{"id":8780,"date":"2020-01-20T09:00:28","date_gmt":"2020-01-20T17:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/?p=8780"},"modified":"2020-01-19T14:55:48","modified_gmt":"2020-01-19T22:55:48","slug":"big-island-photos-travel-tips","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/?p=8780","title":{"rendered":"Big Island – Photos & Travel Tips"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Bob Sparrow<\/p>\n

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Six at sunset<\/p><\/div>\n

As those who have been there know, landing in Kona<\/strong> at Keahole Airport<\/strong> on the Big Island of Hawaii<\/strong> is like what I imagine it would be like landing at Jurassic Park International Airport while the earth was still cooling.\u00a0 Black lava dominates the landscape all around the airport and you wonder if there is really any civilization down there.\u00a0 But indeed, there is.<\/p>\n

Linda and I were invited, along with Jack & JJ Budd, to Chuck & Linda Sager\u2019s timeshare at the Hilton Grand Waikoloa<\/strong>.\u00a0 We arrived at the complex\u2019s tiki bar just in time to watch the second half of the 49er-Viking<\/strong> game.\u00a0 While the outcome pleased this life-long Niner fan; Linda, a Minnesota native and avid Viking fan, was not that happy, but looking forward to a week in Hawaii seemed to assuage the pain of the loss.<\/p>\n

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Showing rain everyday, except the day we’re leaving!<\/p><\/div>\n

Typically, the colors of the Big Island are a mix of azure blue skies<\/strong> reflecting a sea-foam green<\/strong> ocean, contrasting with uneven natural black lava<\/strong> outcroppings against a variety of lush verdant<\/strong> golf courses, but this week Mother Nature<\/strong> had another color in mind . . . gray<\/strong>.\u00a0 The weather for the week showed rain every day.\u00a0 It\u2019s no secret why Hawaii is so green!<\/p>\n

But we were going to have fun anyway, and as usual, the weatherman was wrong, in fact aside from our first round of golf at Kalani Country Club<\/strong> (previously known as the Big Island Country Club<\/strong>) in a light rain, we never really experienced much precipitation.\u00a0 \u00a0Even in the rain, Kalani was one of the most simply beautiful courses I\u2019ve played \u2013 because it\u2019s \u2018out of the way\u2019 in the mountain and it was raining, hardly anyone was on the course so we played as a six-some \u2013 a most enjoyable welcome round to the Big Island.<\/p>\n

As a \u2018travel blogger\u2019 of sorts, I feel an obligation to share some of the things learned on this trip; so following are a few travel tips.<\/p>\n

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Kona Country Club<\/p><\/div>\n

1st<\/sup> Travel tip: Golf<\/span><\/strong> \u2013 If you come to the Big Island<\/strong> to play golf, forget the expensive \u2018named\u2019 courses like Mauna Lani<\/strong> and Mauna Kea<\/strong> (we played those and we all got across the ocean on the beautiful 15th<\/sup> hole at Mauna Lani and the 3rd<\/sup> hole, from the tips, at Mauna Kea: Big deal!) and play Kalani and the Kona Country Club<\/strong> (south of Kona) – great lay-outs, ocean and mountain views, less crowded and much less expensive!<\/strong><\/p>\n

2nd<\/sup> Travel tip:<\/strong> Food<\/strong><\/span> \u2013 Breakfast was mostly in with all of us enjoying Jack\u2019s smoothies, some delicious bagels, some cheese eggs and some Kona coffee<\/strong> \u2013 although we did find some delicious banana pancakes<\/strong> at several locations, which I would recommend.\u00a0 Lunch was usually late after golf at places like the beach at Mauna Kea Hotel <\/strong>which is looking a little tired these days, Tommy Bahamas<\/strong> in Mauna Lani, or at \u2018On The Rocks\u2019<\/strong> in downtown Kona.\u00a0 We BBQed a couple dinners at our condo and went to Roy\u2019s<\/strong> for a nice dinner, where we met Wayne Newton<\/strong>.\u00a0 But the best travel tip on food is making sure that you find the Malasadas<\/strong> truck parked along the main highway and stop and get a Portuguese doughnut or 12<\/strong>.\u00a0 Eat them while they\u2019re hot, they are delicious!<\/p>\n

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‘On the Rocks’ Kona<\/p><\/div>\n

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Wayne Newton asking to join the Monday Knights<\/p><\/div>\n

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Hot Malasadas Truck, where Jack & Chuck found a couple of tomatoes<\/p><\/div>\n

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3rd<\/sup> Travel tip: Entertainment<\/span><\/strong> \u2013 If you like magic and comedy, you will love the Kona Kozy Magic & Comedy Show<\/strong> in the Mauna Lani shopping center, next to Tommy Bahamas.\u00a0 It\u2019s a small theater, probably no more than 30 seats; we were six of about 12 people in attendance that night.\u00a0 He is very funny, he does some great magic and gets the audience engaged.\u00a0 You can have dinner next door at the Pele Wok<\/strong> restaurant like we did and bring your own alcohol to his show \u2013 I think we brought in a case of wine.\u00a0 A very entertaining evening<\/span><\/p>\n

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Final Travel tip:<\/strong> Drink<\/strong><\/span> \u2013 If you\u2019re planning a trip to the Big Island in the near future and like wine, you should plan on bringing your own, as we depleted the island of most of its supply while we were there.<\/span><\/p>\n

No trip to Kona is complete without a visit to the spectacularly gigantic Kona\u00a0Waikoloa<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>Hilton Hotel, which we visited on our last evening there and watched a beautiful sunset \u2013 yes, the weather was clearing up just as we were clearing out.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Sunset on our last night at Waikoloa<\/p><\/div>\n

A special thanks to Chuck Sager, who knows this island like the back of his hand and was able to get us to all the roads less traveled by most tourists.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Bob Sparrow As those who have been there know, landing in Kona at Keahole Airport on the Big Island of Hawaii is like what I imagine it would be like landing at Jurassic Park International Airport while the earth … read more<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8786,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[813],"tags":[3245,3248,3247,3246,3253,3252,3249,3250,3251,3254],"class_list":["post-8780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-travel","tag-big-island","tag-hilton-waikoloa","tag-kalani-country-club","tag-kona","tag-kona-kozy","tag-malasadas","tag-mauna-kea","tag-on-the-rocks","tag-tommy-bahama","tag-wayne-newton"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Kona-CC.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p31aN0-2hC","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8780","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8780"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8780\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8795,"href":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8780\/revisions\/8795"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}