Pennies for Heaven

LIHUE, Hawaii —  I received my mission shortly after landing on this luscious, 553-square-mile island, a 30-minute puddle-jump west of Honolulu. It was contained in a tourist booklet I picked up at the airport in Lihue, Kauai’s main town. The booklet was full of discount coupons for everything from luaus to motorcycle rentals. Particularly well represented were deals on helicopter tours.

I’d been to Kauai, a favorite of many Hawaii aficionados for its laid-back atmosphere and refreshing lack of overdevelopment, twice before. Although I’d sampled several of its tourist draws, as a budget traveler I’d passed up expensive helicopter rides. Some consider them dangerous; others say they are the best way to see parts of the island that are inaccessible by car-the rugged Na Pali coast, for instance. But they can cost as much as $200 an hour.

So this time my mission-and, of course, I chose to accept it-was to book the best and cheapest helicopter tour I could in a quest to spend an enjoyable week on Kauai without breaking the bank.

Hawaii in general can be expensive, with hotel and restaurant prices that make you gasp. But on Kauai, I discovered, all you need to do to get a good deal is turn over a few stones. Before I left home, I consulted guidebooks, cruised the Internet and made some calls. This resulted in the following itinerary:

* Three nights, at $95 each, in the biggest suite at Poipu Plantation, a B&B; and condo enclave near Poipu Beach, on the island’s sunny south coast.

* Two nights, at $65 each, in a cabin at Kahili Mountain Park, about 10 miles north of Poipu.

* And, finally, two nights in a two-bedroom, garden-view unit at Hanalei Colony Resort on the lush north shore, at $137.50 (which included a 10% auto club discount).

Rates were already at their low-season nadir when I went in January. But there was a catch. Winter brings dangerously high surf, especially to the west and north coasts. So you have to be careful about where you swim.

No matter the season, it’s no sweat to find excellent, inexpensive places to eat on the Garden Island. At Bubba’s, with locations in Kapaa and Hanalei, juicy $2.50 hamburgers come with a special ketchup-relish sauce that was concocted from a 1936 recipe. At Island Teriyaki in Koloa, the massive teriyaki chicken dinner is only $6.95. And at the coffee-shop-like Tip Top Cafe in Lihue, a $6.50 Japanese-style bento box includes chicken wings, teriyaki chicken or beef, egg roll, sausage, potato salad and pickled vegetables.

An affordable helicopter tour posed a stiffer challenge. On the afternoon I arrived, I claimed my Alamo rental car (I’d booked a compact car for $175 a week but was upgraded one class for the same price), then visited Island Helicopters and Air Kauai, whose offices are near the airport, to check out prices. They offered hourlong rides for $148 and $165, respectively.

Next, I drove about 20 miles on the Kuhio Highway to Kapaa, the island’s busy commercial center. At a Safeway there, I stocked up on chocolate, peanut butter, rice cakes and other groceries, intending to prepare some meals at the lodgings that included kitchenettes.

Across the road from the market I noticed a Snorkel Bob’s. I’d rented snorkel gear at Snorkel Bob’s outlets on Maui, so I stopped in and discovered that they also book tours-including helicopter rides.

A young, sandy-haired man who fitted me for flippers offered a week’s use of snorkeling gear and a boogie board, with a helicopter ride thrown in, all for $149. He said I could even take the gear now and call him back later if I decided to book the deal. (If not, I’d pay $55 for the equipment only.)

I continued on to the resort area of Poipu, severely damaged by brutal Hurricane Iniki in 1992. Along the way, I found that the tunnel of eucalyptus trees along Maluhia Road has grown back gloriously and the Poipu waterfront is still scalloped with swimmable beaches.

Tiny Brennecke’s Beach, a fine spot for novice boogie boarders, and Poipu Beach Park, with its long sandbar extending into the sea, are a five-minute walk down the hill from where I stayed, at Poipu Plantation. A modest but comfortable split-level house, Poipu Plantation has a screened-in front porch where breakfasts are served. Sometimes exotic fruits are featured, such as spiny rambutans and delicate star fruit. The house has three bedrooms for B&B; guests, plus nine newer condo-type units tucked into the backyard. My large room had a king bed, TV, ceiling fan, window air-conditioning unit and private bath, but its decor was nothing fancy.

In fact, apart from a handful of ritzy resorts, like the Sheraton and Hyatt Regency, Poipu is mostly nothing fancy. Old folks in jogging suits take morning constitutionals, and families lug lawn chairs to pretty Poipu Beach Park.

I liked waking early, getting a mug of coffee on the porch and ambling down to the beach, where surf fishermen were usually out. One morning my jaw dropped when I spotted the biggest, most perfect rainbow I’d ever seen. “Oh, yeah,” a man standing at my shoulder offered nonchalantly. “We get those all the time.”

I rode the waves on my boogie board and snorkeled, bought flowers and fruit at the Koloa farmers market (held at the town ballpark on Mondays), watched seawater shoot up from a blowhole known as Spouting Horn and, drink in hand, attended the evening performance of the setting sun on the waterfront lanai of the Beach House restaurant. When the pink disc finally dropped below the horizon, everyone applauded.

My favorite Poipu excursion was a hike to a chain of beautiful, largely deserted beaches reached from a network of dirt roads east of Poipu. The Mahaulepu beaches are separated by jagged, surf-lashed sandstone cliffs, where walking is tricky. There I had spied three nuns, standing precariously close to the edge. It was like something out of a Pacific island version of “The Sound of Music.”

I didn’t neglect my mission to find the best helicopter deal. But I did learn that safety on helicopter tours is a serious topic in Hawaii. There have been numerous fatal accidents, most recently one on Maui that killed seven people-a family of four, two teen-age girls and the pilot-and another on Kauai in 1998, when six died. The tours aren’t all that popular with islanders either. Some complain about noise, low-flying choppers and the high frequency of flights.

Nevertheless, I was determined to go up. I collected more data from a honeymooning couple staying at my B&B; who warned me that although you could get deals on helicopter tours, you get what you pay for. If I wanted the ride of my life, they advised, I should spend $150 to book with Inter-Island Helicopters, which flies four-seat Hughes 500s with the doors off so that absolutely nothing comes between you and the scenery. Better yet, their tours leave from the southwest coast town of Hanapepe, putting you inside Waimea Canyon minutes after takeoff.

With this in mind, one day I strolled down to Brennecke’s restaurant, a popular spot across from Poipu Beach Park. Besides serving excellent pupu (appetizer) platters ($10 to $15), Brennecke’s books helicopter rides. There I learned that I could get a $50 discount on an Inter-Island Helicopters trip if I agreed to take an hourlong tour of the Embassy Vacation Resort, a nearby time-share development.

The time-share tour turned out to be a bonus, if for no other reason than proving to myself that I can resist even the hardest sell. The Embassy development is palatial and resplendent, situated in a wide ravine leading down to the sea east of Poipu. But my guide, a tall man named Greg who told me he was one of the resort’s top salesmen, treated me like trash once he realized I wasn’t ready to write a $20,000 check on the spot for a time-share. “I sell to people who want to buy today,” he told me.

After the tour, I headed to Kahili Mountain Park, an enclave of about 30 cabins surrounding a school run by Seventh-Day Adventists. It was my next lodging place, situated below a steep mountainside traversed by hiking paths and surrounded by vegetation in a Crayola box of greens. I don’t know much about Seventh-Day Adventists, but they must believe that cleanliness is next to godliness because my cabin was barefoot-immaculate.

Lighter fluid and charcoal were at the ready by the miniature portable grill on the porch. The one-room cabin had a kitchenette, table and chairs, and a single bed and a double, covered in smooth, soft, worn sheets. The bathroom had only a toilet and sink; the shower was in a wooden lean-to outside, so I could stargaze while washing my hair (though a board fence around it assured privacy).

Though Kahili Mountain Park isn’t on the water, it’s well located for forays around Lihue. I visited the Kauai Museum (which has enlightening Hawaiian craft and history displays); looked for souvenirs at Kilohana, a onetime sugar magnate’s mansion turned into a pleasant shopping mall; and got a security guard to show me around the boarded-up Coco Palms resort in Wailua, where Elvis got married in the 1961 movie “Blue Hawaii.”

My cabin was nicely situated for touring the west coast’s countryside too, where mile after mile of old sugar-cane fields are being converted to coffee-bean and sunflower-seed farms. The sunflowers, as big as dinner plates, seem right out of a Van Gogh painting and make quite a sight against the azure ocean and baby-blue sky. The fields roll down to a 17-mile ribbon of sand at Polihale, near the famed cliffs of Na Pali. The surf is always so rough there that only the foolhardy swim; everyone else stands deferentially out of its reach. Returning at the end of the day to a barbecue and bed at Kahili Mountain Park was the high point of my Kauai stay. Two days later, I moved on to a well-kept condo complex on the island’s north shore, near the funky hamlet of Hanalei, with its health-food shops and yoga studios. But at the Hanalei Colony Resort complex, the swimming pool was too close to the street and the surf at the beach there was too rough. Down the road, at the Na Pali coastal trail head, Ke’e beach was more manageable, as was nearby Tunnels, a snorkeling haven.

But by this time I had already accomplished my mission. Back in Hanapepe, a 30-minute drive from Kahili Mountain Park, I claimed the front passenger seat of one of Inter-Island’s helicopters. I clutched my camera and up we went, into the deep throat of Waimea Canyon, across the steep, green-carpeted cliffs of Na Pali and over the Hanalei Valley. I told the pilot where I was staying, so we flew over my cabin too.

Danger or no, let me tell you Kauai looks smashing from the air. And it isn’t chopped liver on a budget either.