Touring Tourists

Here is the thing a taking a tour: You are able to see a lot of places that you might not otherwise get to — especially if you do not have a car.

Here is another thing about taking a tour: You will be pelted with facts, maybe relentlessly, all of them somewhat filtered through the lens of the guide’s own interests. Some of the facts will stick to you — like the tragic idea that birds are too stupid to tell a plastic bag from a squid so they will stuff them into the bellies of their young thinking they are feeding them when really, oh, it is very sad. Other facts will slide right off you, you will not remember the name of… what was that place now? The date was…uh…

I had been to most of the places on the tour I took yesterday. That’s not really a problem — I’ve taken the Pike Place Market tour twice; same with the Seattle Underground. I know enough about the history of those places to be able to present the basics — I’d happily be your guide when you come to visit Seattle. Knowing the place or being a local need not be an obstacle to enjoying a tour. If the guide is wildly entertaining and/or an outstanding story teller, the facts will stick and you won’t even realize what you’ve learned until later. I really enjoyed the Seattle tours I’ve taken — I was totally open to taking an Oahu tour, thinking that it would deepen my knowledge of the island.

I spent the afternoon cruising Oahu in a minivan with three other couples, one from Houston, one from Toronto, one from Minneapolis. We buzzed around the island stopping here and there, our guide running a never ending patter of Hawaiian place, birds, plant names, dates of historical events… I looked out the window and watched the surf, the trees, the traffic. The truth? I phased out and watched the blue, though every now and then something stuck, like the idea that white sand beaches are the result of generations of parrot fish pooping out bits of undigested coral (really?) or that the boats collecting garbage from the waters around the northwest Hawaiian islands have to choose between the nets, which kill fish and other marine life and the other bits of plastic kicking around out there that are less dangerous to the critters that live there.

I liked the tour just okay — it would have made a great introduction to Oahu. This adventure, from Oahu Nature Tours was nice, don’t get me wrong, but, as a person who’d been to these places before, it didn’t give me enough new insight. If you’re brand new to Hawaii and want to travel without a car (an idea I totally support!), I feel good about recommending the trip I took, but  I probably need a more focused, less introductory trip  — I’d have chosen the Mountain Rainforest Adventure, if my schedule had allowed for it.

What did I really think? I’m not much of a tour van person. I’m super slow, I like to take my time, and I tend to veer off course. If you’re staying in Waikiki, you can rent a car for the day, take a picnic, and explore the island at your leisure. That’s more my style. You won’t have access to the encyclopedic knowledge of a guide, but independent, bookish types will be okay with that.

If you need someone to show you around, hey, why not? It’s not for me, but if you’re pressed for time and want a good overview, it’s not a bad way to go.

Sidebar: Toward the end of the tour I got to talking with one of the Canadians. He went on a tirade about how Canada is losing her identity. I asked him what, exactly, he meant by that and he told me that minorities and immigrants have all the rights in Canada. Many of those people, the Indians, the Hong Kong Chinese, the Pakistanis, are third and fourth generation Canadians, I suggested, so they are just as Canadian as you are. I wasn’t prepared, in this context, to out him as a white supremacist, but I wasn’t going to let him off that easily. I asked to tell me what he meant by “Canadian” but he kept dodging the question going off on tangents about kids from Asia getting better scholarships. Again, I said, those kids could well be third or fourth generation Canadian. How many generations is YOUR family in Canada? I asked. His answer? One. Connect the dots, man. What are you saying, exactly?

White supremacists. I hate those guys.

Disclaimer: Travel, accomodations and some activities portions of my trip were sponsored by the Oahu Visitor’s Beaureau in exchange for my blogging about my experiences in Hawaii.