Great tours, professional staff, beautiful scenery!
By A Yahoo! Contributor, 3/24/07
I just returned from a week in Hawaii, and my Oahu Nature Tours were the absolute highlights of my trip. I found this company on the Internet, looking for "Hawaii" and "hiking." That was a lucky day.
I booked these tours through an agency, which I also found on the Internet. Two friends came with me but I was the only one to experience all of these tours:
Mountain Rainforest
David was a wonderful guide. Without him, I would never have smelled a cinnamon tree, eaten a raw coffee bean, watched tiny snails crawl over huge leaves, known what a kukui nut was, or climbed to the top of a glorious ridge in the Ko'olau Mountains. He was knowledgeable, considerate, and clear.
Natural Highlights
This afternoon ranked as the most fun we had all week! Mee-Na, our guide, made our group of strangers into friends almost instantly. We were the lone Americans, along with two girls from Mexico, a brother and sister from Italy, and a couple from Canada. Mee-Na was a personable, passionate, patient teacher for us as our "party" explored the tide pools and the beautiful beaches along the coast.
Manoa Waterfall and Diamond Head
I took both these tours with Sev. I love hiking mountains, so these were among my favorite tours of the week. Sev was a thoroughly knowledgeable guide, and extremely helpful and entertaining as well. The waterfall was such a treat and well worth the climb and mud! And my co-workers are still marvelling over the fact that their desk-bound editor actually climbed Diamond Head!
Overall, I can't imagine a better way to spend my Hawaiian vacation days. My only regret is that I couldn't fit in more tours with this company. I loved the small size of the groups and that I could get to know people from around the world. Their staff is very helpful, and I have and will continue to recommend this company to everyone I know. They definitely beat the "Gift Shop Tours" hands down.
If only there were services like theirs in every state. Ohio doesn't have as good a reputation for beauty as Hawaii, but we do have marvelous nature here, including a beautiful and underestimated national forest near Cleveland, many bird sanctuaries along Lake Erie, and great hill hiking in the southern half of the state...but no Ohio Nature Tours!
Thank you Oahu Nature Tours for enriching my time on your island to such an amazing degree. I won't ever forget my tours with you.