Planning (a trip!) is half the fun

Next week I go to Maui! My first time in Hawaii. Turns out I have $700 for a flight credit due to a cancelled ticket (damn airline ate up $300 in fees!) from last year. And if I don’t travel by Oct 29, 2017, I will lose it! So, the Hawaii flight takes up about $400 and I still gotta go somewhere to use the rest.

Who am I? I am a curious, adventurous woman in my late thirties who loves to call herself a “traveler and not a tourist” 🙂 I am a single mom, of a wonderful, kind, cheeky and funny little boy who’s almost 5! have always loved traveling, and usually enjoyed planning my trip. I also tend to end up in various odd, adventurous, funny and sometimes borderline dangerous situations on my trips over the years, especially when I was single/not a mom.

For example, I was lost in the neighborhoods further ahead from Sausalito to find the biggest redwood trees about 10 years ago, so much so I had to hitch-hike back at dusk and felt lucky to have a kind woman drop me at the Sausalito bus stop to catch the last bus to the city. Another time, I took the wrong train in LA (I know, some of you might be smirking already) and ended up in a bus stop that was very, very sketchy and prayed to the Indian gods for an hour to keep me safe till my friend came to pick me up ! So this time I thought I will write about this solo adventure, if nothing else then to give people a chuckle out of reading this 🙂

This trip is special to me. It is my “eat, pray, love” post divorce all in one beautiful Hawaiian island in 4 days and 4 nights! I am sure I can find peace, love and gelato all in Maui to heal me 🙂 Oh, and if I find David then bonus points 😉 I know I will be back to Hawaii sometime, to explore Maui again and perhaps to explore the other islands.

THE PLAN: The plan is to stay in Paia (North/upcountry) in a hostel (Aloha Surf Hostel) which is not super crazy; although I expect to be the oldest person there! The saving grace is I often get mistaken for a college or even high school student so I can pretend to be in my 20s if it gets to that 😉 I will rent a car from the airport, and then drive to the hostel. But wait, for now, the hostel in Paia is only available starting Friday night, and I land on a Thursday, so I have booked a more social (read: wild parties that I will be a total misfit at probably) hostel on the Thursday night.

Friday morning I hope to get on the free daily tour from the Paia hostel and that will be take me to Lahaina and West Maui. By Friday night, I hope to have talked to a few people and maybe at least one of them is willing to drive to the “the road to Hana” with me. Perhaps I should shut up about my bad driving and hitch-hiking stories, or I will end up alone on “the long and winding road” (love those damn Beatles!).

Sunday is supposed to be street markets and beach time, ending with a Sunday night party on Makena beach complete with fire dancers and music! Monday will be an all day tour through the west Maui mountains, including “Old Hawaii”.

I read somewhere about the best shaved ice in the world – there is a shop in Maui that does shaved ice with real fruits/fruit juice…yum!! And I need to find out about the “black rock” in West Maui where you can just stand in 2 feet of water and see those magical green sea turtles swim all around you 🙂

I am so excited for this trip. I look forward to sharing this journey with you all.

Until next time,

Priyanka