United Island Hopper: HNL-MAJ-KWA-KSA-PNI-TKK-GUM

approaching Guam after a long day...right about when my camera battery died

Hafa Adai- Welcome to Guam
taken with my iPhone

THE END

hulagrrl210's helpful tips for traveling on the island hopper:

• Dress in layers- some of the places you stop are incredibly hot and humid (MAJ) and the plane can be very cold
• Get off the plane- all of the places except Kwajalein allow you to deplane and stretch your legs for 30-40 minutes. You'll be glad you did
• Try and get a bulkhead seat if you are in the back. These planes don't have E+
• Use the airplane lavatory (and not the ones on the ground)- YOU'VE BEEN WARNED!
• Bring some snacks- unless you like french toast and soggy ham sandwiches.
• Keep your carry on with you. There are security checks at each of the stops. If you stay on board you have to take everything out of the bins and move to one side of the plane. Anything that's not identified will be removed. If you decide to get off, they have a place you can leave your luggage at the bottom of the air stairs.

Love the pictorial trip report.
thanks

Thanks for the great trip report. Your advice is spot-on. Especially: bring food to eat on the flight-- and food of substance, too, not just snacks, or you will end up hungry!

When I took the Island Hopper it made one additional stop, Johnston Atoll. That airstrip has been since decommissioned. They forbade us from taking any photographs of the Atoll, even on approach, and would not let us off the plane-- so you didn't miss anything, except for an even longer flight.

I really appreciate you photos-- they brought back many memories!

Some people I talked to that live in Kwaj told me that in the old days they used to make you close the window shades on the plane. Now they didn't even say anything about pictures, which surprised me since it is an active US military base. I guess we can thank Google Earth.

Great trip report! Thanks for all the stunning pictures.

The dive map is actually a number of ships that were sunk during WW2 There are some fascinating dives - years ago I did some and still remember the japanese dishes, records and newspapers that were still there and reminders of some really sad times.

Great report and deja vu! My wife and I took the Island Hopper October 31 on the way to GUM, SPN and MNL. We went on a Wednesday so we didn't have KSA. Also, based on your departure board pic at HNL, they must have moved the flight up to 6 am, which ours was…unless KSA requires an earlier start. Your pictures are great. Our weather was pretty ideal for the trip. No rain, few clouds and pretty stunning views of the islands at every stop. I see you sneaked in a couple at KWA too. I don't understand the big taboo on pics there, I saw nothing that looked secret. Apparently they used to require shades down for that stop. I got the tap on the shoulder as we were landing and I was snapping them off like crazy...was told it was a no no. Someday I'd like to spend time on PNI and TKK. They were gorgeous from the air with enough land area to explore. MAJ and KWA just looked like thin coral strips, beautiful from the air nevertheless. We're not underwater people but I can thoroughly understand why these islands are divers paradises. Great WW2 history also. Thanks for posting.

Looks cool. Amazing seeing how tiny some of those landing strips are....and I though flying in to some African air strips was rural.

Thanks for all the pics. Brought back lot of memories of working for few days at the hot and steamy Kwaj many years ago.
Some day I will do this island hopping and then do the final hop from Guam to Narita.

nice pictures!

Thanks for sharing! Really interesting trip and I enjoyed "traveling" with you through the photo collection.

How many meals do they serve on this flight? One or one for each stop?

Breakfast between HNL and MAJ, and ham sandwiches two other times throughout the day (I can't remember where)

In 2010, they didn't make us close the shades in Kwaj, but they apparently did say multiple times that photography was prohibited.

It's possible I had a hearing problem that day... might have something to do with the frequent take-offs and landings.

Awesome photos. Brought back a lot of memories. It's interesting that they managed to replace the Continental name on the islands, but they haven't gotten around to fix/replace the big and broken Continental signage at the hangar in HNL.

Looks like Norfolk Air is no more... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norfolk_Air

Nice! Enjoyed it.

Great report!

I wonder if I could do this trip going to NRT? How many points did you earn? I wonder if I can do this on Aeroplan points?

I earned 16750 miles SMF-LAX-HNL-islandhopper-GUM-MNL-GUM-HNL-SFO-SMF. The fare from Sacramento to Manila was about $800 (which I brought down significantly with a customer relations e-cert I had sitting around). I've also seen this routing available going to ICN, so I guess there's no reason it couldn't be used for NRT as well.

I am doing this in the next couple weeks on a revenue ticket (green) via NRT. Blue and Cyan are award and revenue, respectively, and purple's a different award ticket.

Looks like a fun triop