We are in the Hawaiian islands. Our first stop was the Big Island where we stayed with our good friends Laura and Randy.
We first met Laura and Randy at FinCon in 2014. We got along great from the start, having some ridiculously ridiculous conversations right from the start. For an introvert like me, I usually don’t end up laughing so hard that I almost soil my pants days after meeting someone, but there we were.
We don’t live close so don’t see each other often, but when we do, we all pick up right where we left off. It feels comfortable immediately. Because of FI, I have friends all over the world. It’s awesome.
Side note: Hear Laura on Pat Flynn’s excellent Smart Passive Income podcast: Have I Made All the Money I Can in My Niche and if you’re interested in laundromats: laundromats 101
After the Big Island, we headed to Kauai where we are now. Kauai is beautiful, green, wet, and lush. It’s hard to be unhappy when your life contains beautiful beaches, open ocean swimming, and minimal clothes:
A Different Way To Move
This trip is much different than our previous jaunts. In the past, I’d schedule a week-long trip. Then I’d go to the library, check out at least three books on the place, and strategically plan the entire trip. I’d have an activity every day, sometimes more than one.
This is not a satisfying way to travel. Optimization and efficiency are great for many parts of life, but not so great for downtime. I’d get lots of great photos of interesting things, but I don’t think I really enjoyed myself. It also drove Mindy nuts.
This time, I’m doing it differently. I scheduled our trip to be 17 days long and didn’t plan much.
Upon reflection, I have two thoughts.
Thought 1: I like doing the same stuff on vacation that I like doing at home.
It’s satisfying to keep routines. The same activities that keep you happy at home serve you anywhere. Here are mine:
Walking: I go out of my mind if I don’t take a couple of long walks every day. My biggest day here so for was about 40,000 steps (16 miles). Note that half of those steps came from an organized walk from Ke’e Beach to Hanalei:
Walking helps me organize my thoughts and clear my mind. Sometimes I’ll catch up on podcasts.
Exercise: It’s a little harder to find a pull up bar on the road, but usually I can find a playground with monkey bars. You can do push-ups and squats anywhere. And sometimes, you just need to look around. On a random walk, I stumbled on what it quite possibly the best gym I’ve ever seen:
Reading: Books! I’m reading When the Heavens Went on Sale now. Reading is one of the great joys of life. I’m so happy my parents instilled a love of books in me.
Work: A couple of mornings ago, I was going a little nuts. I wasn’t happy and felt out of place and restless. I sat down and write for a bit and could feel my mood lift as I wrote. Humans aren’t meant to sit around all day. I’m not sure how someone can just lay there on a beach doing nothing. I’d lose my mind.
“I should like to know which is worse: to be ravished a hundred times by pirates, and have a buttock cut off, and run the gauntlet of the Bulgarians, and be flogged and hanged in an auto-da-fe, and be dissected, and have to row in a galley — in short, to undergo all the miseries we have each of us suffered — or simply to sit here and do nothing?’
–Candide by Voltaire, one of the greatest books ever!
That is a hard question,’ said Candide.”
Thought 2: Not Planning Is Liberating
Not planning is hard. I’ve lived much of life knowing where I’m going to be at all times. It’s difficult to let it go.
However, I’ve found that a lot of joy can come as a direct result of not planning:
- No set activities for the day.
- Walks without Google Maps with no destination or stopping point.
- Just eating at a random restaurant without spending minutes on Yelp studying reviews.
You run into places you never would have otherwise. You end up talking to strangers. Less stress because of less constrictions.
Travel Kind Of Sucks
The word travel doesn’t sit well with me. I prefer to think of it as a temporary relocation. This takes the pressure and planning out of the equation.
I’m really thankful that I found FI and saved some extra money. It feels great to temporarily relocate every once in a while.
I’m off the the beach to finish my book.
Mahalo for reading!
More 1500 Days!!!
You can also find me (and the dinosaurs) at:
Mile High FI podcast:
Also here:
- Facebook: Facebook group and page
- YouTube: My channel is mostly devoted to home improvement, but I have some other material coming up soon too.
- Instagram: Pretty pictures of dinosaurs, sunsets, and nail guns!
- Twitter: Spontaneous, often insane, ramblings
- Coworking space: On the surface, MMM HQ is a coworking space. Look a little deeper and you’ll see that we’re really building community. The members of MMM HQ are some of the finest people I know.
Join the 10s who have signed up already!
Subscribing will improve your life in incredible ways*.
*Only if your life is pretty bad to begin with.
Great post. Hawaii is beautiful and each island has its own taste and charm. If you are still at Kauai, please visit Hindu monastery. You will not be disappointed.
I also like thought 2. I slowly realized over time, I don’t like the pressure of planning and checking all the boxes (or not checking boxes brings frustration). I used to be the guy creating a google sheet and sharing with my wife , all the things we would do on a particular day. Yes more than 2 activities for sure. However, as we have kids and they tend to take time, that was blessing in a disguise. Now I have a general idea what to do, but do not put pressure on myself or drag my family along with me.
Cheers,
RAKESH
My family visited the big island for a week and it was great with rough outline of things to do and lots of flexibility.
Do you notice you wake up earlier when you are traveling? It’s as if your body just knows it is on vacation. Would like to do slow travel one day when I am FI. Lately, I am using my vacation as alotted instead of letting it sit and accrue. That counts right? 🙂 I’ve seen too many wish they had done more but when given the chance, let it pass and accrue what would have been an opportunity to have more experiences out of life. You guys look like island life suits you. Have a grand rest of your trip!
Funny you mention getting up early! I woke up at 4:30! It was great to watch the sun rise, but not so good when you go to bed at 10pm.
Use all of your vacation time and then some! 🙂
You have the whole beach to yourself!
Wow where’s that weight listing equipment?
I can definitely relate to your thoughts on travel. I’ve always been more inclined to “experience the place and culture” rather than just “seeing the sights”. I have a relative who likes to “travel” and last year tried to rope me into a cruise they had tried to get a bunch of the family to go on. The itinerary was to fly to London, then embark on an 8 day 10 nation European cruise. I get that in Europe the countries are smaller than the US, but I couldn’t shake the notion that “hey, that’s not travel, that’s spending money for the privilege of being able to say ‘I’ve been to such and such a place’ and then to take a few photos to prove it.” I did not see any sort of enjoyment in that sort of stuff. I want to go and spend 2-4 weeks in one place. Preferably a place where I am trying to learn the language so I can get some solid language immersion experience.
Robert, I think 2-4 weeks is awesome. My thinking is it’s best to go to a place long enough where you feel comfortable living like a local with no little to no urgency.
Funny enough, I did just sign up to take my family on a cruise. The main point of it will be for us all to be together, but also have some stuff to do so we don’t drive each other nuts.
I never thought I’d like a cruise, but I found that they’re what you make of them. I don’t like the party scene, but find it a lot of fun to read, walk laps around the deck, and explore the ports on foot. Unfortunately, I usually end up eating too much too! 🙂
I heard you and Doug discussing the cruise on the Mile High FI episode that dropped today. I think the “just hang out on the ship for a week, with maybe one or two port calls” sort of cruise would be not terrible, though probably still not my style. A dozen port calls in a week, however, is not in any way my idea of fun. I’m generally not a fan of cruising, so that certainly has something to do with it. I’d rather spend a week out in the woods, or maybe canoeing.
Also, that sucks about the gutters at your house. I actually discovered a small roof leak during a rain storm a couple of weeks ago (roof is only 5 years old). In my case, I think I had a gap between a couple of shingles, so I sealed it up good with some Through the Roof and so far so good.
I recently did 3 months slow travel around phillipines and SE Asia – I agree – I think 2-4 weeks in one spot is the sweet spot, and then move onto somewhere *NEAR* haha. I don’t like frequently flying (ironic as I’m an ex cargo pilot) so prefer to travel and move slowly
Couldn’t agree more on the slow travel, and not having a “plan” for vacation is liberating. I took advantage of the digital nomad thing in 2021, visiting 4 different states for a month each. You really get to know the community and hidden gems that you may gloss over when on a timeline. Slow travel, just like slow food, is the best way to go!
Grocery shopping in new places is always a blast 🙂
As someone who has extensively travelled the world for work (ex cargo pilot) I must admit, I didn’t really like travel. I felt like I was always rushing, never really experiencing anything, and it just felt like a PITA. However after retiring recently, my partner and I slow travelled for 3 months around south east Asia, and it was a lot more fun. I think its a much better way to do things, take in the culture, not to mention much more economical
Ex cargo pilot! Whoah! In another life, I would have been a pilot. I just took my first helicopter ride yesterday and it was fantastic: https://www.instagram.com/p/CtMwm5-vRye/ Sigh…
Slow travel for 3 months! That sound freakin’ fantastic! We may make it to SE Asia next year. Email incoming!
Went to Hawaii in March. Our trip was 12 days/11 nights…so not as long as yours, but we visited 3 of the islands. The only Island we really had scheduled was Oahu, and that was the shortest stop with only 2 nights there. The only thing we had planned was Pearl Harbor (really the only reason for the stop). We ended up also hiking up Diamond Head Crater as a secondary outing. Loved staying in Hana in Maui….no plans, walk to the beach…pretty much have the entire postcard beach to ourselves…wonderful. Kauai was also a great time and so pretty and lush. Only downfall was that we took a whale watching trip….loved seeing the whales, but did not love the seasickness we endured….so maybe we will stay on shore next time!!
Beth, sounds like a great trip!
Mindy got a little sick on a helicopter ride we took yesterday and Older Daughter Claire got sick on a bus trip to the Napali Coast. Next time we come here, we’re bringing dramamine in bulk!
Kilauea began erupting from the crater last night. If you can, I would strongly suggest booking a quick trip on Hawaiian back to Hilo, renting a car and spending one night at the summit watching the lava with the girls. Its is incredible.
To save some money, you can take a late day flight, and since the park is open 24 hours, grab dinner near the Hilo airport (I strongly suggest loco moco at Ken’s House of Pancakes), then spend overnight hours in the park watching the lava fountains, then take a morning flight back to Kauai…no need to even get a hotel room!
I saw that!!! I’m super annoyed! The last time we came here, it stopped erupting a week before our arrival. Now we leave and it start erupting again!
Maybe we’ll try to make it back over there…
Looks like an amazing trip – I love Hawaii!! Are you cruising out of Vancouver for your Alaska cruise by any chance? If I am in town, I would love to see you – I am also happy to offer recommendations if you’re spending any time here. Enjoy the rest of your Hawaiian adventure!
Cool trip Carl!
100% in the slow travel camp here. We are wrapping up our 12 month trip to Spain in July. And I’ve realized being here how much I love my routine. Pretty much same stuff as you – walking, exercising, reading, writing/creating, meals and time with family and friends.
That’s the good life for me!
Fast trips that are over organized and filled every hour stress me out. Lol.
HI Carl!
We have just reached FI and are ready to take the next step, RE
I want to plan a 1 month trip to Kauai and would love your input.
Where do you stay,,, airbnb, hotel?
Also do you rent a car while there?
Any Info would be much appreciated!
All the best
Emma! I could totally fill you in on this! Shoot me a note at mr1500 at 1500days dot com.
Kauai is GREAT! One quick piece of advice is that I LOVED this beach: https://goo.gl/maps/btMxxFYiXrZKrgXC6
The North Shore is just great. If you go in summer, get a place with AC (not common).
Been in Hanalei since Saturday – the north coast of Kauai is such an amazing place! Hope y’all are deeply enjoying it, hard not too….
It’s so good there! I especially loved this beach at sunset: https://goo.gl/maps/btMxxFYiXrZKrgXC6
I have to mix in work with travel. Even if it’s just responding to emails. Otherwise, when I get back, I feel like I am buried and it’s stressful. Keeping up with your emails keeps you up to date and takes away the stress. Thanks for the great post.
Oh yeah, that’s totally true. We’re trying to dig ourselves out right now.
Carl,
Gotta tell you — I was really happy to read this post! Given some of our recent discussions, I’m glad you’ve found some space to take a trip, to travel, to vacation — “temporarily relocate”, whatever you want to call it! — in a way that works for you and yours. There’s a giant world out there and those differing environments, cultures, food…it all adds a new layer onto how you experience life. The spice of life.
Sights and experiences are wonderful, of course. But it can also be interesting to see how you yourself react to a new environment. It let’s you reevaluate what’s important (and not important!) to you.
As much as I love our adventures, I consistently return home with a new appreciation for what I like and new takes on my routines. That’s the best part.
See you out east soon I suspect!
I love it. I spent a few years traveling most of the time and it was great. I quickly learned that “slowmading” was much preferred to “nomadding.” Doing rapid visits to interesting places wasn’t fair to them, or me! Quick visits just don’t do justice to the interesting cultures around the world. By taking my time and spending a few months in each new spot, I could live like a local and get a deeper and more meaningful experience.