Shaka Kauai Audio Tour Guide Reviews

I had never heard of ShakaKauaiAudioTourGuide and when I stumbled upon it wondered if it would be worth it. It totally is!! We ended up purchasing both tours for Kauai as it kept us from getting lost, helped lead us to lots of sweet spots we otherwise would not have found, and kept us entertained all the while. The only reason I didn't rate it 5 stars is 1) it led us to a waterfall area that is sacred to local people and when we arrived there, a sign had actually been posted by the locals asking us to please respect their culture and not access the site. It is still a public area so anybody can access the site but can doesn't mean should, and 2) as my husband and I entered the ditch with the hanging bridge site, we felt highly uncomfortable after a conversation with men who live there at the bridge site. It appeared there was a homeless camp there, with people living out of old vehicles etc. Pretty sketchy and I didn't feel entirely safe, as we were the only tourists there. Everything else was totally spot on and we wish we had this type of app for everywhere we travel :)

Oddly enough I first found the Shaka Kauai tour information thru a desperate google search rather than ShakaKauaiAudioTourGuide Store, but when I found an iPhone app was available for this guide... sold! Yes it is probably one of the most expensive iPhone apps any user will buy, but considering that you could have easily spent $100+/pp on a bus tour instead, ShakaKauaiAudioTourGuide is well worth its value. Like advertised, it worked magnificently to automatically start audio at your route points ... even in a rare spot where no cell reception could be obtained! One note to the user - heed the author's advice in tour time length suggestions. The "side trips" for photo ops or hiking trails may be easily overlooked to think you could. Breeze through both Kauai tours in the same day, but as I quickly found out when you stop worrying about the map and where you have to go next and think about the fun of the day's tour, time flies really fast!!! All said, I'm very impressed with this tour guide app and fully plan to purchase the Maui version for the final leg of my vacation tomorrow!

My boyfriend and I bought the Waimea Canyon Tour and it was an amazing experience! Definitely worth the $15. We spent all day out exploring and honestly it was our favorite part of our trip! The tour guide tells you very interesting histories about Hawaii as you drive so there’s never a boring moment.

The tour guide doesn’t give us his name so we called him Berto for the whole trip. Really fun guy! His accent changes a lot and the jokes are a little corny but we thought he was very amusing. Berto was probably our favorite tour guide during the whole trip as well!

If I were to make a small change, I do wish that the music after the Berto’s speaking parts were just a little longer— just long enough so there isn’t an awkward gap or silence between locations. Other than that little suggestion, I think ShakaKauaiAudioTourGuide was amazing and will definitely use it for when we return or go to the other islands!

We’ve bought ShakaKauaiAudioTourGuide for each of the islands and haven’t been disappointed. Each tour gives some fun history and tidbits that we probably wouldn’t have known about had we just driven around. And we didn’t pay an absolute fortune for it. That said, here are a couple of things to know but not to discourage you from purchasing.
1. The narrator is great but it sure would’ve been nice if they could have a different voice for each tour, just for a little variety.
2. In the years since these first came out, changes have happened. The Ishihara store in Waimea is closing in March 2023 so that’s off. The archaeological site in Poipu is kind of blocked by a large screen on the right and can be easy to miss.
3. When he tells you to turn right down a dirt road in Poipu, it’s been paved. Don’t be confused.
4. Kauai can be rainy. Try to look over or get a forecast of Waimea Canyon before driving up. Clouds settle in the canyon so views will be obscured. Consider bringing a hoodie and decent hiking shoes. Slippahs are slippery on the red mud. Trust me.
5. Finally, ShakaKauaiAudioTourGuide can be a bit clunky to use, especially when getting to the starting point, but once you’re there it’s pretty easy to just follow along. Just have fun with it and Live Aloha.

We did all four self-guides through Kauai. I would recommend this to anyone. It took us 4 days- and went back to the ones we missed. It's important to remember to download it when you have internet and then get the GPS connected so they can time and map out your location. It is truly amazing!
We learned so much we wouldn't have otherwise between the history of the island, archeological digs, and recent history along with plants, animals unique to the island- plus hikes, snorkeling spots, and beautiful beaches with history to boot. I can't say enough about this except... thank you!

My husband took a ton of videos and pictures and tagged Shaka guide. Thank you so much for the awesome rate, and hanging out with us. And, making us laugh and sing in the car:) it was perfect!

I’m a Hawaii vacation veteran. My wife and I married on Maui. As a traveler I really like to learn and see not just the easy sites. I read the reviews both negative and positive. Is there a little pandering to the tourist? Appsolultly. Is it over done? No. I worked in the tourist industry for years. And this is the write level of levity and facts and just delightful stories. I also can say if I had this narrator in a live tour. I’d tip at the top of my ability. Kaui is my favorite island. Laid back. Lower tourist congestion. And beautiful.
The stories are great. The off the beaten path beaches that we saw are fantastic. If you are visiting Kaui for the first time. Not sure of how to spend a day here or there. ShakaKauaiAudioTourGuide is a gem. We did 3 of the four tours. If we had one more extra day. We would have done all four. My kids also enjoyed it as well. Lots of laughs and nice to hear stories we probably wouldn’t hear otherwise.

My Husband and I just spent most of a month on 4 of the Hawaiian Islands. Since my Husband permanently uses a wheelchair, most tours and beaches are not available to us so we rely on exploring on our own a lot. So often we drive by something and wonder what it is or maybe what it’s greater significance might be. With Shaka, it’s like you have a high quality travel guide right in the car with you. Literally, there are times we would see something and say Wow and 2 seconds later, Shaka would say wow and then explain what you are seeing. We loved the Hawaiian music between points of interest, we loved that ShakaKauaiAudioTourGuide is incredibly seamless— truly you set it and go and never have a glitch the entire day. It’s an amazing value for the service. Now that we’re home, we find ourselves missing Shaka and his corny jokes and laugh.

I so rarely pay for apps, but this one was worth it. We only took one of the tours, up to the Waimea Canyon. It worked perfectly! With two teens, impressing them (even in Kauai) can be challenging ;). They were grumpy at first but once we stopped at the Kauai Coffee Plantation they were all in. There was so much we wanted to share with them (my husband had been the first off island reporter after Iniki and I visited a year later) but our stories are ‘so lame’.
The voice talent is great and as soon as they asked a question it seems it was answered by the guide!
My only sadness is we are on the Big Island and excitedly downloaded that app. You only have one tour here! And due to the volcano of course it’s closed. I was hoping for a Hilo and Saddleback road and maybe Kona area tours :( . Please keep up the good work!
Maybe pair up with the Hawaii Uncovered tour book people - between the 2 apps all the info we needed was available!
Mahalo!

A friend who used ShakaKauaiAudioTourGuide recommended it to us and I wholeheartedly agree. It made the drive around Kauai really enjoyable and pointed out so many things along the way we never would have thought to stop at otherwise. The GPS is amazingly accurate. Usually with driving guides, they tell you where to go and then you have to navigate yourself there and hit “play” on ShakaKauaiAudioTourGuide . Not with the Shaka guide! It knows where you are and plays fun background music while you drive and then automatically starts the guide when you get to the right spot. So if you’re stuck in traffic, or take a wrong turn, you don’t have to worry about getting off-sync with the tour. Amazing! The content is really fun and good for all ages. The stories, history and legends are really interesting, and we found ourselves using some of their catchphrases during our trip, eh brah?!

This was totally fun and enjoyable. We came here in January and it rained the first day. Taking the waterfall tour during the rainy weather, made for a great day. The music and jokes, stories - both legend and factual - made up for the weather. This is pure fun - no disrespect intended as one person rating ShakaKauaiAudioTourGuide implied. The GPS was an excellent way to navigate the island. One navigational error in the North Shore tour: 68, wet cave, said it was on the right. It’s actually in the left about 15 yards prior where stated. Well worth the investment. We would never have found many places for they are not well marked. Kudos
One thing of interest when doing the Canyon / NaPali tour - wear a bathing suit if you hike to the waterfall. I was disappointed that I didn’t know I could wade in the waterfall. Also, if you have trekking poles, take them. Absolutely entertaining and fun to follow.
This was such a good app, that I had 5 other friends download it for our trip. ShakaKauaiAudioTourGuide is first class!!!

My family did two full tours, and the other two in bits and pieces. ShakaKauaiAudioTourGuide was an immediate hit! My kids (12 and 15) named the guide Frederick, and we did whatever Frederick told us. (If the parents were in charge, the kids would have gotten bored/grumpy, but they never complained about Frederick!) We went places that we never would have noticed, learned fascinating Hawaiian history, and heard lots of legends. We had the best shave ice and poke, Frederick never steered us wrong! The driving directions were easy and spot on, plus we felt like pros whenever Frederick said “Great job on that roundabout!” Waimea Canyon was one of our best days because of ShakaKauaiAudioTourGuide. The waterfall tour kept us entertained on our last day. On a hike, we were wishing Frederick was there to talk about the plant life (future app idea?) Honestly I wish Shaka made guides for other places, too, because this improved our vacation so much!

We’ve been on the Kauai for 3 days - and unfortunately have had a lot of rain! Not the kind of weather to sit by the pool or beach and relax... so we decide to get out and explore. I googled Kauai driving map and stumbled on ShakaKauaiAudioTourGuide and decided to check it out. We figured it was worth trying to go to another area of the island looking for some sun - and if no sun was to be found at least we were out seeing something new! What a great decision. We’ve now done all 3 Kauai tours and it’s been the best part of our vacation. The tours are fun, informative, and include great little stops that we would have never found had we not taken the tour. Tours are easy to follow with great and detailed spoken instructions. Even little tips like ‘pull over here and look for someplace to park - because if you go farther down the road it’s difficult to turn around.’ The tour guide is funny and engaging - sharing a great amount of history and interesting anecdotes as you follow the route. I highly recommend investing the minimal cost to purchase the tours - all 3 have been great!!

We were recommended the Shaka guide: Maui app for our road to Hana trip, by a friend, and stumbled across this one for kauai as well. Holy moly ShakaKauaiAudioTourGuide has been so fun. It started out a little corny when we did our first tour, but got so entertaining that when we had weird audio problems, and missed half the stories, we were so sad, and actually went back to listen to them when we got back to the hotel! We had such a fun time discovering many places on Kauai that we never would have known existed.

We also had an app update during our trip and love the addition of the Hawaiian music between when the guide talks. Something minor we noticed with the update, is the audio volume for the music and talking is very inconsistent and we have to keep adjusting the volume due to it being way to quiet to all of the sudden blasting. Or even Getting gradually louder!! Hopefully that gets fixed.

We highly recommend ShakaKauaiAudioTourGuide!

We used ShakaKauaiAudioTourGuide to see the island of Kauai at our own and pace. My favorite tour was Waimea Canyon. The guide works by downloading the tour and map in advance so even if you are stuck without cell signal (which you probably will be), it will still function. There are a lot of cool legends and stories that the guide shares. He takes you to some nice scenic places that maybe most other people don’t know about. There are options to do some hiking so be prepared and have the right clothing, walking stick, bug spray, water if you want to do hiking. Some hikes are short, some are several miles and longer. It also gets very muddy if it has been raining so be prepared for that also. It can be very dangerous in Kauai to hike certain areas when muddy so use your own judgement. Would definitely recommend ShakaKauaiAudioTourGuide and will use the other Shaka Guides when I go back to other islands on Hawaii. I would love to see similar guides for other parts of the USA!!

My husband and I took our young adult daughters to Kaua’i this past week for what will most likely be our final family trip for a while as they start their adult lives. We learned of ShakaKauaiAudioTourGuide from a used car salesperson (we owe him a thank you too!) and downloaded it. After listening to the previews, we downloaded it. We are SO grateful we did! ShakaKauaiAudioTourGuide rocks. It took us turn by turn all over the island, explaining what we were seeing, why it’s important and the value of each place to the culture and people. It also covered lore as well as factual information. We were thrilled to see the famous “must see” sights as well as seeing MANY places the tour buses don’t visit. And it only cost $20 to download all 4 tours... for the 4 of us that was the cost of $5 a person. I don’t even want to consider what we’d have paid for a tour bus where we’d have been on THEIR agenda and timeline, rather than our own. Thank you Shaka Guide. You made our Kaua’i visit better than we’d even anticipated!

Amazing app! Myself and my two daughters (12 y/o) absolutely loved it! We were at the “Start Tour” by 0930 for the Waimea Canyon and Na Pali tour and finished the entire tour by 1840. Unfortunately we finished too late because the Main Street shops in Hanapepe were already closed. So my only suggestion is to add recommended ‘finish by...’ times. We did not rush stops but we did not take our sweet time either. We did try a couple of the recommended trails: the nature trail (easy and a must do) and the Canyon Trail (nope, not unless you’re well prepared for difficulty and mud). We had too much cloud cover for the very last lookout :-( But it was still great. We LOVED the Hawaiian stories/legends and music too. ShakaKauaiAudioTourGuide prepared us with the FAQs and overview, it was easy to use, and we saw so much more than we ever could on our own. A few other tourists asked about ShakaKauaiAudioTourGuide and I immediately recommended it.... definitely worth buying individual or as the 4 pack (I bought all 4).

We spent 5 weeks with Shaka Guide in Kauai, Oahu, and Maui! I highly recommend ShakaKauaiAudioTourGuide to anyone visiting any of the Hawaiian islands. Planning a trip can take hours... ShakaKauaiAudioTourGuide takes care of all the planning and researching for you. Shaka guide teaches you all about Hawaiian culture and legends, takes you to off-the-beaten path places, gorgeous beaches, hikes and food. Shaka is funny too!! I can’t imagine our Hawaii trip without Shaka, it just wouldn’t be the same. So much fun and adventure!!!! You can tell each tour took many hours to map out and plan. Very thorough. Tours range in length to complete. We did find half day tours usually took us the whole day, especially if you want to not be rushed. May want to leave a little earlier than the suggested time to cover everything during daylight. In the 5 weeks we spent across the 3 islands, I can’t remember how many beaches we visited and swam in, mostly through tours with Shaka. You won’t regret your experience with Shaka. 🤙🏻🤙🏻

My husband and I recently made our first trip to Hawaii. I’m a very thorough planner when it comes to vacations, and I came across a Shaka recommendation on a blog post. While I had previously read about most of the stops on these tours and planned to visit a majority of them, those visits would not have been nearly as interesting without the guide. It’s so helpful to learn about the historical and cultural aspects of the various places to really appreciate them beyond their beauty. We also really came to value the efficiency of these tours. We might have stopped at these place, but not in such an efficient time and fuel saving manner. We did complete all four Kauai tours. My husband told me to be sure to say that he typically hates everything (fairly accurate), but that these guided tours are well worth the money and in fact, should cost more for what they are worth. Thanks, Shaka, for helping us to make the most out of our time in Kauai. I truly hope I get to return some day!

The driving tours offered by Shaka Guide are wonderful! My wife and I visited Kaua’i for the first time and I cannot overstate how much ShakaKauaiAudioTourGuide enhanced our experience. It might have been the best part of our visit, as it really helped us connect to the history and geography of the island. The first couple of days we spent there, my wife was attending conference sessions, and I was left to entertain myself. It might sound corny, but I felt like I was driving around with a friend in the car as I took the North Shore and Wailua Valley tours by myself. We ended up doing all four tours and loved them all!
We love to travel and I’m pretty good about planning, and I even love digging through guide books; but, sometimes it’s nice to just have something take the guesswork out of it, and that’s just what ShakaKauaiAudioTourGuide does. It’s really not like any other app I’ve used. Even having experience geocaching and using other GPS-based programs, I was so impressed with the experience. It’s not often I review an app, but I had to give my feedback...we loved our Shaka experience so much! Mahalo! 🤙🌺

My husband and I downloaded the tours hoping we might find a few helpful hints. What we discovered was an incredibly thoughtful and delightfully user-friendly experience. We love exploring on our own as opposed to being stuck with a group. These tours are the best of all worlds. We hopped in the car, got to the starting point, and let ShakaKauaiAudioTourGuide do all the work. We saw breathtaking, magical places I know for sure we wouldn’t have found on our own. We learned history as we drove along at our own pace. ShakaKauaiAudioTourGuide is so easy to use, and saved us SO MUCH TIME because we weren’t spending hours researching where to go. We did hikes, hung out on very cool beaches, even knew where restroom stops were located. This is truly the best way to see the island. Would give 6/5 stars if I could. Loved it!