Lonely Planet Hawaii Travel Guide
Honolulu, Oahu, Kauai, Lanai, Maui Vacations, Hiking and Beaches
Oct 6, 2007
The new Lonely Planet travel guide to Hawaii is the guidebook's 8th edition. It took 6 authors to produce its 608 pages, and they drove 5328 miles and checked out 148 beaches, as well as numerous vacation resorts, hiking trails, restaurants, nightlife, the best surfing and best shopping.
In response to reader demand, the new edition has added expanded surfing coverage and added more listings for outfitters, Hawaii tours and sustainable travel experiences. There are several new color magazine sections too, including one on the Outdoors and another called Voices from the Islands. This is a 'meet the locals' feature, where readers learn a little more about life on the islands from people like Allen Tom, who's the Pacific Islands Regional Director for the National Marine Sanctuaries, and Lyndsey Haraguchi-Nakayama, a taro farmer from Hanalei.
The new Lonely Planet Hawaii guidebook's six writers include
- Luci Yamamoto, a 4th-generation native of Hawaii
- Jeff Campbell, who spent his honeymoon on Kauai
- Ned Friary and Glenda Bendure, who are regular Hawaii visitors and also wrote the Lonely Planet guide to Oahu.
In addition to the main contributors, other authors have been drafted in to add their particular expertise to the pages of the Lonely Planet Hawaii guide:
- Jake Howard is the Senior Editor at Surfer magazine and naturally wrote lots of the specialised surfing text
- Dr David Goldberg is the editor-in-chief at www.mdtravelhealth.com and wrote the original material for the health chapter
- Lisa Dunford has been quilting for 8 years and wrote the text on Hawaiian quilting
- Nanette Naioma Napoleon is a researcher and writer from Oahu who specialises in the history and culture of Hawaii and wrote the history chapter of the book.
The Lonely Planet Hawaii guide begins with a short collection of Top Tens:
- The Top Ten Hawaii Festivals and Events
- The Top Ten Hawaii Novels and Memoirs, and
- The Top Ten Beaches and other places to honor the sun, like in the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park
There then follows the usual few hundred pages of in-depth Lonely Planet coverage, from budget hotels to luxury resorts, from coffee shops to fine dining, the bars and nightclubs, Hawaii's best beaches, best surfing spots and best golf. But there's plenty of coverage too on the spectacular Hawaii scenery, the remote places, the wilderness, the cliffs and volcanoes that make this group of islands so special, and so popular with travelers of all kinds.
The Lonely Planet Hawaii travel guide even tells the reader to forget about the guidebook. It says that guidebooks 'are no replacement for a spirit of discovery. The very best travel experiences, not just in Hawaii but anywhere, are the ones you create yourself.... read this book. Then forget it. Put it down. It's your trip.'
The 8th edition of the Lonely Planet Hawaii travel guide is published September 2007 at $21.99 in the USA and £15.99 in the UK. More details at the Lonely Planet website.
