7 Hawaii Travel Mistakes Most Visitors Don’t See Coming

Think you can just wing it in Hawaii and figure things out as you go?

👉Free PDF: 20 Hawaii Travel Mistakes

This episode is for Hawaii travelers and people who love Hawaii who want to avoid the small planning mistakes that turn into wasted days, missed experiences, or real safety issues.

👉 Hit play now to learn the seven Hawaii travel mistakes most visitors don’t see coming, so you can protect your trip before those mistakes ever happen.

If you’ve ever wondered how to plan a Hawaii vacation that feels relaxed, prepared, and actually enjoyable, this episode is for you.

You’ll learn what catches people off guard and how to avoid the situations that leave visitors frustrated or overwhelmed.

In this episode of Hawaii’s Best, we walk through seven Hawaii travel mistakes that consistently blindside visitors so you can make smarter decisions from day one.

👉In this episode, you will

• Learn why the ocean, especially right after flying, is more dangerous than it looks
• Understand how island hopping, overpacked days, and walk-up assumptions cost you time
• Avoid common reservation, weather, and cultural missteps that derail plans

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Scroll up ⬆️ and hit play now to plan ahead, avoid costly mistakes, and enjoy Hawaii with confidence.

🤙Resources mentioned:

• First-Day in Hawaii Checklist
• Hawaii Beach Safety Website
• ROPE Research

🎧Related episodes:

• Kamaka Dias from Keep it Aloha

💻Related blog posts:

• Island Hopping in Hawaii
• Kapu Article

🤓Chapters:

• 4:29 Mistake #1
• 6:47 Mistake #2
• 8:20 Mistake #3
• 9:54 Mistake #4
• 11:31 Mistake #5
• 13:00 Mistake #6
• 15:06 Mistake #7
• 16:35 Recap and Final Thoughts

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About Your Host: Bryan Murphy is the founder of Hawaii’s Best Travel & a Certified Hawaii Destination Expert through the Hawaii Tourism Authority, since 2020. An HVCB member since 2019, he helps first-time & repeat visitors plan unforgettable Hawaii vacations w/ clear, practical advice & authentic cultural insight.

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Hawaii travel podcast helps you plan a trip to Hawaii with clarity. Discover practical travel tips, island itineraries, & local insight to help you explore Oahu, Maui, Kauai, the Big Island.

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Talk Story (w/ permission)

Transcript

211_7 Hawaii Travel Mistakes Most Visitors Don’t See Coming

[00:00:00] Bryan Murphy: Alright, so you finally made it to Maui. You wake up at 3:00 AM drive an hour in the dark to catch the sunrise. At Halakah, you arrive to the gate, you don't have a reservation, which means no entry.

[00:00:10] Bryan Murphy: In this episode, I'm covering seven Hawaii travel mistakes that blindside many visitors every single year.

[00:00:17] Bryan Murphy: These aren't just minor inconveniences. Some of these can actually put you in real danger.

[00:00:26] Bryan Murphy: Aloha and welcome to Hawaii's Best, the podcast helping you plan an unforgettable Hawaii vacation with clear, practical guidance. I'm Brian Murphy, a certified Hawaii destination expert, husband and dad of three, and each week I break down what actually matters for your Hawaii trip drawing from local insights and firsthand experience so you can plan with confidence and travel with.

[00:00:49] Bryan Murphy: Aloha. Well, welcome back. You made it to episode two 11 and we're covering seven Hawaii travel mistakes that most visitors don't see coming, and even those who have traveled to the islands a few times on the podcast. We've covered a lot of the obvious stuff. You know, don't touch turtles. Make sure you wear your sunscreen, and that's all important.

[00:01:10] Bryan Murphy: But today I wanna talk about the mistakes that actually blindside many people. And the ones where you're maybe standing at a trailhead being turned away or worse. You're in a situation where your safety is genuinely at risk, and maybe you're thinking yourself, how did I even get to this position? Well, I'm gonna help guide you through these mistakes to help equip you for your trip to Hawaii.

[00:01:31] Bryan Murphy: And before we jump into the first one, if you're happen to be heading to the big island of Hawaii in the next week or two, is something to keep your eye on. You've probably seen Ki Lua, the volcano there erupting a lot. I've never seen anything like this. This the amount of eruptions that are happening and the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory is forecasting that the 42nd lava fountain event.

[00:01:56] Bryan Murphy: Could begin somewhere between February 11th, which is tomorrow, February 11th through the 14th, and the volcano alert level is currently at watch, and the aviation color code is at orange. So what this means for you is like you shouldn't, don't worry about canceling a trip. It just actually means you might witness something incredible if you happen to be traveling to the big island.

[00:02:19] Bryan Murphy: But do stay aware of vog conditions, which is that volcanic haze that can drift to. Surrounding communities, especially if you've got respiratory sensitivities or anything like that, you can keep an eye on the HVO updates if you're visiting Hawaii Volcanoes National Park.

[00:02:35] Bryan Murphy: So now we're gonna get into the seven mistakes and what I thought was really cool, I, I recently asked my community on Facebook.

[00:02:44] Bryan Murphy: Side note. I don't know. I'm loving Facebook again for some reason. If, if you want to come join us, I'll link my page in the show notes below, as in addition to, uh, the Facebook group. I had to restart. I got hacked, my Facebook group got hacked, which is a bummer, so I'm restarting that. If you want to join that Facebook group, guess I'm.

[00:03:02] Bryan Murphy: Cool people over there who love Hawaii traveling to Hawaii. But anyways, I asked my page on Facebook, what mistake caught them off guard on their first Hawaii trip, and I thought their responses were really cool. I wanted to share those with you. Some of these mistakes we will cover most we won't. So that's why I wanted to front load you with some of these.

[00:03:21] Bryan Murphy: Mistakes from over on Facebook, which had almost a hundred comments on this post, but the biggest one was treating Hawaii, like Disneyland, meaning trying to check off every single thing off the list instead of actually experiencing the islands. Another huge mistake was Overpacking. Someone shared their perfect packing list, which is super specific.

[00:03:43] Bryan Murphy: Two shorts, three shirts, walking shoes, sandals. Two bathing suits, sunscreen and toiletries. And, and that's it. And I, I agree with that. That's pretty much what I, I pack, I usually do a carry-on, but we do one check because I don't wanna have to worry about toiletries and sizing everything down for the carry-on.

[00:04:00] Bryan Murphy: So we just, pretty much our check bag now is, uh, toiletries. Alright. And then there was another one. I've heard this one before. And, and that mistake of only staying or hanging out around Waikiki, maybe Waikiki is your budget. And that's totally fair. It's one of the cheapest, most reasonable places to stay in all of Hawaii.

[00:04:18] Bryan Murphy: But the mistake is just staying in Waikiki and not traveling out and exploring the rest of the island. But I thought those were cool. Go ahead and join us over on the Facebook page and Facebook group.

[00:04:29] Bryan Murphy: But mistake number one happens to do with the ocean and that snorkeling mistakes and overestimating the ocean.

[00:04:36] Bryan Murphy: Really, I think this is number one because a lot of this is life and death. This is really the one that I wish more people knew. It's it's snorkeling mistakes and underestimating the power of the ocean. One thing that is super important to look up in your own research is called ROP. It's a condition where fluid leaks into your lungs while snorkeling, and it can happen fast and silently sometimes without any warning signs or struggle.

[00:05:03] Bryan Murphy: I'll leave some of the research below, but I encourage you to do some research on it. Researchers have found the connection between ROPE and recent long haul flights. The theory is that spending hours at a cabin pressure, which is basically high altitude, may alter your lung permeability and make you more susceptible to this condition once you get into the water.

[00:05:26] Bryan Murphy: So the recommendation is to wait at least. 48 to seven, two hours after a long haul flight before you go snorkeling. Now, I know that's hard when you land and you're expecting to get, maybe you wanna go snorkeling right away when you get in, but I would highly recommend to do some of this research on your own, make your own judgment on this.

[00:05:46] Bryan Murphy: But I would definitely recommend from my research. To wait at least 48 to 72 hours, ideally 72 hours. And the second rule is to never snorkel alone. No matter how good you are or how experienced you are, always have a buddy. And, and one of the rules is, you know, I talk about a lot is the 10 minute ocean rule.

[00:06:04] Bryan Murphy: If you look at the water for 30 seconds and aside, it's calm, your. Making a mistake, the swells arrive in cycles and you might see a 15 minute lull of calm water followed by a massive set of waves. So watch for at least 10 minutes before you decide conditions are safe enough to enter. And like I always recommend is to do all this at a Lifeguarded Beach somewhere that is staffed with lifeguards.

[00:06:29] Bryan Murphy: And if this is helpful for you all already, I've also put together a free PDF guide that covers all 20. We're only doing seven in this episode, but I did 20 of the most common Hawaii travel mistakes. It's way more comprehensive than a time we have right now into one episode. I'll drop that link in the show us below first link, go and grab that.

[00:06:47] Bryan Murphy: Alright, mistake number two is trying to visit too many islands. Island hopping within a seven day trip is a lot, and I see this all the time. Someone books a seven day Hawaii trip and they're planning to hit Oahu, Maui, and then Kauai or something like, or Big Island. And I get it, you want to see everything.

[00:07:06] Bryan Murphy: Maybe this is a once in a lifetime trip, but here's what people don't realize is that while inner island. Flight might only be, I don't know, 25, 30 minutes, 45 minutes in the air. The actual, I guess, door to door transfer from your hotel checkout to TSA to the flight or baggage claim to get your rental car and to get into your new hotel.

[00:07:27] Bryan Murphy: That's easily four and a half to, I don't know, six hours minimum. That's half your day basically. Honestly, if you're traveling with a family like we do, it's a lot of work. If my, my wife and I will visit, and if we just island hop, it's a lot easier. You know, we still got a plan for that four, six hour, like that's going to eat into our day.

[00:07:47] Bryan Murphy: But if we're doing it with our three girls, that feels exhausting. Almost as exhausting as that first flight over. So my rule of thumb is one island per week. If you've only got. Seven days, pick one island and go deep into that island and experience it. If you've listened to this podcast at all, maybe you remember back on episode 1 25, I did all about island hopping and helping you to decide what to do based on.

[00:08:14] Bryan Murphy: Your travel conditions, who, who you're traveling with. So I'll link that up in the show notes below.

[00:08:20] Bryan Murphy: Mistake number three is treating top attractions as walk-up spots. This is something that I've have had to learn over the past, I guess, five years or so, when a lot more reservations are starting to roll out.

[00:08:33] Bryan Murphy: You know, Han Bay Diamond Head, HANA State Park. On Kauai and Halala on Maui, these reservations open anywhere from 30 to 60 days in advance. And the most popular time slots obviously sell out the quickest. So I really love traveling to Hawaii as kind of a, I don't know. We get there, see how it goes, go at our own pace.

[00:08:57] Bryan Murphy: We still kind of do that 'cause we've done a lot of these things and we're traveling with. With older kids now we have a couple teenagers and a 9-year-old. This last trip, we were all sick, so we just kind of, you know, stayed in our room and quarantined the best we could. You can't just go to some of these popular spots and expect to just go ahead and get in.

[00:09:18] Bryan Murphy: Panama Bay reservations open just 48 hours ahead of the day you want to go, and they're gone within within minutes of that 7:00 AM Hawaii time release. And a little pro tip that catches a lot of people is screenshot your QR codes and your confirmations before you leave your hotel. Many of these remote sites have zero cell service, so I've heard stories of people getting turned away at Halala because they couldn't pull up their reservation on their phone because they, you know, you just assume you're gonna have self service, but you're not.

[00:09:50] Bryan Murphy: So don't let that be. You screenshot it. And you'll be good to go.

[00:09:54] Bryan Murphy: Alright, mistake number four is overloading the daily schedule. This really goes hand in hand with the island hopping mistake. A lot of people land in Hawaii and plan their days like they're doing Disneyland. Like that one comment said eight stop, three activities, dinner across the island.

[00:10:12] Bryan Murphy: But. Hawaii doesn't really work like that. If you've got some of these spots, you've got single lane rows like Road Hana. There's limited parking at popular spots, and the reality is everything takes a little bit longer than you think. That was something I had to learn the hard way. With toddlers, everything just takes a little bit longer than you plan for.

[00:10:32] Bryan Murphy: And me with a DHD sometimes with time blindness didn't really understand that, but hindsight. Totally get it. And if you're rushing from one thing to the next, you're gonna miss the whole point of being there. So my advice plan, two or three things per day max. We usually plan like one thing per day, if that 'cause some, some days we just like, we're just gonna hang out at the hotel resort where we're staying and just chill.

[00:10:59] Bryan Murphy: But two to three things. Max, you wanna leave room for spontaneity? Some of our best Hawaii memories come from things we didn't plan. You know, it's a random food truck. It's a, a beach. We stumbled on that. We weren't planning on going to, it's a conversation with a local that we just, we weren't planning for.

[00:11:17] Bryan Murphy: You can't have those experiences if your schedule is so packed to the minute. Those really are the things and the memories that you're gonna take home with you. Episode 1 75 covers more about first day mistakes to avoid, and I'll drop that below.

[00:11:31] Bryan Murphy: Alright, moving right along to mistake number five is panicking about the weather.

[00:11:37] Bryan Murphy: This is something that I was actually panicking about a little or a little bit worried because we went, I guess it's been about a month ago now, and we were staying in Colina towards the west side of Oahu. Really? The whole island showed rain all week. And I was like, all right, well I guess, you know, there maybe there was like a one day, and you know, we love catching a movie there.

[00:11:59] Bryan Murphy: There's a great, um, movie theater we like going to, so we're like, okay, we're just gonna get rain all week. And then once we were there, I think we got rain maybe one afternoon and that was it. And then it was just, it was beautiful the whole week. So you never know how quickly the weather can change. And one of the things to, to be reminded of about Hawaii is that.

[00:12:19] Bryan Murphy: The islands have these incredible micro climates. You can have pouring rain on one side of the island and it's bright sunshine 15 minutes away. You see that maybe if you're traveling on H three over on Kaneohe side and and traveling west. And sometimes if you go. Through the Colau Mountains, it's sunny as you get towards more of the west side of the island.

[00:12:42] Bryan Murphy: So when you check your weather app and you see rain all week, don't necessarily cancel your plans. Rain in Hawaii is often brief. It's warm and it's usually localized. And rain in Hawaii is definitely better than. Rain anywhere else in the world, at least in my opinion. Mistake number six.

[00:13:00] Bryan Murphy: Disrespecting kapu signs or trespassing on private property for a hike, for photos, uh, whatever it is.

[00:13:07] Bryan Murphy: This one's really important because kapu means forbidden or sacred in Hawaiian. I actually did a whole article about. Th the word kapu and I'll, I'll put it below. A lot of the study on that came from Hawaiian language teacher we've had on the podcast, Kanu Sorio. So I'll link that article below. But when you see that a kapu sign, be it professionally made or handmade, it's not a suggestion is telling you that this place is off limits often for cultural or spiritual reasons, or because it's, it's just dangerous and really the problem.

[00:13:39] Bryan Murphy: Can be from social media. Social media has made certain spots, Instagram famous, and a lot of these spots are on private property or culturally sacred sites. For example, the Red Sand Beach on Maui, it's in Ha, and I see this posted so often. It's a dangerous trail. You have to cross private property and each time I see someone post an image of Red Sand Beach, I just.

[00:14:04] Bryan Murphy: Kind of cringe, so please be mindful of those spots. It's really obvious if you're going through a rope, a fence, passing a sign that says, please keep out private property. I would just ask to respect that. Respect the locals in those communities. Really, this is where malama comes in. You know, to care for your presence on the islands definitely has an impact.

[00:14:27] Bryan Murphy: And being a thoughtful visitor means respecting boundaries. And even when you see others crossing them, or those in your same party want to cross those boundaries, I would just highly plead and ask you to be respectful of those, because at the end of the day, it's about leaving Hawaii better for generations to come.

[00:14:48] Bryan Murphy: I did a great episode, uh, episode 1 24 with Kama Diaz from the podcast. Keep It Aloha. He talked a lot about Hawaiian culture and the responsibility and what it means to travel with aloha. I'll drop that below just to know anytime I, I reference, uh, a past episode. You'll find it in the show notes below.

[00:15:06] Bryan Murphy: So, Mr. Number seven, and this one I put on the list because when. My wife and I, uh, it was a year ago. We were staying at the Kahala on the east side of Oahu, just outside of Waikiki. I would highly recommend the Kahala. I, I don't know, for families, I don't think I would take our girls there. It's a great, beautiful resort for couples and, uh, we went around Valentine's Day and it, it was just great.

[00:15:32] Bryan Murphy: But I put this next one on the list, mistake number seven, because as we were on our lanai or balcony looking over. People were stepping on coral, like right there. And I just wanted to shout from the lanai, like get off the coral. This might sound obvious, but it happens constantly and the thing to understand is that coral you, but it's alive.

[00:15:52] Bryan Murphy: It's a living organism that can take decades to grow and it can be killed in seconds by human touch or obviously by standing on it. When you're snorkeling, stay horizontal. Wear a flotation device. If you need help staying buoyant, I don't float that well, but don't stand on the reef to adjust your mask.

[00:16:11] Bryan Murphy: And I guess since we're on the topic, just a reminder about sunscreen. In Hawaii, there are chemicals in sunscreen that are banned. That means using mineral based only like zinc. Oxide or titanium dioxide as active ingredients, or better yet, I just got some sun shirts and I'll usually put some just on my arms and face and I'm good to go.

[00:16:33] Bryan Murphy: Alright, so just a quick recap.

[00:16:35] Bryan Murphy: Seven mistakes a lot of Hawaii visitors don't see coming. Number one snorkeling tune soon after flying and underestimating the ocean a lot. Visitor deaths in Hawaii are by drowning, so something to not be taken lightly. Number two, trying to visit too many islands. Number three, treating attractions as just walkups without reservations.

[00:16:56] Bryan Murphy: Number four, overloading your daily schedule. Five, panicking about the weather, six. Disrespecting kapu, signs and trespassing. Number seven, stepping on or touching. Coral. So if you want the full complete list of 20 mistakes, you can grab the free PDF below links in the show notes, first link actually. And if you want personalized help planning your trip, I now offer one-on-one consultations you can have with me and I'll make sure to help you navigate your trip to Hawaii.

[00:17:29] Bryan Murphy: Have some personal recommendations and answer all your questions. You can find that link in the show notes as well. So thanks again for tuning in to episode two 11. If this was helpful, share it with someone who's planning a trip to Hawaii, or go ahead and leave a rating and review in the app that you're listening to this podcast on.

[00:17:47] Bryan Murphy: All right, and until next time, as always. Live with Aloha

[00:17:54] Bryan Murphy: Mahalo for listening to Hawaii's Best. If you found today's episode helpful, make sure to hit follow on your podcast app so you don't miss future episodes. You can find all links and resources mentioned today in the show notes below. Hawaii's Best is produced by Shore Break Media Group, edited by Easy podcast.

[00:18:11] Bryan Murphy: Solutions and with music by our friends, stick figure.