Traveling to Hawaii during COVID-19

Aloha friends! Like many of you, our travel plans for 2020 were thrown out the window as soon as COVID hit. In March of 2020, we had planned to travel to Kauai for a week but 2 days before we hopped on the plane, the stay-at-home order was announced so we canceled our trip. So this vacation was LONG overdue!

We knew that this trip to Oahu, Hawaii was not going to be the same as it was many years ago so we planned everything out to make sure we didn't miss a step. Here are a couple of tips from our planning that can hopefully help with your next vacation. Keep in mind, this is written at the beginning of April 2021 so be sure to double-check the updated regulations prior to your departure.

1. Hawaii is open for tourists (YAY) but with some restrictions. You can either choose to quarantine for 10 days after landing or you can choose to take a COVID test up to 72 hours prior to your final flight's departure and not have to quarantine at all (which is what we did).

2. There are so many free COVID testing sites in the Seattle area and we used Solv to book our tests. It was super quick, easy, and we got our results back in under 24 hours. Be sure to make sure you have enough time to receive your results prior to departure. Also, note - not all testing sites are approved by the Safe Travels Hawaii site so take a look at this list to verify.

3. You will need to create an account on Safe Travels Hawaii for each adult visiting Hawaii. This does take a little time, so be sure to do this before getting to the airport. Once your account has been created you will have to upload your negative COVID-19 results to your account. It takes a couple of seconds for the system to verify the results.

4. 24 hours prior to departure, you will have to take a health questionnaire on Safe Travels Hawaii to state that you don't have any symptoms.

5. Once your test results and health questionnaire have been completed you can submit them. You will receive an email immediately with a QR code that you will take to the airport with you.

6. We made sure to check in ahead of time and walked up to Alaska Airline's safe travel check station. They scanned our QR codes and gave us a wristband to wear.

7. The flight attendants checked to make sure everyone had a wristband prior to boarding the flight and there was another station at the Honolulu airport to verify our bands.

8. We stayed at Prince Waikiki and we have to say, that was one beautiful and very clean hotel. We were very happy with the sanitization standards they had to ensure the safety of the guests at the hotel.

9. Some restaurants or tours may request you to show them the negative results on your Safe Travels Hawaii account to participate in activities but that was rare.

10. Since we were only heading back to Seattle, we didn't have to have any testing done to fly back.

We hope these tips make it easier for you to enjoy your vacation safely! If you have any questions, be sure to add them to the comments below.

Mahalo 🌺

XOXO,

RuRu