An Oahu Road Trip with Gypsy Guide
The day after we went scuba diving we rented a car to explore the island. Oahu is the third largest island of all of the Hawaiian Islands. However, you can drive around the island, with stops included, in about 8 hours. The night before we downloaded the Gypsy Guide for Oahu – a really awesome self-drive tour iPhone/Android app that provides you with cool historic bits as you drive around the island. It tells you where to stop and what's next (including driving directions) since it's based on your global positioning. You can buy it at the App Store, plug it into your auxiliary port (or in our case, turn up the volume really high) and start driving! We rented a cute Fiat from Enterprise for the day.
We stayed right next to Diamond Head so we started our driving tour there. We were going to stop at Pearl Harbor, but that particular day was sold out. If you plan to visit the Memorial, get tickets well in advance! They sell out fast and there's no guarantee you'll get a free one on site. You can get them here. So instead we got on the highway and headed to the Dole Plantation!
We ate Dole Whip and walked around the gift shop. We didn't take the Plantation tour, we heard it was overrated. If you went, what did you think?
We hopped on the car and drove past so many fields. Hawaii is so beautiful. The weather was breezy and kinda warm – enough to keep the windows down. We headed up to the North Shore. We stopped at Matsumoto for their famous shaved ice. We got the guava-flavored shaved ice. It was delicious and the perfect (first) snack for the drive.
After passing the surf shops, we arrived at one of the many beaches, parked and walked over to the sand. We walked over rocks and around the shore. The cloudy day was definitely feeding my soul. It was the perfect temperature.
As we headed out of the area, I spied a shrimp truck in a gas station and no, it wasn't the famous Giovanni's. It was a giant blue truck that would quickly change our life. [I mean, I just told Alex if he remembers it and he closed his eyes and sighed. It's that good!] We stopped at the Blue Water Shrimp Truck and got a garlic shrimp plate to share. The plate was huge — packed with rice, pineapple and delicious shrimps with an amazing sauce on top. If you're ever in the area, make sure to stop by. You won't regret it! We pondered on getting more, but we knew we had more shrimp trucks after this.
Our next stop was Turtle Beach, where sea turtles hang out by the shore and you can see them up close. There's a volunteer group that keeps an eye on tourists and makes sure that no one disturbs them, but you can still get really close. To get there, you park on the side of the road and cross the street to the beach. It's really easy to get to and the app tells you when you get there as there's no sign.
We stopped at Giovanni's Shrimp Truck for another snack and it was a bit underwhelming. The shrimp were chewy, small and didn't have much flavor. It was much more expensive for way less food. I know this is a popular stop but I personally did not think it lived up to the hype.
My favorite stop of the tour was Lai'e Point. We parked our cars and saw the large islet in the distance with a giant hole in it. The waves in this area are large and powerful. The fog made everything better. I'm a huge fan of cloudy, rainy days so I'm glad it turned out that way.
We skipped the Polynesian Cultural Center and stopped at the Chinaman's Hat. Since it was raining at this point, none of the pictures came out. Our next and last stop was the Byodo-In Temple. It was pouring by the time we got there. Even then, I'm glad we stopped. The temple was built in 1968 to commemorate the 100 year anniversary of the first Japanese immigrants to Hawaii. It made us nostalgic for our Japan trip.
We got back around 5 p.m. and returned our car to Enterprise. (Pro tip: Just rent your car for one day at a time since parking fees in Hawaii are crazy high! We used Kayak to rent ours for about $35/day) That night we stopped for some ramen at Marakame Udon. It was a delicious and cheap treat! I strongly recommend Gypsy Guide for your Oahu road trip since you can stop whenever and enjoy the scenery. It was nice to see the island without the pressure of a group tour.
Have ever done a road trip in Hawaii or elsewhere in the world?
Read more about our scuba diving experience in Oahu here and how we found cheap tickets to Hawaii here.
These pictures were taken on February 2014. You can download Gypsy Guide here.
