Budget Honolulu Trip
 

Help! I was just given free rt tickets anywhere Southwest flys to use before the end of the year. Hawaii is on my list as I have never been. I need some cheap places to stay and eat and things to do. Do I book one place for 5 or 6 nights or rent a car and travel around. We are active and like outside nature things. Any help with keeping the cost down. Thanks

Many on this forum can give you lots of info on Hawaii.

But, I don't think Southwest flies to Hawaii.

So please double check if you can go to Hawaii with the free trip.

In the meantime, here is a thread with lots to do on Oahu.

http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34696831

You may be able to use your free SW tix to fly somewhere on West Coast and then pick up a reasonably priced charter to Hawaii. Please let me know how your plans turn out - I always have free SW tix and I would love to go to Hawaii sometime!

Well, Southwest is partnered with ATA, which does fly to Hawaii (and may I say, gives pretty darn good service!) so depending on the conditions of your ticket, maybe you can make it to Honolulu!

If you go to the Southwest website and do a search on hotels, the hotels they have listed are quite decent and are budget prices.

Well to keep costs down you could skip the car rental and use The Bus to get around.

For cheap places to stay you could bid Priceline or the like. Otherwise even a good deal for a hotel in Waikiki is going to be ~$100/night most likely.

Cheap eating is easy, lots of options including shopping at the grocery store. Also there's loads of free stuff to do if you enjoy just kicking around, hiking, swimming, taking in free entertainment, make a BBQ at the park, etc.

Thank you for the great replies. Cant wait to sort through all of this.Unfortunately, if we go it will be a short 3 night trip. Question? Is it worth it for a short time coming all the way from the East coast.I know we would want to climb Diamond Head. What else is at the top of your list?

The whole Southwest to Honolulu is one of those "weird" airline thingies. Get this, I can book with SW (it is an ATA flight), from Phoenix to Honolulu, that flight stops in Vegas, HOWEVER, I cannot book a SW flight Vegas to Honolulu...hmm?? So, I can also fly to Honolulu cheap (we also have a few freebies coming from SW), but to use them to HNL, I have to first fly to either SLC or to Phoenix which will then fly back to Vegas.

I can't imagine 3 nights in Hawaii. It's not worth the LONG flight fromt he East Coast and your body will not have time to get used to the 6 hour time change! Honestly, if you only have a long weekend and you're trying to do it all on a budget, I'd fly to Las Vegas and go see the Grand Canyon and other National Parks out West and save Hawaii for another trip when you have more time.

I can't imagine flying all the way from back east for only 3 days in Honolulu, free tickets or not. That's gotta mean several long flights (assuming you cannot possibly fly non-stop) and a big time change to boot. Don't mean to rain on your parade but I wouldn't do it. What happened to the "5 or 6 nights" you mentioned in the original post?

Well, I thought we could go for longer but we have used most of our vacation and I am trying to keep the cost down. Maybe we can squeeze in 4 nights. Coming back we would leave at 10:30pm so we would have the whole day. I dont know. We are also considering Sedona/Grand Canyon but it would be our 2nd trip and its not so warm there. Wish I hadnt made plans to go to San Diego in March.Still wondering if it would be worth it. The tickets are worth $1,125 each. Thank you all for your help.

Heck people travel to Europe for long weekends, so don't let me talk you out of it! I did 4 nights in Honolulu to celebrate a birthday a few years ago, but I fly a 6 hrs. non-stop from Seattle with only 2 hrs. time change to deal with.

If you can get to Hawaii for free, even if it is only for 3 or 4 days, I say go for it. It will make you want to come back for more!