I have a good friend here that is actually from Kona! So I totally picked her brain about where to go and what to do during our stay.
When it comes to Souvenir shopping, I like to get good prices, since there are so many of us! On Oahu, the best place by a long shot is the Swap Meet. There wasn’t anything like that on the Big Island
The Hilo Farmer’s Market had a decent selection of items, and we got lots of stuff there. Similar to the Swap meet on Oahu, just a MUCH, MUCH smaller selection.
Costco is the best place for chocolates/Macadamia Nuts (and just about ALL your grocery shopping!!!). They even have a selection of Hawaiian Shirts – but like all Costco’s, I am sure that selection changes often.
Walmart had a good supply of souvenirs too (this is where my friend said to go!). T-shirts for $5 or less. You can also pick up water shoes for $5, Boogie Boards for $10 (they are like $10-15 and HOUR to rent, We just bought 2 and left at the resort. We got our money’s worth out of them. We’ll be doing the same thing when we go to Florida this summer), and snorkels.
The most surprising place we found? The Grocery store near our resort! They had similar stuff to Walmart and their prices were almost as good or better. I was shocked! Especially for an expensive resort community! In fact, the snorkels were cheaper here than Walmart. If you don’t want to drive to Walmart, you’d do pretty good here! We picked up some more souvenirs here. We also found they made DELICIOUS Malasadas – YUM! Probably not good for our waistlines to learn this – their prices on them were good too! Their groceries were very expensive (as with all of Hawaii – hello Costco for best deals!), but everything else wasn’t bad! Such a nice surprise!
While I still think the Swap Meet on Oahu is unbeatable, we still found some fun things on the Big Island!
