The Ultimate Kauai Guidebook doesn’t profess to do what no other Kauai travel book has done—it just professes to do a better job than the rest.  When it comes to travel guides, especially Hawaiian-related ones, there are so many choices that picking one can be overwhelming.  Although no guide can realistically be completely comprehensive, this guide is good enough that you could pretty much use it alone to plan and execute your trip to the island of Kauai.

Even though you can’t expect a single guide to cover every tiny detail about a travel destination, this book does a pretty solid job of comprehensively addressing a Kauai vacation—it even starts with some discussion of Kauai’s geologic origins before continuing with the basics of an island vacation, describing road conditions, providing some local slang and briefly addressing travel with children. 

After the brief introduction, the book launches into the real goods—an exhaustive listing of the islands attractions, beaches, activities, accommodations and restaurants.  This is the part of the guide that separates a mediocre one from a good one—this book, for example, is written by two people who sound like they’ve lived on the island their whole lives.  They speak about the restaurants with firsthand experience, sometimes suggesting specific menu items and touching on the finer points of service and pricing.  Perhaps most helpfully, the best restaurants are outfitted with an “Ono” decal, which makes things real easy—there are enough restaurants on the island that no matter where you are, you’ll likely be able to find an “Ono” choice.  As someone who used this book quite extensively to plan a Kauai trip, I can say that the non-“Ono” restaurants I tried were usually mediocre at best, and revisiting the guide’s descriptions of them often revealed concisely worded descriptions of the shortcomings I experienced.

As for the book’s features of the island’s sights, they’re similarly well-described, including surprisingly helpful maps of each region, and the best beaches and destinations are highlighted with “A Real Gem” decals.  The book’s authors even describe the conditions at a given beach in relation to seasonal surf and weather changes, which goes a long way in letting you know what to expect during your visit.  My only complaint with the content of the attractions section of the book is its organization—it starts with “North Shore Sights,” traveling around the island clockwise.  The next section starts with “Beaches North Shore” and continues similarly.  The problem is, if you’re spending an afternoon on the West coast, for example, and you’re interested in seeing both sights and beaches, you have to repeatedly flip back and forth between the sections in order to plan your activities.  It probably would have been better to organize the book by region and place the general information about the islands beaches, sights, etc. in the beginning of the book’s informational section.

The book’s information isn’t exactly necessary in today’s online accommodation world, though it is helpful to know that the Princeville hotel bar is a good place to get a cocktail.  Finally, at the time of this review this book has been through at least seven editions—if you can pick up an older edition on the cheap, I personally don’t think you’ll be missing anything too big from the newer ones, aside from maybe the occasional new or closed restaurant—I successfully planned a previous trip from the fifth edition last August.