Renting a Vintage VW Van in Hawaii

I'm on a roll here! Another Hawaii post - whaaaat? Now if only I could get my act together and sort through my Greece and Italy photos from our Honeymoon LAST SEPTEMBER. Omg how has almost an entire year gone by already since our wedding?? Wild!

So I mentioned in my Honolulu helicopter tour post that Adam and I rented a vintage 1977 VW van while we were on Oahu. We rented it from Hawaii Surf Campers and I cannot say enough good things about them. They're a small company; super friendly, helpful, and kind. They even picked us up from the airport! What I really liked about them though was how excited they were FOR us to take one of their vans out. We could tell it was a true passion for them, and not just a money-making tourist trap. (Which, to be fair, it totally is that, too, lol... but nothing wrong with that! It was the best tourist trap ever!)

We rented the Cloud 9 and fell in love instantly. Just LOOK at that pretty blue color! We were so excited. I also loved the checkered tire cover and the rainbow Hawaii license plate really completed the whole adorable package. While it was definitely fun, I won't lie and say it was all smooth sailing, haha...

Time for a fun little mini-rant! (I think sometimes it's just as important to share the bummer vacation moments as it is to share the look-how-perfect-my-trip-was moments so people can really see the whole picture. Everything isn't always wonderful, even though a lot of bloggers like to pretend it is!)

December is pretty wet in Hawaii, so we did spend almost an entire day camped out in the van, watching the rain, wishing we were having a sunny beach day instead.Also, by day two, I started to get a little grumpy, mainly because I got my period (TMI - sorry!) and we didn't exactly have any access to a shower - or bathrooms, really. Every night, we'd find some secluded place near the water to park, usually by other dirt-bag vans like ours. This meant when we had to use the loo, we just sort of squatted in a nearby bush. Not that fun when it's that time of the month!

By day three, I was sort of ~over it~ and Adam and I got into a bit of an argument in a Starbucks parking lot because all I wanted was a shower. I was crampy, dirty, and tired. The weather wasn't great and we were running out of things to do indoors. He is a saint though and tried his hardest to find me a day spa so I could take a shower and relax. No luck though. We actually drove back into Honolulu (which was a pain because traffic is atrocious and the van had NO power steering!) because we thought we found a spa at a hotel downtown. He dropped me off and I walked up to the spa, waited in line, and when it was finally my turn to check in, I was told they didn't have any open spots left that day. Feeling totally depleted, I went back downstairs to the lobby and cried, lol. Adam had to fight traffic once again in order to come scoop me back up. It wasted nearly half a day and I felt really, really guilty.

Honestly, I would have loved the van life had my period not come, but of course it did, and it definitely put a damper on things. Being a female is rough sometimes...I actually couldn't believe how inaccessible a regular shower was on Oahu. We went into this trip thinking there were bathrooms and showers all over the island because of the surf culture there (and because this is what we read online before arriving!), but that wasn't the case at all. By "showers" they meant showers located outside the bathrooms, out in the open that people quickly rinsed off under after swimming in the ocean.

We even tried starting a gym membership at a few different gyms thinking we'd sign up for a free 1-week trial and just use the showers there and not the gym itself. Well, gyms on the island must have caught onto that because in order to open a membership at any of them, you had to have a valid Hawaii driver's license and home address in Hawaii. GAH! It's all very funny to look back on and think about now, but at the time I was NOT happy, haha.

Aside from all of that, we did love Cloud 9. It was super cute, equipped with string lights, supplies for cooking, proper bedding, and even adorable little coffee mugs we got to take home with us as souvenirs. As I mentioned above, it didn't have power steering, so Adam was basically working out the entire time. It looked so hard! He did a great job.It was also nice having the van because it saved money. Instead of renting a car AND an Airbnb/hotel, the van provided both for us. It was really nice waking up each morning to the sound of the ocean.

I loved our slow mornings, drinking coffee from the van, watching the sunrise, and taking in the beauty of the island. We were a little sad when we had to say goodbye to Cloud 9 at the end of our trip.

We did have one fun beach day with it before having to bring it back, though. The weather wasn't bad the entire time! Yay! We rented a paddle board for me, and a windsurf board for Adam, and both boards fit nicely inside. But I guess that photo of Adam up above is really the only photo I took of that adventure. Whoops!

So, all in all, I'd say our van experience was mostly great. But maybe in the future, we can do a van trip pt. II and I will be less grumpy... ;-) As always, mahalo for reading! xo