We fly out of SEA. I can get nonstops to Kauai on Alaska, but I have to pay to check bags. And, this trip is on UA miles, so the price was hard to beat.

We have also flown on Hawaiian and, in the old days, Northwest (the largest unscheduled airline in the world). NWA would now mean Delta, and I avoid them like the plague (no legroom in coach, at least not in the last 40 years).

We head over on the 8th, as well. 4 weeks and then we fly home. UA has cancelled our usual early morning flight to SFO from SEA which means that the connection to the direct from SFO to LIH is blown. Now we get SEA-SFO-LAX-LIH and get in that evening. Grrrr.

Great pictures. I recognize a bunch of those locations.

Where are you staying in January? We've got 4 weeks reserved at the Kauai Coast Resort in Kapa'a in January and February. I figure I'll use up a bunch more memory in the computer with pictures from this trip. Kauai is very relaxing and laid back.

We go to Kauai almost every year (skipped this year, went to Maui, but we have 4 weeks in January/February reserved in Kapa'a). I'll second the recommendations above. You can't go wrong. Now, about flying around Kauai... My wife and I took a helicopter trip out of the Princeville airport about 10 years ago. It was OK. There's a guy selling rides out of the Lihue airport in an open cockpit Waco biplane. I've ridden with him twice. Once with my wife and once with my brother. As the pilot said the first time, "I fly slower than the helicopters do." Yes, you will have to contend with aircraft structure in your pictures, but this beats the heck out of helicopters. I'll admit my bias, I'm a fixed wing pilot and helicopters don't do much for me. However, go to https://kauaiairtour.com/kauai-air-tours/biplane-tour/ for more information. They have other aircraft, as well. Oh, and the comment on the web page by "Terikay" about not being able to take pictures in the open cockpit is incorrect. I have plenty from my trips.

Have a great time. I've found that a CP filter can really help with pictures on Kauai. If you don't have one, get one before you go.

My first DSLR was an A100. I took over 10,000 pictures with it. All over the world. Two lenses. 18-70 mm and the 75-300 mm. Both Sony. I replaced it with an A200 in 2009. The 18-70 mm lens''s focus mechanism failed (at Masada in Israel) and I was left with the 75-300 mm lens for the A100 for the rest of the trip. Fortunately I had my older Olympus C-740 point and shoot for pictures requiring less zoom. The A200 came with another 18-70 mm lens that still works fine. I quit using that camera last year when I got a Canon T5i.

Back to your question. For $150 I don't think you would be I'll served by taking that A100. 10 Mpixel isn't a big handicap if you aren't planning on blowing up large prints. And even with that limitation it does quite well. I was in a standards committee meeting in Paris shortly after I got the A100 and the folks from Sony in Japan hadn't seen it. They were impressed. Two pictures I took with it on that trip (early 2007) stand out in my mind. The first is a shot I took looking down the street at the Arc d'Triumph from the Place d' last Concorde using the 75-300 mm lens at full zoom. You can make out the individual bars of the fence at the top of the Arc when you zoom in digitally on your computer. The second is a picture I took inside Versailles. From the back of the Chapel, looking all the way to the pipes of the organ in the front. No flash. Handheld 1/2 second exposure. Solid picture. Even when zoomed in quite a bit. The anti-shake mechanism in the camera body Works great.

Go get it and have fun. And pick up a spare battery. Sony branded, the non-Sony branded ones I bought from some outfit in New York (too many years ago to remember who) wouldn't work. They took a 3charge, but the camera wouldn't recognize them.

Oh, and my picture standing with the pyramids in the background was taken by my wife with the A100.

The locals (Swindon) claim that the darned things breed. Hence the "circle" the original post refers to. I've driven through it. What a mess. I sure hope the idiots around here (Olympia area) don't think this is something to copy. They probably won't, the amount of land that thing takes is measured in acres.

As someone once noted years ago, "You're in good hands - WHOOPS! - with Allstate." I've never used them and never will.

More than one. I think Yeager's quote was something along the lines of, "The first time I saw an ME-232 I shot it down." They were tough in flight as they were much faster than the P-51, but our pilots would catch them landing or taking off. Much easier that way.

So do I. November 1982, IIRC. That's a 6502 based machine, I think.

My mom just moved from her condo to a retirement place. 3 bedroom with a garage to a 2 bedroom with no garage. You don't what to know how many slides we tossed (and how many we kept). Ouch!

I'll bet if they made a production run of original WWII Jeeps they'd sell out in a flash. I'd sure like to have one in my driveway. Probably about the only thing that would replace the 1999 TJ I've got there now. My wife wouldn't be happy. Not that she likes the TJ (too hard to get in and out of), but that would be another expensive toy.

Naw, but a P-51 sure does. :-)

I missed it, and I should have known better. I retired from Intel last year after just over 20 years with them. Oops...

I use a GoPro. Head strap mount and it is looking wherever I am looking. I just take videos with it. Works great.

Sounds familiar. We'll be on Kauai for 4 weeks in January, going into February. We've been there a number of times, but I always take my camera and lenses. A circularly polarized filter is also very handy there. I'll also take my gear to Maui in September. Ah, retirement. It's wonderful! :-)