Hawaii Diaries #16 – Flight Home From Hawaii

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I was up early and feeling like crap as I was dealing with a full blow cold here. That would make for a crappy flight home from Hawaii.

At the very least, it hit me near the end of trip and I got to enjoy everything before feeling like a wet noodle. We got up late and didn’t have a lot of time so we packed and got going.

The flight home from Hawaii was going to be an all day event. We were leaving in the morning and wouldn’t get to NYC until 5 A.M. the next day. Yay, time zones and super long flights! There were no direct flights so we had to stop in Portland for two hours as well.

Flying back home always sucks. It’s a long flight with nothing to look forward to unlike the flight to Hawaii. However, this one would be even worse since I was sick. I’m not one who can fall asleep on a plane easily so I wasn’t looking forward to the time in the air.

I wanted to stop by CVS before we headed to the airport. Yesterday’s altitude changes did a number on my ears and I hoped they’d have something to help with that. I certainly didn’t want to find out how it would feel as the plane changed altitude.

We picked up some more throat lozenges and luckily, they had some earplanes, plugs that filter air pressure. I was hoping those would keep my ears happy as we drove to the airport.

The airport is tiny as are all the others in Hawaii and we were through security real quick. It’s an outdoor airport with some cover but even though it was warm, the wind was making me shiver. Yay, colds! We had to walk onto the tarmac and up one of those winding upward sloping pathways to get onto our plane.

I won’t spend a ton of time talking about the flight home.

It sucked for 5 hours. Then we got off in Portland where it sucked for the two hour wait and we ate some pizza. The earplanes did seem to help as my ears felt pretty decent.

My shivering got a bit worse so my wife bought me a blanket which now rests on our couch. After that, we boarded, it sucked for another 5 hours and we arrived in NYC in the morning. I think we got back to my father in-law’s place around 6 A.M. and promptly passed out until well after noon. We took a train home, got picked up at the station and got home at night the day after we left.

We left in the late morning Hawaii time and FINALLY got home near nightfall eastern time.

I can safely say that the flight home from Hawaii sucks!

And that was it, our honeymoon was over. The traveling was done and we were back home, ready to get started with our married, post honeymoon life.

So how was it?

I waited to wait to write this post until some time passed to get some perspective. I mainly got a bit lazy and fell behind writing but the perspective excuse is pretty good so I’ll use that. It’s easy to say a vacation is awesome when you’re there or when you just got back. However, it’s important to see how you feel about a place after a few months pass.

Well, it’s been almost 2 month since we left for Hawaii and I still think about it every day. I miss it, especially on days like today when the wind chill drops close to 0 and the sky looks drab.

I’ve said to my wife that I wish we were in Hawaii again multiple times.

Hawaii was simply amazing. The trip was the best one I’ve taken in my life and this is coming from someone who doesn’t live to travel.

I rarely want to visit a place again after I’ve been there. After all, we’ve experienced it all, why not try something new.

Hawaii is different. I want to go back. I wish it wasn’t so far away and so expensive so I could go every year. We’ve already talked doing our 5 year anniversary in Hawaii.

It’s beautiful, inspiring, warm, hospitable and many other positive words. The food was good, the variety of things you can do was good and the entire climate was fantastic.

Hawaii is the perfect place to go if you want a week of jam packed adventure or a week of relaxation. It works on both levels!

Kauai was by far my favorite island. It felt like a whole different world and I was amazed by something new every day. Maui was fantastic as well. However, it felt a bit less unique and more like what you’d expect from an island vacation.

We only spent one real day on the Big Island, not anywhere close to enough to really experience and as such it was my least favorite. The visit was still great but I enjoyed the smaller islands more.

Overall, the trip was fantastic and I wouldn’t have changed anything.

Was 3 islands too much? Maybe but seeing the volcano was worth it.

Packing and traveling between islands does take up a good portion of a day so in future visits, I’d probably go to 2 islands at most. However, if you’re near a volcano, you gotta see a volcano.

I have much more to say about Hawaii and plan a few more posts beyond these diaries. It’s just such a great chain of islands and I want to share more about it with others. Hopefully, my little series of Hawaii diaries can give you some ideas about what to do when you take your trip to this amazing place.

If you’re just joining this one at the end then check out the first post and start from there.

Related : Hawaii Diaries #1

I plan to do a future Hawaii post that combines all the Diaries into one easy to read post so anyone can see what I did each day and read the day that interest them.

Overall, I can’t say enough about Hawaii. It’s a beautiful island and I would recommend it to anyone.

It’s a once in a lifetime experience that I can’t wait to repeat.