Somehow, Hawaii had brought out the hiker in me. I think in Kauai I finally realized why my childhood in Upstate New York never inspired the hobby to take hold: there is simply nowhere in the Northeast United States that looks like the Kalalau Trail. The full Kalalau Trail is eleven miles one way along the…

Way back in April I introduced Travel Porn, a new feature in which I review books from my beloved travel literature genre. Since then I dropped the ball and only featured one other book! Well, readers, it’s time to  get back on track. After all, there’s nothing like Paul Theroux’s The Great Railway Bazaar to make you want transport…

Originally, Maui was supposed to be my final Hawaiian destination, but then I changed my ticket so I could hang out a little longer at the Banana Bungalow. Around the time all my plans were changing, I saw on Facebook that my blogging buddy Angie was in Kauai. Up until this point, our friendship was strictly…

So far, my adventures in diving in Hawaii had been a pretty wild success. There were the teeming-with-life shipwrecks in Oahu, the awe-inspiring mantas of the Big Island, and now I had the abundant reefs off Maui to explore. I knew my week in Lahaina wouldn’t be complete without getting underwater, so I called my friend…

In addition to my time at The Banana Bungalow, I was lucky to spend an additional week in Maui hanging out at my Aunt and Uncle’s house in Lahaina. I was really excited about this week for a lot of many reasons. First of all, I was getting to spent more time in Hawaii — hello…

At this point, you might think all I did at The Banana Bungalow was hike up enough muscle soreness to justify an entire evening spent in the jacuzzi. But far from it — a vast majority of every Bungalow week is spent beach bumming. Monday is hiking in the ‘Iao Valley, Tuesday is surviving the twisting…