Kauai South Shore Travel Guide! Where to stay, where to eat, what to eat and things to do! We have been to Kauai twice and here are all of our favorite things to do! This is just based on our experience! Please feel free to suggest more places to stay, places to eat and places to visit in the comments section, thank you!
So many of you asked for this post, so here it is! I hope this helps! I also wrote some of my tips (down at the bottom) so be sure to read this entire post!
We first visited Kauai back in May of 2019 for my friend Reemy’s wedding. We didn’t know when we would have another opportunity to visit this beautiful island again, so we took my parents with us. Her wedding was at The Beach House Restaurant. This restaurant has the most beautiful views and is a full service venue for weddings. “Hugging the Poipu beach coastline on the road to spouting horn, the award-winning Beach House features innovative Pacific Rim cuisine, accompanied by breathtaking Hawaiian sunsets over the Pacific Ocean.” This year, we celebrated Father’s Day at The Beach House. They also serve the best Mai Tai’s and they told us the restaurant has recently won an award for the best Mai Tai in Hawaii.
Where To Stay in Kauai On the South Shore
For both trips, May of 2019 and last week, June 2023, we stayed at the Koloa Landing Resort. This resort is on the south shore and for us, this made the most sense. For the first trip in 2019, Reemy had a lot of her guests stay here and when we were looking for accommodations for our trip in June, we had to take into account that we would have 13 people. I did look at the new 1 Hotels Hanalei Bay in Princeville on the north shore (if you know me, you know I am a big fan of 1 Hotels! I always stay at their Central Park or Brooklyn Bridge locations when in NYC) and if we didn’t have 13 people in our party, we would have stayed here. In fact, if a smaller group of us ever go, we will definitely stay here and explore more of the north shore.
With a large party and kids, or teens in our case, they wanted a place with a great pool, fun things to do, a gym (all of my nieces are athletes and love to workout), we also wanted easy places to access for shaved ice, poke and easy grab and go foods. So, for us, for this trip, Koloa Landing Resort was the best location for us. I think this is actually a great location if you have kids. If you watched my stories, I showed the villas: complete with a full kitchen and washer/ dryer. The villas are quite large and spacious and the bathrooms are huge. We had 3 villas: 2 two-bedroom villas and one 3-bedroom villa, all in the same building and the elevator takes you to your villa; it’s basically a private elevator. The Koloa Landing resort has 3 different pools but only 1 restaurant. This wasn’t a problem for us because we left the resort often to drive around, go out and explore and there are plenty of food places around. Other hotels I would consider on the south shore: The Grand Hyatt Kauai Resort and Spa. You could also look into VRBO and rent a house but I preferred the hotels and resorts on the south shore. I think the houses to rent are better and newer (and probably more expensive) on the north shore.
I would recommend reading these posts when deciding on where to stay in Kauai: Where To Stay on Kauai and this post. Both have some great information!
My Kauai South Shore Travel Guide
Where to eat. I love that there are so many options. For us, eating out for every meal was not going to happen. It’s too expensive and just didn’t make sense for us. We hit up Costco on Day 1 (it’s close to the airport and was about 20-23 minutes from the resort so plan accordingly) to pick up bottled water, breakfast foods like cereal, eggs, bacon, bagels etc, snacks and ramen. We ate out for most dinners and picked up local foods for lunch.
Kauai South Shore Travel Guide: Restaurants
Because we had such a large party, I made reservations as soon as our trip was planned. All of these restaurants were able to accommodate our large party (13 people). We ate at Merriman’s Kauai at Poipu, Tidepools at The Grand Hyatt hotel (this was a prefixed menu) and The Beach House. I would highly recommend all of these restaurants. Great food, great service and great/beautiful atmosphere and location.
Places to Eat and Grab Food
I would highly recommend all of these places!
Anake’s Juice Bar: great acai bowls and smoothies and located in Kukuiula Market. They have spam musubi and a little sushi bar
Sueoka Store and Market: visit their snack shop! For their plate lunches, chicken cutlets, chili rice bowls and loco moco plates
Koloa Fish Market for poke! Everyone said they have the best poke on the island.
Bubba’s Burger: burgers and fries. The kids wanted to go back before heading to the airport for the fries.
Kukuiula Market: sushi, bento and poke
Island Country Markets we stopped here after visiting Wailua Falls. Great food: spam musubi (a little heavy on the rice, loco moco and kimchi fried rice). There’s a market too to buy coffee, cookies, drinks, whatever you need. There are also lots of shops in the area.
Pono Market on the way to the North Shore
Bobbie’s Restaurant in Hanapepe on the west side. The wait will be very long so be patient and I think it was cash only. We got the lau lau and Korean fried chicken
Places to Eat That You All Recommended
Pizzetta in Old Koloa Town
Da’Crack for burritos and tacos. It’s located right next to Kukuiula Market
Kintaro’s Restaurant for sushi
Kukuiula Shopping Center: lots of different options and restaurants here
Stevenson’s Library (incredible sushi located in the Grand Hyatt hotel)
The Tasting Room : Tapas Wine bar
Fresh Bite Food Truck in Hanalei
Poipu Poke Shack inside the Kukuiula Store
Little Fish Coffee: we tried to go here 3 times. the line was incredibly long. coffee, acai bowls, smoothies, bagels and sandwiches
Hamura Saimin Stand (close to the airport)
Things To Do, Where To Go, Spots To Visit
South Shore: Poipu Beach for snorkeling. Popular beach with a shallow, protected swimming area, snorkel & surfboard rentals & a playground. I think this is perfect for kids. For more snorkeling, the kids and my family also went to L’awai Beach (next to The Beach House). Keep in mind the water is deeper, the waves were a bit rougher but if you are more experienced in the water, you will be fine. Lots of people snorkel here. We rented snorkel equipment from our hotel/resort but there are also places on the beach at Poipu Beach.
North Shore: Pono Market (make sure they are open) or Island Country Markets for food and then Wailua Falls
North shore: Hanalei Bay
North Shore: Kilauea Lighthouse
Salt Pond Beach Park on the west side in Hanapepe. Great beach, life guard In duty, benches and covered table areas to eat. There were a lot of flies but great beach!
Shipwreck Beach to watch the sunrise, or Poipu beach. I believe the best place on the island to watch the sunrise is the eastern shore of the island. Read this post for where to find the best spots on the island for sunrise and sunsets.
West side: Waimea Canyon. What: On the southwest side of Kauaʻi in Waimea
Where: Scenic canyon nicknamed “The Grand Canyon of the Pacific”
When: Open daily during daylight hours
Kauai South Shore Travel Guide: My Tips!
After traveling to Kauai twice with family, I have some tips to share! No matter where you are traveling from, it’s likely to be a long travel day and probably not a direct flight, unless you are traveling from CA, so plan accordingly! I think a week isn’t enough so next time, we will definitely plan a vacation here for at least a week and a half or 2 weeks. For us, traveling from the east coast, it pretty much takes a full day to get there so I wouldn’t count the 2 days of travel (getting there and flying back home); I really think you need at least 5 to 7 days minimum (not counting the travel days) to enjoy the island. The time change: be prepared for the time change. Stay up as late as you can when you arrive so you can actually sleep when it’s nighttime and wake up early!
If you are looking to stay at Koloa Landing Resort, look for deals on the Marriott app! I was able to book under a deal and got a lower rate and $100 food credit for each villa when I booked using the Marriott Bonvoy app!
Rent a car! No matter where you are staying, the island is not big so you can easily drive from the south to the north (maybe 1 hour to 1/2 hrs max) and back and still enjoy both shores. It’s super easy to drive around the island. There aren’t that many roads so you may run into a little traffic. There are chickens everywhere on the island so be careful!
Bring your camera! It’s so lush and beautiful and green! Take lots of photos and video. It’s a magical island. I mentioned it at the beginning of this post but make a trip to Costco for some essentials like bottled water, snacks and breakfast foods. If you’re not on a budget or simply don’t want to cook anything, this tip is not for you. It didn’t make sense for us to eat out for every meal so buying simple breakfast foods like eggs, bacon and cereal allowed us to eat out for most lunches and dinners and just made more sense for us.
Don’t pack things like sunscreen, shampoo and bug spray. I say don’t pack things in your suitcase that you can buy when you get here. There are so many drug stores and shops where you can easily purchase this kind of stuff. Buy water shoes for the beaches and for snorkeling. My kids didn’t like wearing the big flippers so the water shoes were great! I bought some (the Speedo brand) from Target here at home and packed them!
Even if you are not adventurous with foods, try the local foods! When are you going to have another chance to try lau lau or loco moco?
Last tip: just hang back and enjoy your time on the island. Everyone in Hawaii is very relaxed. They move slower, people aren’t in a rush to do anything or go anywhere. Be patient. Relax and soak in the sun and the island vibes.
I hope this post helps! and please feel free to add places to eat and spots to visit in the comments section!!!
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