Getting around Oahu on an Eco Friendly Budget
Oahu's bus service, called aptly The Bus is rated as one of the best nationwide and was named “America’s Best Transit System” by the American Public Transportation for 2000-01. With more than 90 routes and at last count, 4,200 stops, you can get just about anywhere you might want to on the island of Oahu, including the Friends of Malaekahana and botanical garden campgroundsI highly recommend and describe in detail in the next section.
While you can rent a car and stay within a $750 or less budget, you might want to consider using Oahu’s excellent public transportation for all of or part of your stay.
One-way fare is $2 for adults, $1 for youth ages 6 through 16, and it’s a free ride for keiki under 6. Each fare includes one free transfer with a two-hour limit, provided you’re going in the same direction. You can ride around the entire island for $4, as locals love to point out.
However, depending on your itinerary, you may do better with the $20 four-day visitor’s pass ($10 for ages 6 to 16). If you plan to use the bus for the entire 8 days, you could get two passes. When you figure round trip with the bus at $2 each way, that’s only $16, but the transfers would probably bring it up over $20. And then you don’t have to think about getting change beforehand either. You can purchase a bus pass at the Wiki Wiki convenience stores; check with
The less traveling in your party, the better overall savings with The Bus, just as the more traveling, the better savings with a car rental. For example, if you have two adults and two children over 6 years old in your family, you’d spend $120 total (2 adult and 2 youth bus passes times two for eight days), which divides into $30 per person out of the $750 per person budget.
If I didn’t have an alternate driver, I would take The Bus for at least part of my trip, just to enjoy the amazing Oahu Scenic Drives, on and then use a rental for my busier days because it does take longer to get places on the bus. To get an idea of how long, after you’ve pinpointed some of the places you want to be, look at their online schedules.
While there are restrictions on what you can carry on the bus, you’ll find a long list of items and sizes allowed (including clean beach mats and soft boogie boards without fins) at their Website.
Our camping neighbors from Ohio rented a car the first day so that they could transport all of their camping equipment and luggage to the North Shore/Windward campground, and then on the last day to take it all back to the airport. And then on these two days they used the car for visiting places that they couldn’t visit by taking The Bus. With more than 4,000 stops, there aren’t many.
At any rate, I love The Bus. When I was a struggling single mom with no car, renting a room in the rural town of Waimanalo where I was new and hadn’t made friends yet, I accomplished all my Christmas shopping – including the tree ! -- via The Bus...To read this chapter in its entirity and updated version as well as the rest of a 180-page, illustrated guide that will show you exactly how you can have an eco travel vacation in Hawaii on a shoestring, download the ebook now at:Hawaii Eco Travel & Budget Guides, 2010
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