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View From Here - Hawaii Travel Blog

Welcome to View from Here, a travel blog, where I write about living in, traveling about and experiencing Hawaii as a malihini, a 12-year-resident of the Hawaiian Islands. My name is Kim Steutermann Rogers, and you're likely to find blog posts here about food--who doesn't like to eat?--and outdoor adventure. Like hiking through Haleakala on Maui. Diving with manta rays off Hawaii (Big) Island. Snorkeling Shark's Cove on Oahu. And paddling Napali Coast of my home island, Kauai. Not that I'm some, young, adrenaline junkie. Those days are long over. I just enjoy collecting life experiences. And that's why you probably won't find much in the way of shopping here, unless it's about a fantastic, locally-made product--like soap--and the charming, young, single-mother who makes it. Then, I gush on and on. Oh, as a warning, I can sometimes jump on my soap box and write about the realities of marine debris, Hawaii's endangered species--like humpback whales and Hawaiian monk seals--great book discoveries and the wonders of nature. And my dogs.

Total Number of Entries - 489

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Oahu Beach Infographic

Kim Steutermann Rogers on Fri 5/17/2013

Destination: Oahu

It's here. When the first big south swell arrived this week, we got our first hint: Summer has arrived.
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The People You Meet on Planes

Kim Steutermann Rogers on Tue 5/14/2013

Last week, en route to Oahu on Hawaiian Airlines, I sat in the window seat on the “three side.” That meant two others blocked my route to the aisle. They turned out to be husband and wife, born and raised on Kauai, high school sweethearts and married for 27 years. He had recently lost 50 pounds, and they were heading to Sacramento for their son’s college graduation, a son whose future concerned them, because he was a bit of an introvert and, well, a “gamer.”
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Why I Don't Write Best Beach Lists

Kim Steutermann Rogers on Thu 5/9/2013

Destination: Kauai

To help you create the perfect beach experience, we’ve created an infographic for four of Hawaii’s islands—Oahu; Maui; Hawaii, the Big Island; and—below—Kauai.
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April in Photos

Kim Steutermann Rogers on Wed 5/1/2013

Make vs. take. When I first got into photography with a Kodak Pocket Instamatic 110-format camera--about the size and shape of a TV remote--I was most definitely taking pictures. Apart from choosing when to turn on the flash, all I did was point and shoot.
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My Earth Day Celebration

Kim Steutermann Rogers on Fri 4/26/2013

Destination: Kauai

Hawaii is nature and nature is Hawaii. You've got your turquoise blue ocean with beaches of black, green and red sand. You've got your green mountains striated with hiking trails. Your rivers and streams ripe for kayaking explorations. Waterfalls. Botanical gardens. Nature preserves, wildlife refuges and national parks. With so many choices in which to spend Earth Day, how was it that on Monday, April 22, I found myself sitting in an air conditioned office building with fluorescent lights making my eyes burn?
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Chinatown: More than Just Chicken Feet

Kim Steutermann Rogers on Wed 4/24/2013

Destination: Oahu

Most people come to Chinatown looking for dim sum, noodle houses, flowers, fruit, bootleg trinkets and your more unusual ingredients for Asian recipes. Chicken feet anyone? On the first Friday of every month, there’s also Art Night—with street food, performance artists, Taiko drumming, and art gallery showings. But I found myself in Chinatown on an architectural tour.
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Keepers of the Light, Land and Life: A Look at Kilauea Point over 100 Years

Kim Steutermann Rogers on Fri 4/19/2013

Destination: Kauai

As a volunteer at Kīlauea Point National Wildlife Refuge on the north shore of Kauai for many years, my interest and body of knowledge tended toward the wildlife—that is, the science of biology and living things, like monitoring Laysan albatrosses, banding red-tailed tropicbirds and studying visiting humpback whales. I noticed and appreciated the big, white tower in the middle of Kīlauea Point with its priceless “crown jewel” sitting on top, but I left the intricate details of the second-order Fresnel lens and its mysterious inner workings to people more interested in engineering and that kind of science. Then, I was asked to write a book in celebration of the 100th anniversary of Kīlauea Lighthouse this May 1, 2013, and in doing so, I learned a whole host of cool, new facts.
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Talk Story with Maui Author Toby Neal

Kim Steutermann Rogers on Tue 4/16/2013

When feisty Detective Leilani Texeira--with unruly hair; a runner’s, lean body; and a penchant for going rogue--winds up in a cave that requires a stretch of underwater swimming to access, I suspected author Toby Neal had lived on The Garden Island at one time. She knew the hidden folds and nuances of Kauai just a little too well.
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The Trail to Kaniakapupu Palace

Kim Steutermann Rogers on Fri 4/12/2013

Destination: Oahu

Like Kaniakapupu, the summer palace of King Kamehameha III and his wife Queen Kalama, in Nuuanu. It was built in 1845. According to the plaque in front of the crumbling rock wall ruins, the palace—a term to be taken loosely—was a place for parties. The biggest of which took place in 1847 to celebrate Hawaiian Restoration Day.
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Waves of Waimea Bay

Kim Steutermann Rogers on Wed 4/10/2013

Destination: Oahu

Beyond the always crowded parking lot. Past the sticks of showers circling the public restrooms. Far to the south of the command center that is the lifeguard tower in the center of Waimea Bay is a rock jutting into the ocean at the edge of the beach. It’s more than twice my height and where I wanted to be to photograph the surf rolling into Waimea Bay—surf so big that lifeguards had closed the beach to swimming and alerted beachgoers on a public address system whenever ripples on the water’s surface far on the horizon, made their way to shore, hit the steeply rising land, and pitched into the monster surf for which Waimea is famous. The right-breaking waves off the point at the north end of the bay can grow to 50 feet. That’s no small thing. In fact, that’s the height of a five-story building.
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