Family Travel Unpacked: Make the Most of Travel With Kids

Hawaii with Kids: Five Questions People Ask Me All The Time

• Melissa Conn • Season 1 • Episode 13

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Planning a family trip to Hawaii with kids? Melissa shares 20+ years of Hawaii experience, answering the top 5 questions about which island to choose, how to make Hawaii affordable with points & miles, hotel vs condo decisions, trip length, and handling jet lag.

Episode Highlights:

  • Why Oahu (not Waikiki) is best for first-timers
  • How we flew to Hawaii for $11.20 using points
  • Hotel vs condo: which saves money and sanity
  • Skip island-hopping on your first trip (here's why)
  • Jet lag survival tips for East Coast families

Melissa has visited every Hawaiian island with her kids, including a 5-week Oahu stay and two Maui trips in 2024 alone. Get her honest, tested advice on planning an unforgettable Hawaii vacation without breaking the bank.

00:00 Welcome to Family Travel Unpacked

00:17 Why Hawaii?

01:12 Choosing the Right Island

06:12 Making Hawaii Affordable

17:16 Hotel vs. Condo: Which is Best?

21:31 Trip Length and Island Hopping

27:07 Handling Jet Lag with Kids

31:59 Conclusion and Resources

Articles Mentioned/Related:

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Don't miss this inspiring, practical travel with kids podcast hosted by family travel expert Melissa Conn, founder of The Family Voyage, certified Child Passenger Safety Technician, and mom of two who proves family travel is achievable for everyone.

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Hey there and welcome back to Family Travel Unpacked. I'm Melissa, and in case you're new here, you can find tons of detailed destination guides, travel tips, hacks, and more on my website, thefamilyvoyage.com. Make sure to hit follow wherever you're listening so you don't ever miss an episode. Since we're recording this on the eve of winter break and last week was all about snow, today we're gonna flip the page and talk about Hawaii. Specifically, I'm gonna talk you through the five questions I get asked most often by families planning their first trip to the islands. I've been going there for over 20 years now, more times than I can even count at this point. I visited every major island with my kids, including five weeks on Oahu when they were four and seven, and we were just in Maui twice in 2024, plus plenty of other trips. So when people ask me these questions, I'm not guessing. I'm pulling from two decades of trial and error, figuring out what works and what doesn't with kids of different ages. And I'll be really honest: I just can't shut up about Hawaii. I love it. It's one of my favorite places in the world to visit. If you want access to all of my free in-depth Hawaii tips and tricks, head over to thefamilyvoyage.com/hawaii. Now let's dive into the five questions I get asked all the time. Question number one, which island should we choose for our first Hawaii trip with kids? Obviously this is a biggie. I've been to all the islands with my kids, some of them multiple times, and here's what I tell people. For most first timers with kids, I'd recommend Maui or Oahu, but with a really important caveat that I'll get to later. Let's talk about Maui first because that's the most common recommendation you'll hear from people. Think of Maui as like a Hawaii sampler platter- an Aloha mixed plate. It's got a little bit of everything and you can plan whatever kind of experience you want. There are super luxe resorts down Wailea, quaint upcountry farms, challenging hikes on the slopes of Haleakala and amazing snorkeling both from the beaches and from boats. Honestly, Maui makes everyone happy, and if I asked most of my extended family, they'd be happy to go back there every year. Being on Maui truly feels like you're in vacation mode, but I'm gonna buck with convention for a minute and make the case that Oahu just might be the ideal first island to visit. First, the logistics. We live in Ohio, so unfortunately we don't have any direct flights to Hawaii. That means we always have to make a connection and Oahu has more than twice as many flights arriving from the mainland as Maui. It's easier to find flight schedules that work well, and there's much better award availability if you're using points. Now, obviously, every family has different parameters for their travel, but if you are thinking about a different island and the flights are a struggle, then definitely check out the options for flying into Honolulu. Second, and this is based on 20 years of experience, Oahu has the most variety packed into one island. You've got incredible beaches like Lanikai and Waimanolo, history at Pearl Harbor and Iolani Palace, Learning at the Bishop Museum, outdoor adventure with hikes like Diamond Head and Lanikai Pillbox cultural sites like Waimea Valley, and it also has incredible resorts if you wanna just kick back. Now here's the caveat I mentioned before. We love Oahu, but we don't really like Waikiki. It's too crowded, too built up. I call it Beverly Hills on the beach. I find that it's mostly lacking in the aloha that makes Hawaii so special to me. We stayed in the heart of Waikiki for a few days last year because we got a great deal booking on points, but if we weren't staying for free, I definitely would've stayed elsewhere. So when I recommend Oahu, I'm steering people toward other parts of the island. I just think they're gonna offer you a better experience and a more true feeling of being in Hawaii. Ko Olina on the Leeward side has those beautiful manmade lagoons that are perfect for younger kids because they provide calm, protected water. That's also where Disney's Aulani Resort is, if you want that Disney experience. But the Windward coast, that's the east coast of the island, it's my favorite. It's really lush, there are tons of locals and it has some of the best beaches on the island: kailua, Lanikai, Waimanolo. And the North Shore is great too, it's got the real aloha spirit, food trucks, farms, surf culture. Plus you can stay at Turtle Bay Resort, which is an incredible property. We went snorkeling at the Cove on site last year, and it was awesome for the kids. The solution to avoiding Waikiki is just to stay elsewhere on the island and rent a car. It adds a cost and a logistical step, but it's worth it to experience the real Oahu and avoid all the traffic. Now let me talk about the other islands, because they each have their own appeal. The Big Island is amazing for adventure focused families: active volcanoes, stargazing at Mauna Kea, black Sand beaches, snorkeling with manta rays, incredible white sand beaches too. But it's big. You're doing a lot of driving and it helps to split your time between Hilo side and Kona side to really experience the island. The microclimates there can surprise you if you aren't prepared. It might be raining in Hilo while it's sunny in Kona, but that's the case on all the islands. Kauai is probably the most naturally beautiful island. Everywhere you turn, it's lush, green, there's incredible hiking, but it's also quieter and less developed with fewer dining options. My kids are a little older now, and this has been their least favorite island. They just feel like there's less going on. It is also the wettest of the islands, so you have to plan accordingly. We stayed at the Grand Hyatt in Poipu on the sunny South shore, and we loved it, but the North shore, which is really famous and absolutely stunning, it's more of a seasonal destination. It's not really ideal in the winter because it could be rainy, and there are these big North shore swells that make swimming dangerous. Here's what I've learned over all these trips. Your first Hawaii trip is partly about experiencing Hawaii and partly about figuring out what your family loves. When we spent those five weeks on Oahu, we really got to explore different parts of the island and different types of activities that taught us so much about how our kids travel and what they enjoy. So my advice personally, I'd start with Oahu, but Skip Waikiki, stay on the North Shore or the Windward coast if you want the authentic aloha experience, or Ko Olina if you really wanna resort getaway with amenities and super calm beaches for toddlers. Try to get away from your resort and experience a bit of everything. Then on your next trip, because trust me, if you do it right there will be a next trip, you can pick an island that leans into what your family loved most on Oahu... or real talk, if you really just want some r and r, maui is never a bad choice. Now onto question two, how do we make Hawaii more affordable? Alright, let's be really honest. Most people think Hawaii and budget don't belong in the same sentence, and they're not completely wrong. But over 20 years of going there, I figured out how to make it work for our family without breaking the bank. Here's something you might not know. Hawaii is actually one of the best places to use points and miles. There's some really incredible opportunities for both your flights and hotels. If you're flexible on dates, that can really help. September, October and November are generally some of the quietest months in Hawaii so that's when you'll find the best deals. And honestly, when we went to Oahu in October and November, we felt like we had the whole place to ourselves. On the flight side, obviously it depends where you're coming from. West coasters are in for a real treat. You guys can get round trip flights for 30,000 points each if you have basically any transferable points. That's Chase Amex, capital One, Citi. They all work because you can transfer those points to Avianca or Air Canada to book united Flights for Less than United would charge you for those same flights. There are plenty of other opportunities with other carriers as well. For Midwesterners and East Coasters out there, you'll have to use more like 45 to 50,000 points depending on the exact route. If you're feeling a little lost right now, don't worry. I've got plenty of resources to explain everything. Just hop down to the show notes or head to thefamilyvoyage.com/freetravel to get my free ebook, the podcast episode that explains everything, the list of credit cards that'll get your family to Hawaii and back, and plenty more. Now, if Southwest serves your home airport, you're gonna wanna take a look at the Southwest Companion Pass. This magic feature is actually the best thing since sliced bread for families like ours. The Companion Pass allows you to take another passenger with you for free every single time you fly Southwest, you just pay the taxes and fees. My husband and I each have one, and we used them for our two trips to Hawaii in 2024. We paid just$5.60 cents for each kid each way both times. The savings are absolutely massive. The best part is that our flights were booked using points anyway, so we were also just paying$5.60 cents each way. Here's how we get to Hawaii on points and miles. We start booking 10 to 12 months ahead, although with Southwest they don't open up flight schedules quite that early. I use tools like PointsYeah or AwardTool to check award availability across multiple airlines. They're not comprehensive so you always have to verify with the actual airline, but they give you a starting point. Sometimes I might lock in a flight really early, even if it's more points than I wanna use, but then I'll set an alert with one of those tools to look for better options that I can switch to. On the hotel side. There are some solid opportunities to use points in Hawaii, although a lot of the point values have gone up in the last couple of years, just like everything else, right? All of the big chains have a presence in Waikiki, and I think the Hyatt Regency there is a solid value. We liked our stay just fine, but like I said, I don't necessarily recommend staying in Waikiki unless you really like big cities. There are a few hidden gems where I think you can get good points value in a really awesome location. On Oahu, check out the Courtyard Marriott in Laie on the North Shore. It's not a fancy hotel, but I love that quiet part of the island. Marriott gives you the fifth night free on award stays, so definitely plan to take advantage of that. If you have one of the mid-range Marriott credit cards, you can top off the 50,000 point certificates you get every year to add on a sixth or even seventh night. I'll link to one of the cards that gives you that feature down in the show notes. On Maui, the Hyatt Regency in Kaanapali tops out at just 29,000 points per night for a standard room, and you can transfer those points from the Chase Sapphire cards. Again, I'll link to those down in the show notes. That hotel is awesome for families because it has great pools, a water slide, and even animal encounters on site. Gotta love seeing penguins in Hawaii, right? The beach at the hotel has eroded a lot in the last few years, which is pretty common for that area. But if you walk a few minutes north, there's plenty of sand. Another option families really love is the Hyatt Vacation Club that's next door to the Regency. You get access to the amenities at both properties, but at the vacation club you get a full condo for just a few more points. The catch is that the vacation club units tend to open for points bookings pretty last minute. So the smart trick is to book your room at the Regency and then set an alert for the Vacation club on the website maxmypoint.com. If you need to, you can reserve one night at a time as they become available at the Vacation club. Obviously check the cancellation policy, but if your dates allow for cancellation, you can hold reservations at both properties at the same time, and then just pick one when your trip gets closer. If you have more points to spend we absolutely loved the Andaz Wailea in South Maui. It's a lot smaller than the Regency, and it has an awesome beach whether you wanna build sandcastles, go swimming, snorkeling, kayaking, or whatever else. But it can also be as much as 45,000 points per night. We stayed there with Hyatt's top tier globalist status, which meant that we got free breakfast every morning at their awesome restaurant. If we had stayed at the Regency, we just would've had access to the club, which some families like because it offers evening snacks, but the breakfast isn't nearly as good and it's not as accommodating for people like us with dietary restrictions. On Kauai, I'd say the two points hotels to look at are the Grand Hyatt Kauai and the Sheraton Coconut Beach. We stayed at the Grand Hyatt and it's one of the most beautifully landscaped hotels we've ever been to. Unfortunately it jumped up to the very top of Hyatt's award chart since we went and now just like the Andaz it could be 45,000 points per night, which I think is crazy personally, especially since the beach that's on property is really small and it's not calm enough for families to use. But the resort is down in Poipu, which is definitely where you wanna stay for a winter or spring trip because it's the sunniest part of the island. The hotel is really close to Poipu Beach, which is a great swimming spot for families, and also has a bunch of turtles that haul up every evening to sunbathe. The Sheraton isn't nearly as fancy, but the location is kind of interesting. It's on the east shore of Kauai, so it's close to some of the cool Adventurey activities, and it's also an easy drive to either the North Shore or south shore, depending on how the weather looks when you wake up in the morning. That could be really great if you're going in the winter or the spring when the North Shore weather could be unpredictable and you might wanna head to a different part of the island. Some nights at the Sheraton are under 60,000 Marriott points and you still get that fifth night free benefit. Plus you can add on another night with one of those free night certificates. The big island is definitely harder for hotels On points. There's Hilton Waikoloa Village, which is a massive property with more than a thousand rooms. We visited the hotel a few years ago to attend the luau, and I can tell you that the Makai Tower is really nice and it's also pretty close to the beach. But if you get assigned to the Palace Tower, you're gonna end up taking a boat or a tram to get to the beach, which I think isn't great with kids. And on points, you can't necessarily predict which room you're gonna get. If you wanna go that route, call as soon as you book and ask them for the cash price to upgrade to Makai or even an ocean view room in Makai, which is usually pretty reasonable, if not complimentary. Otherwise, there's the Westin Hapuna Beach and the Mauna Kea. Both of those take Marriot points, but they're a ton of points. On the Hilo side of the island, there's the Doubletree Grand Naniloa, and that one's actually in a good location if you wanna spend a few days on that side of the island. There are two things that make this hotel a good value on points. First, you can book directly into an ocean view room at standard rates. That's super uncommon in Hawaii. Usually you have to use a lot more points to get an ocean view, if it's possible at all. And second, every one Amex point that you transfer becomes two Hilton points. I'm seeing some dates as cheap as 25,000 Amex points for an ocean view room that can sleep a family of four. Sometimes there are even bonuses for transferring that can get you up to two and a half Hilton points per Amex point. Now here's a trick for making this an even better value, and it also works at the Hilton Waikoloa Village and other Hilton properties. Open an Amex Platinum or Business Platinum card to get those Hilton points. Those cards give you free Hilton Gold status, so you'll get your fifth night free, and you'll also get about$30 per night in food and beverage credit. All of a sudden, those Hiltons become a pretty good deal. Since you've got gold, you might even get upgraded at no charge. Of course, be sure to ask nicely. I'll link to both of those cards down in the show notes as well. I know there was a ton of info, but I wanted to make sure that you have some really concrete ideas for how you can make points work for your family. It takes some legwork, but once you narrow down which island you wanna visit, you can start exploring all the options. If you want to use points for your flights to Hawaii and your hotels while you're there, honestly I suggest that you get started planning about 18 months in advance unless you already have a lot of points banked with flexible programs like Chase Ultimate Rewards and Amex membership rewards. If you give yourself that lead time, you can open up a new card or two and have the points in place once the booking calendars open up. We've saved tens of thousands of dollars on our Hawaii trips over the years, but it definitely takes some work and planning. But here's the reality check, and this is super important. Even if you can use points and miles for your flights and hotels, you're still usually spending cash on everything else. Food in Hawaii is pretty expensive. A simple plate lunch can be 15 or$20 per person in the tourist areas. Activities add up fast too, and unless you're staying in Waikiki, I personally think a rental car is a must to really experience what makes Hawaii special. Here are a couple of specific money saving tips that I've learned over the years. For activities look into discount cards. On Maui the Shaka Gold Card costs just$30 for four people, and it gives you big discounts on tours. Even booking just one tour usually means you save money on Oahu. There's the Go Oahu card that can save you money if you're hitting multiple attractions in a short period of time. I'll link to both of those down below. But there are also plenty of free or cheap activities to keep you busy all over Hawaii. Driving around the island costs you nothing but gas. Beaches are free and they're public, so you can access any of them, even if they're behind a resort gate. If you bring your own snorkel gear, which I recommend for so many reasons, you can just walk in at lots of great spots and snorkel from shore. Plenty of the best hikes in Hawaii are free to access as well, although a few have paid parking. For food, try to mix it up. Yeah, eat at some nice restaurants. My husband loves finding good hole in the wall places, but also hit the food trucks. They tend to be a little less expensive than sit down restaurants and they have some of the best food in the state. For accommodations, if you're willing to stay in a vacation rental instead of a hotel, you can usually save money versus the cash price of hotels. And of course, you can save a ton on food. This is where a credit card like the Capital One, venture X can really come in handy because you can erase any travel purchase using your points. Plus, if you book your vacation rental through Capital One Travel, you'll get a$300 credit right off the top two. You could use that credit to cover an expensive activity like whale watching or a boat trip to Molokini. When I say make Hawaii affordable, what I really mean is this: use your points strategically for flights and hotels and then just be smart about the rest if you can. When you're paying$11 for flights instead of 1200 per person and your hotels are basically free, suddenly those$20 plate lunches feel a lot more manageable. I touched on this a second ago, but for question three, I wanna address whether you should stay in a hotel or rent a condo. After more than 20 years and all these different trips to Hawaii, I really think there's room for both options even on the same trip. Condos give you more space if you've got multiple kids. Having separate bedrooms makes a huge difference. A hotel room with four people gets cramped fast. Condos usually have a kitchen, a living area, maybe a lanai where you can sit in the morning and have your coffee while you look for rainbows. Also, I love having laundry when we're in Hawaii, it's so much easier to just bring carry-ons when we can run a load every other day. Some hotels have laundry too. My husband and I are probably the only people that spent New Year's Eve doing laundry at the Andaz Wailea. Also nearly all of the condos we've rented in Hawaii come with plenty of beach gear: chairs, umbrellas, coolers, even snorkel gear and boogie boards. Now the kitchen thing is interesting. Even though I don't wanna cook full meals on vacation, having a kitchen means that we can do simple breakfasts, cereal, fruit, yogurt, toast, and save both money and time. Plus there's no time constraint on when you eat breakfast. You can get up whenever you feel like it, sit in your jammies and have cereal and coffee, and then get ready at your own pace. Nobody has to run down to the hotel restaurant and get in line to get a table by 9:00 AM. You can also store snacks and drinks, which really add up in a place like Hawaii where everything's expensive. And these days with our daughter's Celiac disease, having a kitchen gives us more control over safe food options, especially for breakfast. Most of the basic hotel buffets aren't a great option for her, although some of the high-end ones like the Andaz have a great gluten-free selection. It's also really nice to pack some sandwiches to bring to the beach for lunch. Or if your condo has a cooler and ice packs, you could even pick up Fresh Poke the night before. But keep in mind, the grocery prices in Hawaii are high. People think they'll save a ton of money by cooking, but then they get to the grocery store and spend$8 on a carton of milk. So factor that in if you're going the cooking route. Make a stop at someplace like Safeway instead of the more expensive stores like Island Gourmet Markets. A lot of people talk about saving money in Hawaii by shopping at Costco, but that only makes sense if you have a really big group or it's a long trip. Now, here's the flip side, and this is why we sometimes choose hotels in Hawaii. Condos often don't have the same amenities that resort hotels do. There's no fancy pool with water slides, there are no cultural activities like ukulele lessons and local artists and musicians. There's no pool bar where you can grab lunch without leaving your lounge chair on a chill day. Also, if you're using points, your options for condos are really limited these days. You can sometimes book condos through Marriott's Vacation Club, Hilton Grand Vacations, or Hyatt Vacation Club, but the availability isn't great and the points cost can be crazy high. Hotels give you way more flexibility with points, and we've gotten incredible value from our points at places like the Grand Hyatt Kauai and Hyatt Regency Waikiki. With both hotels and condos, you wanna keep an eye on cleaning fees, resort fees and parking fees... all that stuff adds up, and you wanna make sure that you're doing an apples to apples comparison. If you're paying cash, don't just look at the top line nightly rate because that won't reflect your true cost. If you're looking at vacation rentals, be sure to check for the occupancy certificate because a lot of parts of Hawaii now prohibit short term rentals. This is really important because it helps to ensure that locals have access to high quality real estate to live in. And one of the best ways that you can be a good visitor to Hawaii is by respecting those laws. Now there are some great middle ground options to keep in mind. Some hotels have villa or suite options that include kitchenettes, like the Westin Kaanapali ocean Resort villas on Maui, where we stayed with our son when he was a baby so many years ago. There are also plenty of condo resorts around Hawaii, like Honua Kai on Maui, and lots of the outrigger properties all across the state. You get the space and the kitchen, but you also get resort amenities like fancy pools, water slides and onsite restaurants. Here's my honest recommendation for a first Hawaii trip. Stick with a hotel or condo resort. Get the full vacation experience and let someone else handle the details so that you can focus on enjoying your trip. If your family really values having that extra space and you're committed to doing at least some of your own food prep, then you could consider a condo for your next visit to Hawaii. Now onto question four, how many days do we need in Hawaii and should we island hop? Okay, so trip length really depends on where you're coming from and what kind of vacation you want. From the Midwest and lots of East coast cities, Hawaii's about a 16 hour travel day. Once you factor in the airport, the flight to the west coast, the layover, and then another long flight to the islands, it's an incredibly long haul, especially with kids. Plus, we're looking at a five or six hour time change. So for us, I wouldn't do Hawaii for less than a week, and ideally at least 10 days. You need time to recover from the travel, adjust to the time zone, settle in, and actually enjoy the place. Having seven to 10 days gives us enough time to do activities without feeling rushed, have some beach days and not feel like we're on a forced march through a checklist. Plus, for those longer stays, you might even get a discount on your hotel or condo. Of course, I know plenty of west coasters who will do a four or five day trip to Hawaii, especially if it's just to relax at a resort. I get it. The flight for you guys in LA is only six hours and for half the year it's only a two hour time change. If you can make that work and it won't be your only trip to Hawaii ever, more power to you. Now we've done one week visits, but we've also done much longer trips. Our five week stay on Oahu when the kids were younger was incredible. We really got to know the island, explore different areas. We found our favorite beaches and discovered hole in the wall restaurants. And the cool thing on a trip that long is that if you fall in love with a spot you'll always have time to go back a second or even third time. Obviously such a long stay on one island isn't gonna be the norm for most families. But we learned so much about Oahu and really fell in love. To me, a great trip to Hawaii has a balance of adventures or cultural experiences and chill time, whether that's at the beach or the pool, or even sitting on your lanai with a good book looking for whale spouts in the distance. If you're on Oahu that could mean you, spend a few days seeing Pearl Harbor, hiking Diamond head, driving to the North Shore, and then spend a few days just being at the beach reading books, playing in the pool. After so many trips to Hawaii, I can tell you that having that mix of activity and relaxation is the key to not coming home exhausted. Now, let's talk island hopping. Should you do it on your first trip? My take is probably not, unless you have a really long visit planned. Island hopping sounds amazing in theory. You get to see multiple islands, experience different vibes, check more boxes. But in practice, especially with kids, it adds a lot of logistics. You've gotta pack up, check out of your hotel, get to the airport, give back the rental car, fly to the next island, which, yes, it's a short flight, maybe 30, 45 minutes, but it's still a whole production. You have to go through security again. Pick up a new rental car on the other side. Drive to your new hotel, check in, get oriented. It's basically a full day of your vacation spent on logistics. If you've only got a week, spending one or two of those days on inter island travel just doesn't make sense to me. You're better off picking one island, really getting to know it and enjoying a more relaxed pace. You can always come back to visit another island. I'd say the calculus starts to shift if you're gonna be in Hawaii for 10 days or more. Then yeah, you could realistically do five days on one island and five days on the other. But even then think carefully about whether the added complexity is worth it to you. We actually island hopped on our two most recent trips to Hawaii. Over spring break, we spent four nights on Maui, which my husband and I had visited with our son as an infant, and then five nights on Kauai, which was new to all of us. Then on our big multi-gen trip nine months later, we spent four nights on Oahu and six nights on Maui. Both of those trips worked out just fine, but the second one was definitely trickier. We were hopping as a party of 10, which meant we were checking in and out of three hotel rooms and we had two rental cars on each island. It was just a ton of stuff to organize and keep track of. Island hopping is also usually going to be more expensive than staying in one place. Obviously, there's the cost of the flight, although if you book early enough, you can get that for 30 to$50 per person, but everything else is gonna be a bigger expense. If you're staying in condos, you won't get any sort of long stay discount and you'll be paying the cleaning fee on two units. Some hotels give you a discount for stays of five days or more. On the rental car front, generally you'll get a price break once you hit around six days or more. And if you're buying groceries, you need to buy smaller quantities that you can use up in just a couple of days, but you need to buy them twice. It can end up costing you an extra a thousand dollars or more to split your stay across two islands rather than just staying on one. And I say that as someone who's done it a few times. My advice is to pick one island for your first trip. Get to know it. Fall in love with it-or not. Next time you can try a different island. Hopefully with some of the money saving tips I gave you a few minutes ago, you can learn how to make visiting and appreciating Hawaii a regular part of your family's vacation routine. Or if you're really set on seeing multiple islands plan a longer trip where you can give each island the time it deserves. One of my good friends took her family to Hawaii for the first time a few years ago, and they're people who never visit the same place twice. They knew that they wouldn't be back to Hawaii again, so they gave themselves two weeks and they visited all four islands. I can't say that I would ever recommend experiencing Hawaii that way, and I really discouraged them because you'll never move from a checklist to truly feeling the aloha, but it worked for them. Thankfully, they had at least three or four days on each island and they had a great time. And here's a practical consideration in favor of island hopping. If you're using points for hotels, sometimes you'll find great availability on one island but not another. Or you'll find a great award flight that goes into one island and home from the other. Those logistics can make the decision easier and could end up saving you money if you're really savvy. It is time for our last question. How do we handle the time difference and jet lag with kids? And this is a big one. So Hawaii is five or six hours behind the East Coast depending on daylight saving time. It's a major time difference and it affects kids more than you might think. Here's what you need to know. The flight out, you're flying west, which generally feels easier than flying east. If you leave the East coast in the morning, you might get to Hawaii in the late afternoon or evening there time, but your body still thinks it's late at night Eastern time. Try to have a plan in place for a quick early dinner. The kids should actually fall asleep pretty easily that first night because they'll be exhausted. The problem is the next morning they're gonna wake up early like four or 5:00 AM early because their bodies think it's nine or 10 o'clock on the East coast. Here's our strategy. After doing this many times, just embrace it. Seriously. Don't fight the early wake up for the first day or two. If you have breakfast at 6:00 AM so be it. Get up, go watch the sunrise on the beach while you sip your cone of coffee and it's actually kind of magical. You're up anyway, so you might as well enjoy it. Have a leisurely breakfast. Start your day energized. Take advantage of those morning hours when the weather's beautiful and the beaches aren't crowded yet. By mid-afternoon, the kids are gonna be pretty tired and that's fine. Let them take a rest, maybe take a break back at the hotel or a nap if they need to. But here's the key, don't let them sleep too long. If they crash for three hours at 2:00 PM and they're not normally nappers, they're gonna be wide awake at midnight. So get them up after an hour to get them moving again and push through to a reasonable bedtime, maybe seven or eight o'clock local time. It might feel early, but remember, their bodies are still adjusting. By day two or three, they'll be on track, the early wake ups, get a little later, and they can stay up a bit longer in the evening. By the middle of your trip, they'll probably be pretty well adjusted to Hawaii time. Here's what not to do though. Don't try to keep them on Eastern time. Some people think, Hey, if we just act like we're still on Eastern time, we don't have to adjust. But that means you're starting your day at noon, Hawaii time, and eating dinner at midnight. You miss the best parts of the day, the morning, beach time, the perfect light activities that are only offered in the morning. Another thing we've learned the hard way is don't over schedule the first day. Build in some downtime. You'll all appreciate it. So I'd suggest planning something low key for day one. Hit the beach. Let the kids play in the sand. Swim in the ocean. Get plenty of fresh air and sunshine to help you adjust. Nothing too ambitious or structured though. On day two when everyone's feeling pretty good, but they're still getting up early, that's a great time to do something that'll benefit from an early morning. That could be a snorkel boat tour if you have older kids, check out the sunrise at Haleakala- gotta get tickets, visiting Pearl Harbor- gotta get tickets for that too. Maybe drive to the North Shore or check out the road to Hana. The one thing you shouldn't do on the first night or two or three is a luau or some other big nighttime activity. Luaus can be fun, especially for the first few times you go to Hawaii, but they really suck when you have a toddler melting down in the middle of an awesome performance because it's midnight back home. The same goes for stargazing, night snorkeling with manta rays, or watching the sunset at Haleakala. Save those for the end of your trip when everybody's adjusted to Hawaii time. Personally, I like to plan a luau for the next to last night of our Hawaii trip because we always have to spend the last night packing up our stuff. Now let's talk about the flight home. Coming back east is definitely harder. You're losing hours and you're gonna land feeling pretty wiped out. If you can land around six or 7:00 PM and get home by eight or nine, the kids can at least get a decent night's sleep in their own rooms. And then this is really important. Give yourself a recovery day, if at all possible. We're lucky that our school district starts classes on Tuesday after winter break and spring break. So if we get home on a Sunday night, then it's only my husband who has to suffer through the next day. Honey, if you're listening, sorry! I try to use the extra day to handle most of the unpacking, start the laundry, and give the kids a little time to decompress and mentally prepare for going back to real life. One more tip that applies to any long haul trip. Bring snacks on the plane. Lots of snacks. The kids get hungry at weird times when they're adjusting to time changes and having their favorite snacks just makes everything easier. Of course, if your kids are a little flexible, you can also grab some tasty local snacks once you land. My kids recommend Maui onion chips and lilkoi passion Aloha Maid. Speaking of drinks, don't forget about hydration. Make sure everyone's drinking lots of water or aloha made on the plane and in those first couple days in Hawaii. Dehydration makes jet lag even worse and Hawaii's warm weather plus pool and beach time means you'll be sweating more than usual anyway. The good news, and I've seen this over and over with my own kids, is that kids tend to adjust to new time zones faster than adults. By the middle of your trip, they'll probably be on Hawaii time and loving it. Coming home is harder, but that's a problem for future you not vacation you. All right. Those are the five questions I get asked most often about visiting Hawaii with kids. If you're planning your first Hawaii trip, I hope this gives you a solid starting point. I've got tons more detailed guides on my website, Everything from specific island itineraries to where to find the best beaches and what to pack. Head over to thefamilyvoyage.com/hawaii for all that info. Thanks for listening and I'll see you next time on Family Travel unpacked. Be sure to hit follow and leave a five star review wherever you're listening. Until next time, happy travels.