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The Big Island of Hawaii's Full Service Tour & Transportation Company
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An Affordable RV Vacation...In Hawaii?
by Jeff Coldecott
When I was in my 20's I travelled the world every summer for 9 years. I've been to some 24 countries and as the days get longer every year in May I get an uncontrollable urge to put together a pack and get out of town. Y'know...just go.
At age 42 though, with 3 children and a lovely wife, it's not that simple and things add up so fast when we factor in 5 people that my travel bug is crushed by the realities of family travel. Yet I'd like to introduce my kids (7, 9 and 11) to the joys of travel and get them away from their TV's, cellphones, IPods and computers if even for a week.
My Wife (also an avid traveller in her youth) and I both contribute to a summer vacation fund. We put in what we can over the year, any extra side jobs I get go to the vacation fund. It's a priority for us...we both work hard all year...we deserve a week with our family of pure enjoyment. This year though as we began to plan our vacation many obstacles jumped up at us. We had just over $3000 in our vacation fund. Everything we looked at was out of our budget. We wanted to do something in nature...something we hadn't done before.
By chance I discovered a website for Island RV based out of Kona on the Big Island of Hawaii. We talked to Clark who very politely informed us that we could tour the Big Island by RV and camp as we go, cooking what we like and he would set us up with everything we needed. I was so excited I called my wife at work.
We live in Honolulu so we could get the flights to Kona for all of us at a good price. Actually we had been using our Hawaiian Miles Credit Card all year and had enough for 3 of us to go free. When we calculated food costs, gas and the RV package tour we were still well within our budget.
We announced to the kids our summer vacation intentions and I assigned each child to research one place on the Big Island they wanted to go. Whenever we travel I have to try to educate as well. (Could you tell I am a teacher?) The kids seemed to get more excited as they began to consider living volcanoes, swimming with dolphins and hiking into Waipio Valley.
My wife who lives on a very strict vegetarian diet (Not me and the kids though) began to plan the menu for each day and also seemed to get excited as the day drew near. Island RV supplied us with many recommendations of where we could spend the night and even did all of the leg work for getting the permits. I'm an old hand at getting camping permits but at my age...to just show up and go is about as good as it gets. It freed me up to focus on other things including how I could do some fishing on the Big Island.
When the day arrived we were met at the airport by Clark Carr, the owner of Island RV, who took us to his baseyard to check-in. We went over the details of the insurance and how everything works on the RV and in about 90 minutes we were on our way.
You can read about and see the entire trip with photos and videos HERE.
It was a spectacular week, we had a blast and let me put down a few things that I hadn't considered before we took the trip.
1) Even a moderately priced hotel in Hawaii in the summer starts at about $199 a night. We would have
needed 2 rooms. ($199 X 2 = $398 X 6 nights = $2388 + 11% tax)
2) It actually turned out we did less driving to see what we wanted to see because we didn't have to return
to the hotel everynight and when we arrived we were there to enjoy. (By the way I kept track and we did
a total of 9.25 hours of driving for the week!!)
3) The fact that we could buy and cook our own meals probably saved us $400 plus dollars for the week.
(Even though we were camping we were never far from a supermarket if we needed supplies.
4.) We were really able to meet and talk with the "locals" which for us is a great pleasure.
The total cost for the week=
$2292 (RV Rental)
$200 Food
$89 Gas
$150 Misc Shopping
$240 Flights from Oahu
Total= $2971
Without a doubt RVing on the Big Island was one of the funnest vacations in recent memory. Happy Trails!
Island RV
75-5785 Kuakini Hwy. Kailua, Kona, HI 96740 email: Info@islandrv.com
Call Us Toll Free at: 800-406-4555 or In Hawaii at: 334-0959
