, and the more people think it's the business fricking us the less flak we get for whining about not getting enough tip money. Essentially, tip culture means we get paid way more and get to blame the employer. It's the biggest grift imaginable because if you tip someone $1 then the employer has to pay them a full normal hour under the fed/state minimum wage.
I never made a shitshow about it as a bartender, mostly glad to rake in the profits of the grift without whining myself, but a lot of my other workers were always b***hing about that shit when blowing whatever tip money they did get on cocaine. It will never be enough for these people, and their incessant whining for some reason actually fricking works.
Nah, it is not obligatory. The servers can get mad at you and make a scene over it if you don't at least tip 15% (which is customary) but it's not something you're forced to do. You also don't tip at fast food places, mostly at an actual sit down + service restaurant and bars.
the times we went snorkeling there are some of my favorite memories. You can go out to the reefs, or to open water, or to see manta rays feed at night.
>the hotel did not show the tax included price
Tax here is added at the end, unlike Japanese prices which often display the with-tax amount. Hotels have accommodation tax and resort fees that online booking tends to obscure.
15-20% is reasonable
If you go to Hawaii expecting to be like a traditional vacation in the tropical third world you will get very disappointed as the prices and quality of restaurants/tourism suck ass. It’s funny cause that’s literally how Hawaii is marketed to the rest of the world
However, when you go with the intention of just being a bro outdoors shit is extremely sick. My best days were spent waking up, eating spam misubi from the abc store, taking a bus to the mountains and just hiking all day in the pouring rain. Other days i did other shit like walking to hanauma bay with a water bottle full of coconut rum and mango juice and just snorkling drunk. The best food was from the grocery stores cause everything there is fresh and local. One day we just got a car and drove around the entire island and I climbed around Sharks cove. Hawaii was awesome and I wish I could live there
This is absolutely true. Hawaii is full of rich americans and rich Japanese executives that don't complain about the extra "resort fee" and drive up the costs a lot. Plus Hawaii doesn't actually produce anything besides fish and fruit so everything comes a long way to get there and costs a lot by US standards.
But it's really easy to have a poorgay vacation on Oahu at least if you are aware that "nice" things are priced out of your budget and plan accordingly. Hawaiians make good food and food trucks and small shops tend to be amazing. Local food is mostly Japanese or a hybrid of Japanese and western though in Hawaii so it might not be what OP was hoping for idk but I've had the best and most authentic sushi in the US in Hawaii. But if you focus on natural things there's usually no cost to do them and a lot can be accessed by bus.
Nah, it is not obligatory. The servers can get mad at you and make a scene over it if you don't at least tip 15% (which is customary) but it's not something you're forced to do. You also don't tip at fast food places, mostly at an actual sit down + service restaurant and bars.
thank you anons for the really useful tips and insights.
I guess I will hand an extra tip to the taxi driver to teach me where the cheap spots are <G>
If you go to Hawaii expecting to be like a traditional vacation in the tropical third world you will get very disappointed as the prices and quality of restaurants/tourism suck ass. It’s funny cause that’s literally how Hawaii is marketed to the rest of the world
However, when you go with the intention of just being a bro outdoors shit is extremely sick. My best days were spent waking up, eating spam misubi from the abc store, taking a bus to the mountains and just hiking all day in the pouring rain. Other days i did other shit like walking to hanauma bay with a water bottle full of coconut rum and mango juice and just snorkling drunk. The best food was from the grocery stores cause everything there is fresh and local. One day we just got a car and drove around the entire island and I climbed around Sharks cove. Hawaii was awesome and I wish I could live there
This is absolutely true. Hawaii is full of rich americans and rich Japanese executives that don't complain about the extra "resort fee" and drive up the costs a lot. Plus Hawaii doesn't actually produce anything besides fish and fruit so everything comes a long way to get there and costs a lot by US standards.
But it's really easy to have a poorgay vacation on Oahu at least if you are aware that "nice" things are priced out of your budget and plan accordingly. Hawaiians make good food and food trucks and small shops tend to be amazing. Local food is mostly Japanese or a hybrid of Japanese and western though in Hawaii so it might not be what OP was hoping for idk but I've had the best and most authentic sushi in the US in Hawaii. But if you focus on natural things there's usually no cost to do them and a lot can be accessed by bus.
I moved to Oahu to be with wife and her family recently. I hate it here this place is a shithole and absolutely not worth the money to get here. There is some decent food here and there, but that is about it.
With a few exceptions, the beaches here are overdeveloped and too rocky.
Culturally, there is absolutely nothing to do. The Midwestern shithole city my mom lives in has far better art museums, symphonies, and related institutions. The Bishop museum (just the section on hawaiian history) and Shangri La are alright.
The "locals" (i.,e. 4th generation asian immigrants) are inbred bellyachers who complain about literally everything while beating their women and doing nothing to improve the squalor and mess they live in.
People working in the tourism industry act nice, most locals are buttholes.
Honolulu feels like Los Angeles these days: shitty dirty inner city with new mcmansion developments all around for military brats to spew in.
Go to a different island if you really want to, but avoid this dump for anything more than a layover.
>most locals are buttholes.
Hawaii is Kino if you are going for the outdoors but this statement rings true. Hawaii natives can triple frick themselves and are some of the rudest, ignorant, fat and uneducated frickers I have ever met.
I’m not quite sure how to measure either overrating or kinoness (kinoicity?). But I have been to Hawaii several times.
I think a lot of both the positive and negative things people say are rooted in the truth. Parts of Hawaii are undeniably extraordinarily beautiful (and other parts are a tasteless plastic Disneyland just for tourists, and a few parts are homeless meth addict campgrounds). The infrastructure is exponentially better than the Polynesian average. There is substantial, widespread underlying ethnic tension, of varying degrees of subtlety (the most obvious being that many native Hawai’ians resent white Americans for colonizing them, but a lot of the long-established Asian and hapa populations don’t like one another much, either), but most visitors who aren’t looking for it probably won’t notice. Local favorite foods are not to everyone’s taste, but there’s some world-class fresh seafood and fruit around. The pace of life for many people is more relaxed than in a lot of places. The surfing includes some of the best on Earth.
And of course it’s expensive (but islands are usually expensive).
All in all, I mostly like it. Will probably go again.
I can't understand visiting such expensive places. I think the most expensive place I went to that I considered worth it was Spain but thats not even that expensive So no, for me its definitely not worth it.
So where were you planning to go with that post?
if anything it's underrated. it's the nicest natural environment I've ever seen.
>such expensive places
it's actually really cheap if you camp. and it's fricking perfect year round so why not camp? You can be comfortable with just a bugnet and a plastic covering for rain.
get the exped megamat 10 and a backpacking quilt. it's just like your bed at home.
you can go to campgrounds that range anywhere from free to like $20 a night. and the $20 a night options will have showers that are SIGNIFICANTLY nicer than your shower at home. It's possible to spend less than $20 a day on a campsite and be far more comfortable than you are at home
Hawaii is shit now. It used to be good but now it's not. See OPs photo, cool right? Sorry it's closed because it's some island monkeys ancestors gravesite and you can't go there. That's what this entire place has become. That are so corrupt nothing works correctly, like some poor AF Asian country but still somehow expensive. Tons of druggies too.
Unironically 3rd countries give better experiences.
Is this true? I heard they have a huge "muh colonizers" whine problem there and they vote Democrat...plus all the rich libshits like Zuckerberg are raping locals
Here right now in Oahu. Today I went cage diving and was surrounded by Galapagos and Tiger sharks.
Very expensive. Every time I leave my hotel I’m spending at least $50.
Waikiki is full of disgusting fat boomers, but there are much better beaches (Waimanalo is a good one).
I prefer the North Shore.
As the other anon said it’s absolutely gorgeous here in places. Ghetto shithole in others.
People are generally nice.
Would like to check out the other islands some time though.
Thank you for transporting me there metaphysically if only for a few moments. That's rabbit island. Saw it many times. Beaches on that side are great. I miss hiking way far up and looking down over that area. The wind up there on the mountains is something else. When I was 20 I thought I could stay out there forever.
grateful to have stirred up fond memories for you anon. this is a truly beautiful place but I feel as though the other islands may offer roughly equivalent landscapes with half the traffic.
Kauai and the big island are kino. Oahu and Maui are overrated
Extremely overrated.
Super expensive, extremely racist natives that openly discriminate against "mainlanders" ,but LOVE the revenue from tourism, and leftarded to oblivion.
>"mainlanders"
Haole
>extremely racist natives
lmao I spent a month in Hawaii and EVERY single native I met was gracious and nice to me.
I guarantee you that every single person who complains about this is an butthole that treats people like shit. Be nice to them and they'll be nice to you back
>extremely racist natives
been to the 4 main tourist islands and never had this issue. they're nice as frick and welcoming 95% of the time. only time i ever had an issue was when i got too drunk at a 'locals' bar and a few guys told me to frick off before i got hurt because i was being a loud butthole watching NFL
>extremely racist natives that openly discriminate against "mainlanders"
they speak english and follow the same culture as the rest of the country. why do they pretend to be different
>leftarded to oblivion.
The people from Hawaii that I've personally known are fairly conservative, including non-whites. You are absolutely larping.
>muh racism
Great, went as a teen. But it was like double or even triple the cost of a caribbean trip. I'd recommend going once to the island with Honoluhu for a week and see for yourself. Really it is a place you can see once and be satisfied with.
It's pretty and the weather is nice.
Went to Honolulu for a week and it was a lot of fun. Scored some great weed off a bum and got drunk and lost downtown. Took a boat out and went snorkeling, the weather was perfect. My only regret was getting a tattoo halfway through the trip and finding out I couldn’t go swimming because of risking a staff infection. Otherwise hiking up the I believe volcano was alot of fun and the food was great. But yeah it’s expensive and I probably won’t be going back anytime soon or ever because of that.
>finding out I couldn’t go swimming because of risking a staff infection
You made the right choice, people have died from swimming after a tattoo and getting extreme staph infections
I was 21 and I was so glad I asked the tattoo artist if I could go swimming afterwards because I had no clue about staff infection.
Kino for sure. Got to share a room right on Waikiki and so paid nothing for lodging. Yes food/drinks were expensive but also got a free meal. Do it if you get the opportunity. This was Manoa Falls I think.
Just did a road trip around big island (flee from boomerkona ASAP towards Hilo/volcano) + mauna kino and I loved it. Honolulu felt like all the lame parts of Miami distilled down and replacing Latin influence with Polynesian. Maybe I just didn't find a good non-touristy area.
Maui used to be nice. After COVID, the price to stay there suddenly went through the roof. Then of course there was the massive fire, and things aren't looking very good. Even if they rebuild and lower their prices (uh, sure, that happens all the time), I think this island is fundamentally unsafe.
Maybe a little off-topic, advise it is better to start a new thread.
Going to Hawaii in a couple of weeks (also first time to the US).
- Staying close to Waikiki
- do not plan to get around too much, visit tourist spots in Honolulu
- beaches
-> noted about Waiki beach full of fat boomers read in another post
> Would Ala Moana beach be a better place?
(still it looks like it will rain during those days).
- safety at the beach
> not a good idea to leave passport and money unattended on the beach, but how careful should I be?
- Can Anon suggest a quiet bar where one can drink something, relax and not have all the loud music? just a place to chill out.
Ideally between Ala Moana and Honolulu zoo
- tourist places to see in Honolulu
read in the guidebook about Chinatown, Capitol district.
Is there something else worth going to see?
- tipping
how much should I tip taxis and the eateries ( also tip at McDonald's?)
here in Japan there is no tipping custom. I read that tipping must be 25%-30% of the bill which is outrageous, considering the high prices.
Thanks in advance
>noted about Waiki beach full of fat boomers read in another post
What Waikiki is really full of is Japanese like you on discount travel packages, to the extent there's menus in Japanese at places to eat, something not found elsewhere in the US. I'm not to sure about post-covid but before it was more common to hear japanese than english around there. You'll run into Americans and lower class Americans tend to be fat and Waikiki tends to be more affordable than the exclusive all-inclusive resorts around Hawaii so there you go.
> Is there something else worth going to see?
Pearl Harbor site lool. A lot of Japanese do go there though.
>how much should I tip taxis and the eateries
Tip at restaurants where the server comes to your table and takes your order and brings your food. 18%-20% is considered polite these days, I wouldn't give more than that. Don't stress over it if the difference is 50 cents or something. It's just generally considered rude to leave a tip under 15%. Tip the bartender at bars a dollar or so for a beer or a few dollars if you order a complex mixed drink. Generally giving a good tip to the bartender gets you better drinks a on the next order. Don't tip at McDonalds, cheap places where you pick up your food and drinks at a counter, etc. You might get asked to but don't have to. If a business has a tip "jar" you can throw small change in there. Taxi drivers, 10-15% so $2 on a $20 ride but add more if you brought luggage. Same with the hotel bellhop if they bring a lot of luggage to your room maybe $10. I would suggest trying to avoid taxis since they're expensive, same with uber, and Honolulu has pretty good public transportation but its slow.
If you want somewhere better to go for beaches you'll have to leave the city. Haunauma Bay and Kualoa are cool. You can get to these places on the bus, but it will take over an hour each way.
thank you for the tips and info, very appreciated.
pity about going farther for good beaches.
We'll se how it works once I get there.
Not really asking a lot, really.
tipping: in Japan tipping is not requested and impolite if done.
In EU it's free and to the discretion of the patron.
Such a codified tipping system means that I have to review my budget.
On the other hand it shows that enterprise owners do not pay enough wages to the staff.
Weird...
If you don't want to spend a lot of money traveling in the US, eat take out food or buffets and buy alcohol at a store and take it back to your hotel. All you can eat food is a thing in the US but nomihodai is not. Alcohol is very expensive at restaurants in the US and adds a lot to the amount you need to tip. Refills of things like coffee or soda are usually offered for free but alcohol is not.
Tipping is a cultural practice that attracts people to restaurant work. I think it would persist even with higher wages as workers in states with higher wages still expect at least 15%
15% seems reasonable.
Reason I'm so wired up is that the hotel did not show the tax included price at the beginning.
After booking and confirmation, got the surprise that with the tax and all the extra fees, the price was doubled
>the hotel did not show the tax included price
Tax here is added at the end, unlike Japanese prices which often display the with-tax amount. Hotels have accommodation tax and resort fees that online booking tends to obscure.
15-20% is reasonable
>the owners don't pay enough
That's actually the scam that all the burgers fall for. The reality is that service people love to whine about not being tipped enough because tips alone can make us beyond rich working a menial job. The Berlin nightclub in Chicago, for instance, saw its bartenders earning around $57 an hour thanks to tips. That pays more than some lawyers get fresh out of law school. The more we whine, the more idiots think it's a business not paying us enough and forcing the customer to pay instead. The reality, is that the business will pay us, that if we had to give up tips we'd probably refuse the job in the first place, and that we whine because the more and more we can get from tips (15% used to be standard, now that's rising to 18-22% with some places not even having below 20% as an option on clover checkouts) the more we get, and the more people think it's the business fricking us the less flak we get for whining about not getting enough tip money. Essentially, tip culture means we get paid way more and get to blame the employer. It's the biggest grift imaginable because if you tip someone $1 then the employer has to pay them a full normal hour under the fed/state minimum wage.
I never made a shitshow about it as a bartender, mostly glad to rake in the profits of the grift without whining myself, but a lot of my other workers were always b***hing about that shit when blowing whatever tip money they did get on cocaine. It will never be enough for these people, and their incessant whining for some reason actually fricking works.
While researching for this trip I often found mentioned that tip was obligatory and around 20%-30%
OTH I wouldn't want to eat at Mcdonald's everyday like that Super Size Me movie
Nah, it is not obligatory. The servers can get mad at you and make a scene over it if you don't at least tip 15% (which is customary) but it's not something you're forced to do. You also don't tip at fast food places, mostly at an actual sit down + service restaurant and bars.
The faux cultural stuff is kino
>drilling luau pit roasted pork, tipsy
>hula dancers, fire dancers
>luau sponsored by penzoil
the times we went snorkeling there are some of my favorite memories. You can go out to the reefs, or to open water, or to see manta rays feed at night.
thank you anons for the really useful tips and insights.
I guess I will hand an extra tip to the taxi driver to teach me where the cheap spots are <G>
If you go to Hawaii expecting to be like a traditional vacation in the tropical third world you will get very disappointed as the prices and quality of restaurants/tourism suck ass. It’s funny cause that’s literally how Hawaii is marketed to the rest of the world
However, when you go with the intention of just being a bro outdoors shit is extremely sick. My best days were spent waking up, eating spam misubi from the abc store, taking a bus to the mountains and just hiking all day in the pouring rain. Other days i did other shit like walking to hanauma bay with a water bottle full of coconut rum and mango juice and just snorkling drunk. The best food was from the grocery stores cause everything there is fresh and local. One day we just got a car and drove around the entire island and I climbed around Sharks cove. Hawaii was awesome and I wish I could live there
Pic related
This is absolutely true. Hawaii is full of rich americans and rich Japanese executives that don't complain about the extra "resort fee" and drive up the costs a lot. Plus Hawaii doesn't actually produce anything besides fish and fruit so everything comes a long way to get there and costs a lot by US standards.
But it's really easy to have a poorgay vacation on Oahu at least if you are aware that "nice" things are priced out of your budget and plan accordingly. Hawaiians make good food and food trucks and small shops tend to be amazing. Local food is mostly Japanese or a hybrid of Japanese and western though in Hawaii so it might not be what OP was hoping for idk but I've had the best and most authentic sushi in the US in Hawaii. But if you focus on natural things there's usually no cost to do them and a lot can be accessed by bus.
Pure kino, but horrendously expensive
I moved to Oahu to be with wife and her family recently. I hate it here this place is a shithole and absolutely not worth the money to get here. There is some decent food here and there, but that is about it.
With a few exceptions, the beaches here are overdeveloped and too rocky.
Culturally, there is absolutely nothing to do. The Midwestern shithole city my mom lives in has far better art museums, symphonies, and related institutions. The Bishop museum (just the section on hawaiian history) and Shangri La are alright.
The "locals" (i.,e. 4th generation asian immigrants) are inbred bellyachers who complain about literally everything while beating their women and doing nothing to improve the squalor and mess they live in.
People working in the tourism industry act nice, most locals are buttholes.
Honolulu feels like Los Angeles these days: shitty dirty inner city with new mcmansion developments all around for military brats to spew in.
Go to a different island if you really want to, but avoid this dump for anything more than a layover.
>most locals are buttholes.
Hawaii is Kino if you are going for the outdoors but this statement rings true. Hawaii natives can triple frick themselves and are some of the rudest, ignorant, fat and uneducated frickers I have ever met.
Overrated. Why would I go all the way to Hawaii when for a few more hours I can go to SEA where everything is cheaper?
Hello Anons and again thank you for the help
It's pricey but nothing that beats Japan
Found a nice supermarket
Not so many fatsos and enough bodies on display
And this
based enjoy your time in hawaii koichi 🙂