One of the traditions I started for myself is taking a trip to celebrate milestone birthdays. The initial trip that began this trend occurred 10 years ago. To say I had major life trauma not long before this birthday would be a massive understatement. I needed to get and be away. A nice friend and former co-worker had previously asked me to come see her in Phoenix. I took her up on the offer. I had a great time visiting with her and her family, and one of the things I did on my actual birthday was hike on Camelback Mountain. My sister told me many years later "you ran away on your X birthday". Yes, I guess I did. No regrets.
5 years ago I celebrated my next milestone birthday by kayaking with manatees, my favorite animals. I didn't go on my exact birthday, but the trip was in recognition of the occasion. Last year I was having dinner with my mom and said "I don't know where I'm going to go for my (insert milestone birthday)." She immediately replied "You should go to Hawaii and take me with you." Thus, my mom gets credit as this inspiration for this year's amazing trip.
Those of you who know me well know I love a good deal. Our goal for this trip was to have a great time for as reasonable a cost as possible. We completely succeeded. Here are some things we did that really helped:
- Delta was running a special for their credit card: Spend $1000 in 3 months and get 50,000 frequent flier miles, and no annual fee for the first year. Before we got the card, we doubled checked and found that would definitely get us to Hawaii. We each got the card, met the spend requirements, and used the miles to pay for our long haul flight to and from Hawaii. We paid $11.20 each for our tickets (mandatory fees). The fare for these tickets was $986.49. Bonus: Having the Delta card gave us priority boarding and our first checked bag was free.
- Hyatt ran a similar deal for their credit card: Spend $1000 in 3 months and get 2 free nights, and the annual free was also waived for the first year. We each got the card, spent the $1000, and used the free nights on our trip. Mine was 2 nights @ the Hyatt Regency (~$200/night plus tax). My mom's was an even better deal- 2 nights @ the Grand Hyatt Kauai. The rooms there are $500/night, and we got upgraded to an ocean view room (another $150/night).
- For most of the rest of our stay we used AirBnB. It was much cheaper than a hotel, you get much more space, and you often have use of handy facilities like laundry and a kitchen.
We spent 6 nights on Kauai, 4 nights on Maui, and 2 on the Big Island. My total spending for this lavish trip was almost exactly double what I spent on a week long trip to Florida in October of 2016. What's even more impressive:
-We drove to Florida. We bought 3 plane tickets for Hawaii- our roundtrip there and back plus 2 interisland flights.
- I spent $20 on activities while in Florida. I spent way, way more in Hawaii
- We normally ate out only 1 time/day in Florida. In Hawaii we usually ate out at least twice a day
I will be the first to tell you that you can spend oodles of cash on a trip to Hawaii. If you pay full price to stay at a resort, eat all your meals there, and don't look for deals, it would be easy to spend 2 or 3 times what we did. But I'm here to tell you, you can have an amazing trip to Hawaii and not break the bank.
