"Aloha, bruddah" to all my gentle readers. Kauai, pronounced "cow-eye," is called the Garden Isle. It gets lots of rain, has lots of farming, and is less developed than either Oahu or Maui. On the northern coastline one finds the NaPali Cliffs, one of Hawaii's more spectacular scenic areas. Sheer cliffs rise almost vertically out of the sea and continue upward for as much as 4000 feet. No road has ever penetrated the area, and probably will never do so now, given the ability today of environmentalists to forestall any project. Kauai is also home to the wettest place in the United States; in Waimea Canyon National Park they get about 600 inches of rain a year.
We like Kauai almost as well as the Big Island, both have open space and countryside through which to drive. Kauai doesn't have quite the climatic variation that the Big Island has, but it is still charming. Actually, I guess we like Hawaii, Kauai, and Maui better than Oahu, which we experience as over-built and over-populated.
On the other hand, Lanai which we visited in September is very underdeveloped from a tourism perspective. Lanai was once owned by a single company which produced vast amounts of pineapple there. Then it became cheaper to produce pineapple in the Philippines or Central America and the intensive agriculture shut down. Now a few cattle are grazed there. A company town is the only town on Lanai, and it isn't much. Lanai would be a place to go to find solitude but you'd have to make your own entertainment.
Mahalo for your kind attention, and aloha.
