From Oahu to Hawaii, the Big Island

Hawaii is the name of the state, but Hawaii is also the name of one of the islands — the big island at the East end of the chain of islands.  So it’s confusing if you say you are in Hawaii — the state or the island? The solution, apparently, is that people refer to the Hawaii island as “The Big Island”, and the state as Hawaii.

Today we went from Honolulu, on Oahu, in Hawaii, to the Big Island.

We got up early and packed up, and cleaned the room


Linda had arranged for a taxi to the airport, from Charley’s Taxi. I paid $50 cash when we got to the airport.

Checked our bags for Southwest flight 866 from Honolulu to Kona airport on the Big Island.  I forgot to check in for the flight 24 hours in advance (since we were at Pearl Harbor), and did not check in until that evening.  Surprisingly we were still in the A group — A 49 and 50.  When we got to the airport, it became apparent why we had such “good luck” — there were only about 60 people on the flight.  It was so lightly loaded that they asked people to spread out in the plane to “even the weight distribution”. 

There are actually two airports on the Big Island — Kona and Hilo.  Although our AirBnB is near Hilo, we need to fly out of Kona to return to the mainland, so flying into and out of Kona makes the most sense.

Particularly since we are renting a car (Hertz) while we are on the Big Island.


And when we got to the counter at Hertz, they had so many cars available that they told us to just go out an select any car in the third row, from 33 to 49.  

Finally, by about 2:30, we were on the road.  We drove to Hilo, arriving about 4:30.  Grabbed some very late lunch/early dinner, and some groceries, then drove on to the AirBnB. Things seemed to be okay here.  Well except, it seems, we have no cell phone service here.  Not sure how large an area “here” is that we don’t have a cell signal.  We’ll worry about that tomorrow.


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