Well, I just completed my first trip to Hawaii and it was great! Instead of doing my typical blog about each day I decided to write up some recommendations since I have had a few friends asking for them. We stayed in an AirBnB (Shout out to Pamela – highly recommend) on the north side of the island which gave us perfect access to the best beaches (in my opinion) but made getting to the southern parts a little difficult. And by difficult I mean an enjoyable 2 hour drive. Before I go into my recommendations let me say this first: Rent a 4×4 vehicle (like a jeep) instead of a car. Makes your life so much easier and opens up various parts of the island. Speed limits are low on the island because of the winding roads (max 65 only on a couple of roads), so please don’t embarrass yourself by renting a sports car. Continue reading “My Hawaii Big Island Recommendations”
Standing on little round top and looking across the battlefield is a heavy experience, until it’s ruined by one of the 50 other people that will be standing there with you. You’ll hear comments from wanna be historians like “I dont get why everyone is so caught up about Gettysburg, there were more important battles.” Even if that’s true, shut up. You’re ruining the few moments I have to stand here and look out over a landscape where 160,000 soldiers fought. There are a lot of tours groups that come through as well. These are led by the National Park Service. You can tell they are official, because they have the funny hats and grey uniforms. I think the most awkward people on the hill have to be the “reenactors.” These are people dressed similar to how Civil War soldiers were dressed back in the day. They stand under the shade and talk in the first person about how they defeated “waves of troops while defending this hill.” To be honest it makes you feel like they are doing a disservice to the people who gave their lives here and while they sound like they know what they’re talking about, I’m not a historian. So who knows. After visiting the hill, I grabbed lunch in town and jumped back into the car for the long drive home. 
Bright and early the next morning I woke to head out to the beach. I’ll give this to the state, they have some nice beaches. Big sandy beaches with fairly easy access dot the coastline. I wish I could have spent the entire day there, but instead I just watched as the sun rose over the Atlantic, felt the sand between my toes, and jumped back in the car to visit something I’d been wanting to see for awhile.
Bivy Life 