Book a stay at Hawaii’s Kona Village and get an $800 flight credit

by Katie Hammel on

Last week, while on Hawaii, I had the chance to wander over to Kona Village Resort and stroll through the grounds. I was pretty impressed by what I saw. While the resort is located right next to the Four Seasons, the feel (while still luxury) is totally different.

Rooms here are hale – thatched roof bungalows in various forms. In keeping with the barefoot, carefree style of the resort, the rooms don’t have tvs, radios, or even telephones. What they do offer is total seclusion, privacy and romance, as each bungalow has access to a beautiful black sand beach and its own hammock. Hotel staff communicates with guests via notes, and a coconut is used as a “do not disturb” symbol.

It’s the perfect spot for honeymooners to escape and relax, but they are also plenty of activities offered, like snorkeling, stand up paddle boarding, whale watching, surfing and SCUBA diving. Rates for the hale start at $410 per night for two people, including breakfast and selected water sports.

Right now, Garden, Superior, or Deluxe rooms, which run about $700-$900 per night, qualify for a special fare deal. Book five nights in the room and receive $800 in flight credits. The room rate includes breakfast, lunch and dinner. The fare credit is applied to the cost of the room.

Dive packages, romance packages, and family packages (book one hale and the second is 50% off) are also currently available.%Gallery-76818%

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Photo of the Day (5.23.09)

by Brenda Yun on

Just a quick glance at this photo from styggiti, which was taken just two months ago in March 2009, shows that the Big Island’s volcano — the most active in the world today — is alive and well. My last visit to the magical Volcano National Park was during a full moon, and the a’a (fresh, smooth, hard lava rock) glimmered in the moonlight so white that I felt like I was walking on water.

This stunning photo captures the natural wonder of Hawaii’s active volcano. You can touch the warm rock and snap photos of it, but you mustn’t take even a single stone home with you. Pele, Hawaii’s fire goddess, has a reputation of making your life miserable if you do, and there are countless stories of visitors returning stolen lava rocks to Volcano.

If you have some great travel shots you’d like to share, be sure to upload them to the Gadling pool on Flickr. We might just pick one as our Photo of the Day!

Photo of the Day (9.7.08)

by Jeremy Kressmann on

Between the satellite dishes and the barren, otherworldly landscape in this photo, you could be forgiven for thinking it had been taken on the moon. It’s all the more amusing therefore, to find out that Flickr user konakoka, got this spacey shot on top of Mauna Kea, the dormant volcano on the Big Island of Hawaii.

The lack of light pollution and the high altitude make Mauna Kea a top spot for astronomy. The summit is littered with all manner of observatories and satellite dishes, as we see here in this photo. I like the way the focus of the image has been pushed to the very bottom, leaving an almost limitless blue sky to dominate.

Have you taken any great travel photos you’d like to share with our Gadling readers? Add them to our Gadling pool on Flickr and we might just use your image as our Photo of the Day.