My husband and I are really considering Kauai now that we have gotten all the great suggestions from all of you. We live in St. Louis, MO and have NEVER been to Hawaii, much less any of these smaller islands. We are active early 30's. I looked at flight possibilities and was surprised to see that there is a straight shot to Kauai but it looks like it would be very expensive. We cannot go until 2011 so I realize anything would be a huge estimate right now. My question is, How much did your trip cost? Our scenario would probably look something like this...

Kauai for 7 to 8 days..probably choosing the less expensive flight even if it meant getting to Hawaii first from SF from St. Louis and then taking another plane to Kauai (right?). Renting a car once we got there, and then we want to see as much as Kauai as possible..We are both hiking nuts but I promised him we would find time to relax at beaches for at least 2 days We don't mind staying in cheap rooms since we know we will be out most of the time and do hope to do a boat tour, maybe some zip lining, snorkeling and a lot of hiking. The last thing I probably should mention, we would hope to go in the May/June time frame. So, to sum up, How much did your Kauai vacation cost?????

It makes a lot of sense to stop for a day or so on the west coast to gain your bearings... if you take the straight shot its a grueling flight and the time change can throw you off... pick a city you want to see, rest a bit and you will feel better on your first days in Kauai...

We chose to do a pricy helicopter tour in Kauai and it was well worth the money... You have plenty of time to plan and a long time to save... start a Vacation account and I would try to save 10 grand... If you come home with money, You'll be ready for the next trip!!! Have Fun!!!

I think it would be hard to do this for under $4000

It will be much cheaper to fly out of St.L. The AA flight is 10 hours, not too bad. It is about $700 one way. If I were you, I would look at the months of may or sept. So $2800.00 -3200.00 for airfare.

Also you can get nice home/condo rentals through vrbo for $200 or even less. so $1600 to 1800. I had great rentals both in poipu or princeville that were reasonable.

car about 280.00.

Then food and misc. So I definitely agree with placename.

Next you have to decide where to stay, poipu or princeville.

Finally, I have another beautiful hike with incredible views but no beach. If interested just ask.

Bill

Wow! We were hoping to spend about $5000 total. We are going to have to see if we can swing this. Wbpiii...I would still love to know about that hike...maybe it will sway us to go a little higher on our budget.

Agree with the advise to breakup the trip with a west coast stop; we chose San Diego. A car is a must. We rented from http://www.carrentalhawaii.com/, Alamo rental for 7 days, total $206. Please consider staying in a condo. We stayed in Hanalei Bay Resort, VRBO 9222. You can eat breakfast on the lanai, make sandwiches to take with you when you are out for the day, even have dinner in 2-3 nights if you choose. Ours had a washer/dryer which I used a couple of times, especially to get the red dirt out of our clothes after a Kipu Ranch ATV tour. Would suggest you conserve funds where you can and splurge for the helicopter tour. We used Jack Harter, spectacular. Prepare to enjoy Paradise!

Helicopter splurge would be nice.But--- We plan to go to Kauai in 2011 as well www.birdsinparadise.com is the air tour that we hope to do.

I haven't ziplinned in Kauai,but have other places and it is truly spectacular.

Checked logs, condo for 7 nights in Hanalei was $1400

I think you can do it a little cheaper. If you sign up for email notifications, maybe you can get cheaper flights. I got an email last May (I think from travelzoo or clarkhoward.com) that round trip flights from Atlanta to Honolulu, Oahu, were on sale for $276 (including all taxes and fees) per person. So my husband and I went ahead and got the tickets for May of 2010.

If you go to Kauai (and it's one of our favorites), you can find a condo to stay in. Or since you're not going until 2011, and if you like to stay in Marriotts, you could get a Marriott credit card and try to get lots of Marriott points. We've done this before, and have stayed several free nights at the Marriott in Lihue, Kauai.

A helicopter ride is expensive, but if you've never done this, it is great, and I think Kauai is the best island to view from a helicopter.

As far as hiking, that is free, and -- oh, there are SO many wonderful hiking opportunities in Kauai! Also, there are lots of beaches where you can walk in from the beach and snorkel and that is free, too. I recommend you take your own snorkeling equipment so that you can go to whichever beach you want.

We've done a boat snorkeling trip on Kauai, too;, and it's a little pricy, but so much fun.

One time we took our 3 teenagers to Kauai with us, and on that trip we didn't want to spend a lot of money on food/activities, so we didn't. We hiked/snorkeled/swam, and didn't pay for any of it. But even if you pay for a helicopter trip and a boat snorkel trip, you can still save money in other ways.

Maybe try priceline for a car rental, after you've looked at fares so you know what is a good deal. You do need a car on Kauai.

This upcoming trip will be our 5th trip to the Hawaiian islands, and we live in the Atlanta area. We've never stopped on the west coast because we didn't want to waste one of our precious Hawaii vacation days. The first night in Hawaii is hard to stay awake, but try to stay awake as long as you can (we usually only make it until 9 or 9:30), and then the next morning try to sleep as late as you can, and you will adjust to the time.

Get the Kauai guidebook by Doherty (not sure if it's called Kauai Revealed -- it's a blue book) for some good information. Also, on their website (www.wizardpub.com) you can look at aerial views of hotels so you can get an idea of how close the hotels are to the beach. I think it is very much worth it to stay directly on the beach, but that is my personal opinion.

Kauai is, to me, one of the most beautiful places on earth. Have fun planning your trip.

thanks so much for the advise so far to everyone..Samsaf, you have helped my worries a bit with the price tag attached to this paradise. I am looking at websites like expedia and noticing 2 people Air, hotel and car for as little as $2500 for the both of us but feel like those always have a catch to them. We really do want to try to stay at a $5000 to $6000 budget so I will really need to see if it's doable. This will be the last vacation before we start to have kids and I wanted to make it memorable. In case this does get too costly, our other option looks to be California...Yosemite and then to a beach area. I am really going to try for Kauai though...

P.S...I should mention I feel so blessed to even be able to have the means to get to take a vacation...above I sound like I'm already whining...all of you have been such a big help..I thank God my biggest worry is whether to spend over $5000 on a trip ...we are big savers so I think we can save that much by then

I'd balk at the mention of $200 a day for accomodations. You've said you're looking for "cheap rooms" and they ARE available. I'd get an apt (VRBO) for the full 7 or 8 nights for the best savings. Here's where I stayed for a week and I loved it -- nothing fancy, but on a beach, and mid island so it made it easy to go either direction from there to explore. Kauai is NOT that big to begin with.
This place you could probably negotiate for around $750 for a full week. There are lots of others for that or even less.

http://www.vrbo.com/152385

I was looking around @ VRBO and this one looked interesting to me. I have used VRBO three times and have not been burned yet. http://www.vrbo.com/157772

I can't IMAGINE that you couldn't do Kauai for less than $5000 for two of you. Even if you do spend $200 a night on accommodations, that only $1400 for 7 nights, which leaves $3600. Let's just say the air is $750 per person, or another $1500, that still leaves $2100. Car rental - let's just say it's expensive at $60 a day (?) = $420, that STILL leaves $1680, which is $240 a day for 7 days -- that's plenty for activities and meals, especially if you eat breakfasts in, and do a lot of hiking. Obviously, if you can reduce the daily price for accommodations, and if the car costs less, and if the air costs less....

I agree with sf7307. I think his prices are right on. $5000 should be more than enough. We flew from CLE to Maui in October for $614 but I know Kauai is a bit more. I would splurge on the helicopter. You'll never forget it! Get a condo fron VRBO and have some meals in. At least breakfast. Nothing better than coffee on your lanai. Enjoy!

"I am looking at websites like expedia and noticing 2 people Air, hotel and car for as little as $2500 for the both of us but feel like those always have a catch to them."

That's close to what it should be for an inexpensive room.

Check the airlines that fly out of St. Louis. You can get package deals through them also. If the price is almost the same, you may be better off going through them.

Never been to Kauai, but we've gone to Maui many times. $5k is definitely doable for a week for 2 people.

On our first few trips there we booked with Apple Vacations and got really good deals, so you might try that option too. I just ran a sample itinerary on their website - 1 week, STL to Kauai, 2 people, air and hotel, next June, and came up with about $1000-1200/person.

And I completely agree with Samsaf - don't bother to stop on the west coast overnight unless you really need to. It's fairly easy to acclimate to the 4-hr time change (you're in the same time zone as us) and we don't like to burn vacation time either. We fly from Iowa to Dallas straight to Maui - 8.5 hrs. and it's really not that big a deal.

I think great fares to Hawaii pop up occasionally. Maybe if you set up some fare alerts (kayak), you can snag a low fare in May/June.

For us, April 2007 round-trip airfare from Newark, with a change in Phoenix (to Kona and returning from Honolulu), was $485 per person, so once I saw that in January, I jumped on it and immediately made reservations for April. I think non-stop at the time was $900 or so, and it wasn't worth an extra $1600 to us to go non-stop, since we were 4 people.

On the way, home we did overnight in Phoenix at an airport hotel we got for cheap through Priceline. I appreciated the break between the 2 long flights.

thank you so much everyone...I'm going to keep positive that this will work and look forward to finding ways to make this as inexpensive as possible but very memorable

Granted this was not Kauai and I'm in Seattle to start with not St Louis(!), but I believe Hawaii can be affordable if you work on it and are willing to stay in a place that's not hundreds per night, and do your eating cheaply (avoiding high end restaurants, it can still be wonderful). Last month I did 10-days solo in Waikiki for $976 airfare/hotel/transfers, plus spending.