I didn't really ride my bike across the country if I exclude Hawaii, right?
Hawaii's big island, aka Hawaii, was one of the most enjoyable bike tours I've completed.
A few hundred miles around the island's coastline, sleeping on beaches and doing overnight hikes whenever we could make it happen: I packed a small, packable
overnight backpack in my bike's panniers, allowing us to be prepared for anything.
Snorkeling a lot, camping in the jungle and on the beach, swimming with giant sea turtles, and thinking--and being VERY wrong about--the road around the coast would be flat.
It wasn't.
And then we spent a few weeks on Maui, trying to surf, trying to snorkel, and trying to eat our way out of our bike tour's lack of food.
