Hawaii
Hawaiian Water Adventure: A Family Marine Exploration
Program No. 20992RJ
Hawaii is home to surfing, volcanoes, soft sandy beaches and vibrant coral reefs. Come wet your feet as you and your family set out on a marine adventure through the islands.
Enroll with Confidence
We want your Road Scholar learning adventure to be something to look forward to—not worry about. Learn more
Protecting the Environment
We offset a portion of the emissions created by your travel. Learn more
9 days
8 nights
18 meals
8B 3L 7D
1
Check-in, Registration, Welcome Dinner, Introductions
Honolulu, Oahu, Hawaii
2
Orientation, Surfing & Wave Riding, Free Time
Honolulu, Oahu, Hawaii
3
Submarine Adventure, Local Paina
Honolulu, Oahu, Hawaii
4
Surfing & Wave Riding, Fly to Hilo, Big Island
Hilo, Big Island of Hawaii
5
Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, Transfer to Kona
Kona, Big Island of Hawaii
6
Marine Environment Class, Snorkeling Intro, Free Time, Luau
Kona, Big Island of Hawaii
7
Kona Coast Snorkel & Sail
Kona, Big Island of Hawaii
8
Kealekekua Bay Snorkeling
Kona, Big Island of Hawaii
9
Program Concludes
Kona, Big Island of Hawaii
At a Glance
Ride the Hawaiian waves with your family, and dive beneath them to explore life under the sea! This marine adventure with your family will bring you face to fin with a rainbow of tropical fish as you snorkel through coral reefs. Discover sunken ships, sea turtles and maybe even a shark aboard a passenger submarine. Learn about Polynesian culture during “paina” dinner party and surf culture during lessons in Waikiki on this aquatic island expedition.
Activity Level
Outdoor: Spirited
Walking two miles over uneven varied terrain, stairs. Climbing in and out of water on beaches, flat rock surfaces and a boat. Get on/off bus several times a day. Elevations up to 4,100 feet.
Family Programs
Share your love of learning with your family. These programs are designed for any combination of generations: grandparents, aunts, uncles, parents and children.
Best of all, you’ll…
- Explore the world beneath the warm Hawaiian waters in a real submarine and swim with green sea turtles on a snorkeling adventure.
- Learn to surf with family members and ride the waves in an outrigger canoe.
- Visit Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, home of the active Kilauea volcano!
General Notes
This is a family program for participants, their adult children and grandchildren ages 12 and up. Snorkeling equipment included, however, personal snorkeling gear encouraged for best fit. For a comparable grandparent adventure for grandchildren ages 10-14, check out "Snorkeling, Surfing & Submarines in Hawaii With Your Grandchild" (#4827). Due to the nature of this program, listening devices are not available.
Suggested Reading List
(27 books)
Visit the Road Scholar Bookshop
You can find many of the books we recommend at the Road Scholar store on bookshop.org, a website that supports local bookstores.
Hawaiian Water Adventure: A Family Marine Exploration
Program Number: 20992
The Food of Paradise, Exploring Hawaii's Culinary Heritage
Laudan takes readers on a thoughtful, wide-ranging tour of Hawaii's farms and gardens, fish auctions and vegetable markets, fairs and carnivals, mom-and-pop stores and lunch wagons to uncover the delightful complexities and incongruities in Hawaii's culinary history. With 150 recipes.
Hawaii Wildlife
A fold-up, laminated card featuring color drawings and short descriptions of commonly encountered birds, mammals and other critters of Hawaii.
Sand to Sea, Marine Life of Hawaii
Young readers will dive right into this lively, illustrated introduction to the animal and plant life they'll find on the beaches, tide pools and reefs of Hawaii. Geared to both kids and adults, this is a nice introduction for the whole family.
Stowaway
For this novel, renowned children's author Karen Hesse imagines the voyages of Captain Cook (including landings in Australia and New Zealand), from the point of view of a young stowaway named Nicholas. Ages 9-14.
Volcanoes, Fire From the Earth
By the great French volcanologist (who died on the job on Mount Unzen in Japan in 1992), this pocket guide features hundreds of full-color paintings and traces the study of volcanoes from early myth and legend to modern science.
Nation Within, The History of the American Occupation of Hawai'i
Coffman follows the rising tensions between the U.S. and the once-independent Hawaii through the late 19th century, documenting how the native population resisted annexation.
Dismembering Lahui, A History of the Hawaiian Nation to 1887
Osorio charts the effects of Western law on the national identity of Native Hawaiians in this political history of the Kingdom of Hawaii from the onset of constitutional government in 1840 to the Bayonet Constitution of 1887.
Voyage to the Volcano
From the popular Magic School Bus series. Ms. Frizzle takes her class to Hawaii, for an explosive tour of a live volcano.
Hawaii, Islands Under the Influence
A history of economic development in the islands from sandalwood and whaling to sugar, tourism and Japanese investment in the 1980s.
Hawaiian Islands Map
A map of all the individual Hawaiian Islands, including maps of O'ahu, Kaua'i, Maui, Moloka'i and Lana'i at 1:150,000 and of Hawai'i at 1:330,000. Includes an inset map of Waikiki.
Captive Paradise, A History of Hawaii
A fascinating history of America’s youngest (and, arguably, most unique) state. Historian and biographer James Haley charts Hawaii’s epic journey from kingdom to statehood with authority.
From a Native Daughter, Colonialism and Sovereignty in Hawaii
Trask, a descendant of the Pi'ilani line of Maui and the Kahakumakaliua line of Kauai, explores issues of racism and imperialism in Hawaii, documenting the work of native Hawaiian student organizations and the native Hawaiian self-governing organization Ka Lahuni Hawaii.
Aloha Betrayed
Silva draws on newspapers, books, letters and contemporary accounts in Hawaiian for this eye-opening account of popular resistance to the annexation of Hawaii by the United States.
Hawaii's Story by Hawaii's Queen
A poignant plea for sovereignty. Queen Liliuokalani, deposed by the United States in 1893, tells the story of her islands.
Hawaiian Mythology
A classic study of Hawaiian ethnography and folklore.
Hawaii
A romantic, fictional overview of the islands' history, people and culture from prehistoric times to statehood in 1959.
Plague And Fire, Battling Black Death And the 1900 Burning of Honolulu's Chinatown
Mohr relates the gripping tale of the bubonic plague that reached Hawaii's shores just as the islands were about to become a U.S. territory through the eyes of the people caught up in the vast conflagration that engulfed Honolulu's Chinatown.
Paradise Remade, The Politics of Culture and History in Hawaii
By focusing on the experience of the indigenous people of Hawaii rather than on that of their colonizers, Buck considers the transformation of Hawaiian culture over the past 200 years.
Pearl Harbor Ghosts, The Legacy of December 7, 1941
A well-researched and evocative look at the bombing of Pearl Harbor by a veteran travel writer. Clarke compares and contrasts the social life and culture of Hawaii on the day of the bombing and sixty years later, enumerating the changes wrought by WWII.
Mark Twain's Letters from Hawaii
These observant and often wildly hilarious letters from an 1866 trip display Twain's famous wit.
Hawaiian Legends of the Guardian Spirits
Ancient legends are brought to life in 60 beautiful block prints, many vibrantly colored, and narrated in a lively "read-aloud" style, just as storytellers of old may have told them hundreds of years ago.
The Island Edge of America, A Political History of Hawaii
Journalist Tom Coffman brings Hawaii's story into the twentieth century through this reinterpretation of major events leading up to and following statehood in 1959.
Born in Paradise
The autobiographical tale of childhood on a Maui ranch in the early part of this century. A classic account of old Hawaii, warm-spirited and evocative.
Eyewitness Guide Hawaii
An on-the-ground guide to the Hawaiian Islands -- handsome, comprehensive and superb.
Into The Volcano
O'Meara's lively, illustrated eyewitness accounts of adventures in volcanology include Arenal in Costa Rica, Kilauea in Hawaii and Stromboli off the coast of Italy. Geared for grades 5 to 8, this is a great introduction to volcanoes for the whole family.
Under the Blood Red Sun
This novel set on Oahu immediately before, during and after the Japanese assault on Pearl Harbor features as its protagonist a 13-year-old Japanese-American boy. The book is a sensitive treatment of a grave collision of cul-tures, geared for kids ages 9 to 12.
Hawaii, Travellers' Wildlife Guides
This all-around field guide features color illustrations of commonly encountered birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians and fish with notes on Hawaii's geology and popular parks and reserves.
