BEAT OF HAWAII AND BEYOND

Today marks the start of our third year bringing you Beat of Hawaii. It’s always interesting to look back and see which posts were most useful to our readers.

Here are the most viewed posts of 2009, along with our current take on each:

Inter-island Airfares.

Hawaii’s inter-island air market has had a volatile roller-coaster ride in 2009.

We started the year with a new inter-island carrier, Mokulele, which sadly exited the market after 12 months of service.

• The Mokulele name was then acquired by competitor Mesa (Go! Airlines) in the guise of a merger, and after the State court denied Go! the ability to acquire the Aloha Airlines name.
• Airfares started the year with a low of $29 (actually on one occasion as low as $3), and ended the year at $58.

Tripadvisor’s New Stand on Fraud.

We continue to stay abreast of issues with Expedia’s TripAdvisor travel review website and authenticity issues of its reviewers.  There remains a basic conflict of interest.  TripAdvisor’s advertising based business model requires them to have the maximum number of site visitors (and reviews) in order to extract maximum advertising value.  Therefore with sadly little competition, it would not appear to be in their best interest to weed out duplicitous, fraudulent reviews.

Free and Cheap Waikiki Parking.

Honolulu has become one of the most expensive cities in the US for parking. Daily parking rates now average over $35, more than double the national average.  It is still possible to find less expensive parking, however, and we show you how.

Finding Hawaii Car Deals in 2009.

As you just saw, car rentals in Hawaii can be very expensive and even unavailable.  On the other hand, at times they can be extremely reasonable.  Here are our best suggestions on how to get a good deal.

5 Money Saving Tips For Visiting Hawaii in 2009.

These remain five of the top strategies for getting a good deal on your Hawaii vacation.

We’re looking forward to sharing new posts with you from our island home in the New Year. Thanks for reading Beat of Hawaii and being part of our ohana.

This is a different kind of post.  On Saturday we lost a Beat of Hawaii fan, Kay Jarvela, to brain cancer which was diagnosed just over a month ago.  It’s a personal loss to me because Kay and I were high school friends who reconnected this year on Facebook.

When Kay shared this picture with me in September I didn’t know that her life would be ending in a few short weeks.  Her father died in August and Kay decided to carry on his tradition of playing the accordion.

After surgery Kay wrote, “These things, like it or not, do tend to come up.  I cannot help but think that all this rearrangement of my brain will turn me into a creative artistic genius.”

Kay and her husband, Peter, had been planning a trip to Maui in December and our hope was to see them.

Everything changed quickly.  Her death is a reminder to me to live each day fully.  We’ll be carrying her memory with us this week when we hike down to Kalaupapa where Saint Damien lived and worked.

Peace be with you Kay and your family.  Aloha