The Kauaʻi Companion
$37
App-based with live maps. Always current.
Planning Kauaʻi shouldn't feel like a part-time job.
I plan Hawaiʻi trips for a living. Ten years in the islands, full-time travel advisor, and most weeks, I talk families out of at least three things they were sure they had to do.
The Kauaʻi Companion is the exact framework I use with private planning clients. Same research, same opinions, same order of operations. Previously, it only existed for people who hired me.
What's inside: Where to stay, and how the north shore and the south shore make completely different trips. What to reserve months out, and what you can decide the morning of. Nā Pali, whether you should see it by boat, by air, or on foot. Waimea Canyon, done right. Beaches worth it and beaches to skip, by season, because the water changes. Activities and luaus I'd send my own family to. A real budget framework. A packing list that accounts for what Kauaʻi actually asks of you, rain included.
It doesn't stop when you land. Pull the guide up in the free Trip Plans app and every place in it is mapped. Standing in the rental car line wondering where to eat, tap directions and go. Kids melting down at a beach that turned out to be too rough, the next one over is right there. No searching, no second-guessing, no you being the only person who knows where anything is.
That's the part I care about most. Somebody else holds the plan for once, and you get to be on the trip instead of running it.
Three ways to use it: Live guide in the app, public link on any browser, or a PDF you can download and mark up. All three come with your purchase. Updated regularly.
What it isn't: A list of everything on Kauaʻi. It's a list of what I'd actually do, in the order I'd do it, with the reasons why.
If you get partway through and decide you'd rather hand the whole thing off, I plan trips, too. What you spend here gets credited toward it.