Aloha Oahu

Sometime this summer Leigh made me promise we'd go to Hawaii within the next year or so. This might seem decadent, but one of the perks of living in Alaska is that vacationing in Hawaii is pretty normal and generally cheaper than flying to HI from other parts of the US. Anyway, I had completely forgotten that Alaska Airlines has a big sale every year that corresponds with the PFD dividends being released to eligible Alaskans (I'm not eligible yet but anyone can buy the PFD sale tickets). The only thing is you have to make your purchase before the end of October....

So this week we did some pricing and some math and found a great rate for Honolulu during the first week of April 2011. One round trip ticket was $436 and I used my annual $99 companion fare ticket for the second ticket. Grand total was $590!!! We're flying direct from Anchorage to Honolulu, which is awesome, and we'll be gone for 9 days.
We've decided to pull out all the stops including a car rental for the week so we can see as much of the island as possible. The first part of the week we'll camp near the North Shore in our awesome Hobitat tent. Then we're going to stay in Waikiki for three nights so we can enjoy the restaurants, nightlife and city culture.

Goals for this trip include sleeping in, getting a tan, renting a surfboard, kayaking to tiny islands off the coast of Oahu, eating great Pan-Asian foods, shave ice, and drinking lots of Hawaiian beer and tropical cocktails.
In the next few weeks I'll make our final reservations for the car and lodging, then I need to buckle down and focus on my job for the next 6 months...