are you about to take a trip to oahu oh it's such a beautiful island one of my most favorite trips
of 2021 so far and so many of you have watched my oahu videos that i put out and are asking really
good questions about the state of travel to that island right now and so i'm bringing in a friend
who just got back from the island to help answer some of your faqs let's bring her in so i'm here
with trizzy tracy introduce yourself i'm trizzy i go by the handle of e x e a e x because it stands
for exercise eight explorer which leads into my travel podcast ticket number two anywhere podcast
and i'm just here just living life loving to exercise loving to eat and loving to explore
the world and actually you had an interesting experience coming in in which i was not surprised
but a lot of people tell me they're like well why didn't you just use uber when you were in oahu
it's available there which is true oahu does have uber but will you share your experience we arrived
at the airport like around 8 30 p.m at night and we were staying in waikiki so our plan was to do
rental cars throughout and you mentioned this in one of your oahu videos that rental prices for
cars being picked up at the airport and returned at the airport so much more expensive so that's
what we thought we were like all right so the plan is to just uber from into the airport and then in
the in between days we'll pick up our rental cars by our airbnb that we're staying at and it was so
much cheaper so that's what we did so our uber from the airport to our airbnb friday night at 8
30 p.m around that time for a five passenger car three robes and it was like 85 dollars one way
so we were like oh my gosh this is ridiculous it was a group of seven so we split it four and three
be mindful that right now during the pandemic uh sedans are maxed to three people and the
bigger cars like vans and suvs with three rows are maxed to five people that's really helpful even i
yesterday i was in miami and i took a regular uber and there were four of us not realizing
that you're only allowed to ride three in a regular uberx at this time one of us got to walk
i'm actually so i'm curious because i know people are gonna ask where did you end up getting your
rental car from we so i like to go to national that's my go-to it was off the airport but still
somewhat on the strip but it was definitely definitely cheaper and was it easy to find a
reservation with them you just really like booking in advance everything has to be booked in advance
i think we had booked that car maybe a month and a half in advance um it wasn't as cheap as it would
have been if we had booked it more in advance but it worked so i'm also curious when i was there
i love to geek out and look at the numbers of tourism on the island and at the time i was there
which was in march 2021 it was at 1 6 of its total numbers i'm curious how busy did it feel while you
were there if you have social anxiety it's gonna be at an all-time high because it was so packed so
busy the waikiki strip itself you know during the evening when it's like probably the most
heavy foot traffic because of like you know places to eat watching the sunset it just like talking
about it just gives me chills already i'm like it was really packed it felt like vegas you know like
the vegas strip they have street performers it's really not that quiet as it was before i mean from
what i can remember it might be different from when you went back in march but now that because
everybody potentially has vaccines they're walking around without mask super comfortable like it's
nothing and you might have heard that you know if you don't have a mass you'll get fined but i think
they've kind of like you know stir away from that restriction policy and it looks like you don't
really need a mask when you're outside by the way a lot of you have asked me if i'm vaccinated do
i still need to do the kova test requirements that might be changing very soon check out the
helpful link in description below of an article that will help you understand the current state
of it but it should be changing very soon if you're getting some value out of this video
make sure you share that like button and consider subscribing all right let's get back to it goes
into like finding a place to eat as well you're kind of compromising the food things that you're
planning on eating might not happen so you have to compromise and just find like a fast food joint
and i love to you know travel to eat and i'm sure a lot of people does that as well so that makes it
a little bit like rougher on that end actually i'm curious about that because even for me when i was
traveling alone looking for a table for one with an option to sit at the bar and eat i couldn't
get in at some of the restaurants i wanted to because you were with a larger group of people
how was it getting in at the restaurants that you wanted to go to
impossible very impossible just plan on eating off of waikiki so really look into the outskirts
because you know hawaii oahu is more than just waikiki if you're a first timer i get it you want
to hit up like the main spots that you always hear your friends or others talk about do that
all for it um but you know side street chicken is one of my best fried chicken places
it's in waikiki it was an hour and a half wait to get a table of seven and then we were like okay
we'll just order to go because we noticed that it was packed too so even if we were to eat in there
would we have eaten comfortably with that amount of people it wasn't outdoor dining
or anything so we ordered to go maybe like we picked it up two and a half hours later
and the person that took our order was really nice she was so sweet she was just like word of advice
let your other friends know that if they're coming to oahu and they plan on eating here
make a reservation a week in advance and a lot of other places that we wanted to eat at got
so booked that one of us one of the uh restaurants they told us they're booked until august so just
be mindful of reservations is gonna be like a life saver what's your one thing that you always have
to do besides eating the chicken that's like the one thing you have to do when you go to either
waikiki or oahu that for someone who's never been there before they gotta do if you stay in waikiki
and you don't want to see how busy it is always wake up for the beach and just like wake up early
enough on the you know the weather's app it shows you what time sunrise is so in waikiki you're not
going to see the sunrise because it's on the other side of the island but you'll still see like you
know the beautiful lines of the sky um once it gets bright i would say go for a walk go for a run
on waikiki beach see it without the crowds see it without all the hustle and bustles you'll learn to
appreciate it and then you know when the evening time comes you'll be like oh damn this has changed
i could not agree more and one of the things that i did was i was using beaky bikes so that i could
ride as close to the other side where i could see a sliver of the sunrise if you get closer
like the diamond head area i actually this was my you know all the times that i've been to oahu this
past trip was my first time doing the diamond head hike it's just so so mind-blowing to to admit yeah
and i love that i'll say oh my gosh this is really nice it's a good experience going up there
oh absolutely it's definitely a very crowded and busy hike in my opinion it's a must-do
in oahu it's a beautiful view it's so well kept so i think on their website it might show like the
wrong pricing of parking so parking per car is ten dollars then you enter there is an additional five
dollars per person oh that's new when i was there it was just ten dollars per car but there was no
additional fee to get in price doesn't go enough make sure you check the link in the description
below for more info on that thank you so much for doing this one more time where can people find you
you guys can find me on instagram e-x-e-a-e-x which stands for exercise eight explore or you
can follow me on my travel podcast ticket number two anywhere podcast all on instagram and i had an
opportunity to be on her podcast so i'll link that in the description below so you guys can check it
out i love her i hope you got some value out of this video if you did don't forget to cheers that
like button and consider subscribing tell me in the comments when are you going to oahu i'm so
excited if you're going soon i'm also jealous but i'm christine i'm here every week with new
videos the full oahu playlist in the description below and i'll see you in the next adventure ciao