Best Guide Book for Hawaii
 

I am planning a trip to Hawaii and would like recommendations of Guidebooks for the big island and Kauai

Big Island Revealed is the best.

By doing a text search here for best guidebook AND Hawaii, I found this thread

http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34381354

There were others if you want to read some more opinions.

Along with "The Big Island Revealed" by Doughty and Friedman, I always count on Frommers. Their guides to Hawaii are very current, as a rule, and very explicit about those little facts I like to know........

Two books made the honeymoon journey with us to Hawaii last October; Frommers and Big Island Revealed. We spent time on both Oahu and the Big Island and found both books useful. Big Island Revealed is perhaps the finest travel guide I have ever used.

The Ultimate Kauai Guidebook by Wizard Publications - the same people who do Big Island Revealed and Maui Revealed. Despite the controversy, I still believe them to be the best - pictures, maps, reviews, etc. AND fun to read. I also like the Paradise Family Guide to Kauai.

Another vote for Big Island Revealed. Great book!

Before you go all gaga for the Revealed books, please read this:
http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/ar.../ln/ln01a.html

I, personally, am not a fan of the books, but I know most of the people on this website are.

Kama just my thoughts here. I think the first part of that title of the Honolulu article says it all ? Tourist 'bibles' angering Hawai'i businesses?.

The revealed book for Kauai is the only guide I have found that talked about ocean safety in great detail.

In terms of leading tourist into hidden spots, the department of tourism is only unhappy they have NOT done it first. TOUR BUSES INTO MANOA FALLS!!! Why would the city ever ever support something like that.

Go to the Hula grounds just off Kea beach in Haena (Kauai), I recall broken signs and a request for tourist to stay away. Why not fix the sign and tell people its unlawful to enter. The state has no problem keeping campers off the kalalau trail and they patrol to insure this happens. The hula grounds are a stones through literally from the kalalau trail. Patroling the trail is more about keeping long term residents from making root but how about protecting what should be considered a national resource.

LOOK HOW LONG IT TOOK TO PROTECT HANANMA BAY. I can remember in the mid nineties when environmental groups were given hard times by the city for wanting to have information tables telling tourist not to step on the coral. The city actually sold fish pellets that distrubted the diet of the fish. When was the last time you saw a don't litter sign in Japanese, go count the cigarette buts at Makapu lookout. If the city cared about this, if Hawaii businesses saw a relationship between the preservation of the land and visitor revenue all kinds of precautions and protections would be in place. No, Hawaii businesses care more about immediate revenue, so spill off from new gated communities mean nothing. Instead some little guidebook is the source of all their trouble. AGGGGHHHHH!!!!!


HAWAII does not protect HAWAII and that has been true for a long long long time. The dollar rules in the way of land, rights, everything. I know a group of homes on the North shore that were allotted to native Hawaiians. ALL THE HOMES WERE BULDOZED and LONG TIME residents were evicted to create a recreational park to accommodate a new nearby condo project.

The article you are seeing in the Honolulu advertiser is there because Dougherty and Friedman tell people don't go here, its a rip off. This angers the businesses not up to snuff.
Just my thoughts.

Still the best guide book out there, tourists are going to take risks and have accidents. You really can't blame a guide book about this.

I also love the 'revealed' books. They ahve a website at www.wizardpub.com which also is very interesting.

Sarah - I gues it's not so much the businesses I was considering, it was the local people who've had their lawns driven over, or parked on... or sullied by the trash the tourists don't have the consideration to take back with them when they leave... or had their gardens decimated by people who think "that plant would look so good in my front yard at home", so it disappeared into their tote bags...

Granted, not every tourist is as terrible a guest of the islands as the ones who I listed above. Unfortunately, many of them who are seem to be carrying the Revealed Books as they trample through private property.

To quote from the Advertiser article:
"Frank James Oliveira said "99.9 percent" of those who visit Helele'ike'oha Falls, also known as Blue Pool, are armed with "Maui Revealed." Oliveira, whose family owns property that includes part of the pool, said the book is written in such a way that it whips tourists into a frenzy of entitlement that exempts them from obeying "no trespassing" signs and leads them into potentially dangerous activities."

and

"Garett Hew, East Maui Irrigation manager, said the publication of "Maui Revealed" has prompted a marked increase in the number of people trespassing on EMI watershed looking for places to swim and hike. "This is a very sensitive area, and most of the land is zoned in the restricted conservation zone, which means that there are very limited activity that can occur on the land," he said. "Maui Revealed" also has been criticized for telling people how to get to a cove that requires a hike through state-protected 'Ahihi-Kina'u Natural Area Reserve in South Maui."

So, while you complain that Hawaii does not protect Hawaii, it's rather obvious that Maui Revealed doesn't do much to protect Hawaii either...

And do you honestly believe that the authors of the Revealed books are in the travel writing business strictly to share their knowledge of Hawaii? If that was the case, they'd publish their information free, on-line, rather than making money by selling all these books.

Listen I think it is probably safe to say that 90% of Hawaii's tourists come armed with a wizard pub guide. So I am not sure how much of an arguing point that is for Oliveria. Also if you read the Honolulu star bullitin article in its entirty at some points wizard publications are attacked for pointing out private spots other times they are one of many publications to do so and they are attacked for insisting they are only guides with this access.

So they are damed if they do and damed if they don't.

My point is that the government has to take responsiblity for the preservation of the land. That is not going to happen when tourist dollars are at stake. Of course private land should not be tread upon. Blaming a tourist book is really not the root of your problems though. Its the government's responsibility to regulate this sort of thing.

I guess it just surprises me that you would not look for more support from govenment. Maui has been overloading with tourist for years, it will become another Oahu and then the industry will start to dominate\trash Kauai.

Sarah - You said that "the government has to take responsiblity for the preservation of the land... and that Its the government's responsibility to regulate this sort of thing."

OK, So what would you suggest the government do to protect private property and watershead lands? Post more signs that people are encouraged to ignore? How about armed guards at all the places where people trespass? (of course I'm being facetious)

I've lived in Hawaii for a very long time, and I know as well as you do that the government in Hawaii isn't going to do a thing. Nor have they for years. Old Boy mentality does strange things to people (and this is not a case of Polynesian Paralysis, more like Polynesian Coma)... But at what point in time did ordinary people lose their common sense? When did they learn to ignore simple things: rules and regulations? Laws? COMMON COURTESY? And since they seem to be encouraged by the authors of these books to go to places that are off-limits, why shouldn't the authors be somewhat responsible for the problems that have been incurred?

You want Hawaii to be preserved in its natural state? Good luck, it's a little late for that on some islands. And I don't think the Revealed authors would agree with you...they're too busy telling the multitude of tourists where to hike (trample), and also, as I said before, they're too busy selling books. Because if there were no tourists coming to Hawaii, they'd be OUT OF BUSINESS.

kama the kind of thing I think the government should do is post signs, no one beyond this point. If they can find people for coming within 100 yards of a turtle/whale they can find people find on traspassing/destroying private property. With the level of break ins you have on all of the islands I would think that it always a cause of concern when intruders are on private property.

I think the government has turned around Hanama bay (too little to late, I am not sure) they need to continue this with the rest of the state.

I do think it is gross when tourist forget how they would want people to behave in their home community. Not taking that away from you here. I just think the culprit is the lack of government enforcement.

ONE LAST WORD.

I can remember target practise (bombing) by the US military just last year off the west coast of Oahu, on the island (not on the sea). The fact that HOARDS of people from the island did not high tale it down there and protest is beyond me. Its why you don't see the military doing target bombings on the mainland. I am guessing.