Nice. Portland is very nice. That's the best way I can describe it. It's not amazing and vibrant like New York City, it isn't abandoned and depressing like Detroit and it doesn't suck like Des Moines. It's just really really nice. That's why I have so few photos from Portland, because it's hard to photograph 'niceness'. Things started well on the first evening. I got the Greyhound bus down from Seattle and arrived in the Portland hostel quite late. I asked the g...

I know I'm supposed to be doing this 'budget holiday' thing but this happened by mistake. I didn't notice it when I was booking my flights for Hawaii but somehow I ended up with a first class ticket. It was only for the 20 minute flight from Kauai island to Honolulu to connect for my flight to the mainland. I checked in at the first class desk for the first time ever in my life and the woman told me there was a first class lounge near the gates. The Lihue airpor...

I left the Big Island by plane to Honolulu where I had to connect to a flight to Lihue on Kauai island. I got off the plane and looked for my new gate and I realised I was already at the right gate. In fact I was getting right back on the same plane 30 minutes later into a different seat. I had looked into hostels on Kauai but every one I found had a consistent set of very negative reviews. So reluctantly I booked a hotel and found myself in the Aloha Beach Reso...

I left Oahu on a short flight a few islands down the Hawaiian chain to the Big Island. As we flew in I could see the central mountain of Mauna Kea but it didn't look very big to me, more of a gently sloping hill. I landed at Hilo airport and walked down the jetway to the gate. But that is where things started to look very different. The gate waiting area was very small and the wall opposite the plane was open to the elements. Then I found the baggage claim area a...

After a restful day in Seattle catching up on a little on sleep missed while camping in Alaska I caught another plane out to Honolulu, Hawaii. I could get used to this flying lark - it's way better than taking the bus! Although I did have to get up very early for my flight. I had the luck of being sat next to somebody chatty and nice. (Chatty without nice is just plain annoying!) She was a Seattle girl flying out to Hawaii to get married. I bombarded her with qu...