2019 Trip to Hawaii

ALOHA

Hi, I’m Aku from Turku Finland. I’m staying in Beverly, Massachusetts and attending high school for a year. I went to a Belo Hawaii trip. My flight to Hawaii was very long, even longer than my flight from Finland to the U.S. I had a layover in San Francisco and where I met my friend Damian and we flew together to Honolulu. We were on the main island all week, and our hotel was in Waikiki, right next to the ocean.

The trip took a week and we did a lot of amazing things. We had every day at least two activities, for example a tour to Pearl Harbor, Polynesian Cultural Center, Surfing, a city tour to Honolulu, hiking to Diamond Head, and a catamaran tour, besides that we had plenty of free time.

My favorite activities were hiking to Diamond Head and surfing. Diamond Head is a volcanic tuff cone, and it’s also a U.S. National Natural Monument. We hiked one mile up sunny trails and spiraling staircases. A 360-degree view opened at the top and we saw the Waikiki Beach, the Leeward coastal beaches, mountain ranges., and the endless blue Pacific Ocean.

Surfing was so much fun. It wasn’t as difficult as I thought and I caught some good waves. I think my skiing background helped. The hardest part was paddling through the waves to the starting spot. I was so excited, that I decided to take extra surfing lessons couple days later.

There were about fifty kids on the trip, all through Rotary. I made a lot of new friends from all over the world, and the travel guides were very nice. The Hawaii trip was absolutely one of the highlights of my exchange year.