Mini Kauai travel and photo guide
My husband and I took a long overdue vacation to Kauai, Hawaii this year. As per usual, I planned an action packed itinerary that took us all over the island. Most of of it was fun, some of it scared the crap out of me, and of course, I took plenty of photos.
I decided to use our trip experience to create a mini photo guide to visiting and photographing Kauai.
You can jump to any section below by clicking on a subject below. You can also see more information by hovering over any photo. Finally, to see the full Kauai Photo Gallery, click here. I hope you enjoy!
- Beaches and coastal features
- Waimea Canyon State Park
- Waterfalls
- Man made features
- Wildlife
- Flowers and gardens
Beaches and coastal features
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Shipwreck Beach is located in the South eastern part of the island where a concentration of resorts are located. This is a high surf beach, so not the best for a calm swim but excellent for sunrise or sunset photos. |
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Spouting Horn is located on the south part of the island and is easily accessible by car with a very short walk to a viewpoint. I don't get terribly excited about blowholes but it was an interesting stop for how easily accessible it was. My husband and I went during the day and I went back on our last night for some sunset shots. There are actually many smaller blowholes in this area. If I ever go back, I'm doing the illegal hike to the rocky shelf to get some better viewpoints. |
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Na Pali Coast is on the North west part of the island and is not accessible by car. If you have not traveled to Kauai, it may still be familiar to you because it was the first view of "Isla Nubar" from the movie Jurassic Park. |
 Sunrise, Queens Bath
Queen's Bath is located on the North shore of the island in Princeville. Getting to the trail head is cinchy. The rest is, well. . . interesting. To get to the trail head, just start driving towards the St Regis of Princeville. The trail head parking is right smack in the middle of a neighborhood (on Kapiolani Loop) and has about a dozen marked parking spots. If you go during the day, prepare to sit in a long line of cars waiting for someone to leave. We drove by in the afternoon to verify the location and there were cars wrapped around the block. I went back before sunrise and I was one of two cars in the lot. I was again hiking in the dark, after a decent rainstorm. This made for a dangerous hike because it was incredibly slick. Having a headlamp helped and I used my tripod to provide support in multiple areas. Queen's Bath was my #1 photographic priority n this trip but I was disappointed. It wasn't as dramatic as I was expecting. I suspect going at sunset and timing the tides just right might have improved my results. |
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Pools of Mokolea is located on the North eastern part of the island near Kilauea. There are two roads that you can use to reach the trail head. One is from Kilauea, but the road quickly becomes questionable with deep ruts so 4wd is required. I drove about 75% of this road then learned the rental car company disabled the 4wd on our Jeep (how rude). Because of this, I had to go with option 2 which is to park at Rock Quarry beach just south of Kilauea, then hike down the long sand beach and cross the Kilauea River outlet, to a rocky shelf that leads to the pools. I hiked this for a sunrise shot which meant navigating in the dark. I had no way of knowing how deep or swift the current was. All I could do was go incredible slow. At the time I went (October) the water came up to just below my waist and I nearly lost my footing twice. I'm sure this is an easier trek if you go in the dry season. If I ever go back to Kauai, this will be my #1 photographic priority. The potential here is pretty awesome. |
Waimea Canyon State Park
 Waimea Canyon
Waimea Canyon is known as the Grand Canyon of the Pacific. It is a really nice feature of this island and can be viewed by car, hiking, or by air. My husband and I drove up one afternoon and stopped at the viewpoints along the way. I also got some nice views on a helicopter tour. |
Waterfalls
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Opaeka'a Falls is located on the interior of the west side of the island, close to Wailua. It is very easy to access and view with a large parking lot. |
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Wailua Falls is also located on the interior of the west side of the island, from Lihue. The road to the falls is paved but narrow and parking is limited so be prepared to wait if you arrive mid day. The view of the falls from here is a bit awkward and partially blocked by foliage. I got better shots from the aerial tour. If you remember the TV show, Fantasy Island, these falls were featured in the opening credits. |
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Secret Falls is is also located on the interior of the west side of the island, from Wailua. It can be reached by kayaking up the Wailua River, then hiking along the North Fork of the Wailua River. I would rate this as an easy hike. The falls were nice but we disliked the kayak tour I chose to get there. I chose a 7:00 am tour so we could avoid the wind and the crowds but our guide was so unbelievably slow that this tour dragged on for 6 hours. Other tour groups continued to pass us as we paddled and hiked. By the time we got to the falls there was close to 100 people there. Although our guide was nice, this entire tour could have been comfortably completed in 4 hours - tops. |
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Waipoo Falls is located in Waimea Canyon and you can get a decent view of it from the pull outs alongside the canyon road and by helicopter. |
Man made features
 Hanalei Bay Pier
Hanalei Pier is located on the North part of the island in Hanalei. This is the section of the island that was hit hardest by a sprint storm in 2018 and the road beyond Hanalei was closed as of October 2018. The park that allows easy access to the pier was also closed so we had to park west of it and walk down the beach to reach it. My favorite view of most piers is underneath so I did that again. |
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Kilauea Lighthouse is located on the North eastern part of the island in Kilauea. The road to reach is is well marked and maintained, but the lighthouse is on the Kilauea Point National Wildlife Refuge and is only accessible/view able from 10-4 Tuesday through Saturday. The entry fee is $10 per person. The actual walking area within the refuge is limited but you can view some of the birds that inhabit the area. I found it disappointing that I couldn't take any photos of the lighthouse in better light but I love wildlife so I'd rather them have the place to themselves as much as possible. |
Wildlife
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Monk Seals are one of the most critically endangered animals on earth, which means they are at very high risk of extinction. These seals were hunted to the brink of extinction in the late 19th century and the numbers continue to decline at 4% annually. The current population is estimate is less than 1,200. I knew all of this before visiting the island and did not expect to see any monk seals but one evening, we decided to pick up sushi and eat at Poipu beach while the sun was setting. To our surprise and delight, this guy was snoozing on the beach. He had markers all around him to keep people from getting too close. I feel extremely fortunate that we got to see one. |
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The Brown Anole lizard is one of the most common lizards in Kauai. Despite that, and my constant searching for one, this was the only one I spotted and was able to get a few pictures of, just 15 minutes before we left for the airport! |
 White-rumped shama
The White Rumped Sharma is a common bird in Kauai and this one was especially generous with his time. I thanked him for his patience while I took several photos. |
 Nene, Poipu Golf Course
The Nene (or Hawaiian goose) is the state bird of Hawaii, and is found exclusively on the islands of Hawaii. It is the rarest goose in the world. This species was also hunted nearly to extinction and was down to 30 birds by 1952. Breeding programs have increased these numbers to roughly 2,500. I spotted these two on the Poipu Bay Golf course on one of my morning hikes. |
Flowers and gardens
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There are at least 5 public access botanical gardens in Kauai, and considering this is known as "The Garden Isle", I expected to see an abundance of flowers while we were there. I was a little disappointed because both the Big Island and Maui seemed to have a wider variety and abundance of flowers. Having said that, the resort we stayed at had a nice variety of the usual Hawaiian flowers you would expect to see. |
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Okay - this was a highlight of this trip for me. We visited the Allerton Gardens on the south shore. I chose this garden because of the very high reviews, but more importantly because it is the home of the fig trees you see in the first Jurassic park movie, where they found the dinosaur eggs that make them realize the dinosaurs were capable of breeding despite the genetic limitations placed on them. These were one of my most favorite things on the island. I could have taken pictures here for at least another hour, but you can only access it by tour so my photography time was limited. |
If you would like to see more of Kauai, check out the full gallery here
A full list of activities we did while visiting the island with the tour operators we went through:
- Zip line tour with Koloa Ziplines. They were awesome and we both enjoyed this.
- Doors off helicopter tour with Jack Harter tours. It was absolutely terrifying and a bit pricey but totally worth every penny!
- Kayak and hike through Wailua Kayak Adventures. They have great reviews, nice people, and are reasonably priced, but the tour was glacially slow.
- Botanical garden tour at Allerton Gardens. A good solid tour. Probably best if you want a low key activity with interesting plants and an easy hike. Kind of pricey but those Jurassic Park fig trees were worth it.
- Na Pali Sunset dinner sail with Captain Andy's. Excellent food, service, and views.
- Flume tubing with Kauai Backcountry Adventures. A fun activity tubing through 5 tunnels over about an hours time. The water is a tad chilly but even I acclimated pretty quickly.
