Shaka Guide | GPS Audio Tours 4+

Worth every penny

I don’t think I’ve ever written an App review until right now. We LOVED using the Shaka app on the Road to Hana. As someone who does her research and extensively prepares for adventures like the Road to Hana, I can honestly say that we would’ve been lost and confused without the Shaka guide. It provided us invaluable information throughout the day, like where to park for different sights, which spots had fees associated with them, which places we could skip and hit on the way back if time, which places had bathrooms, where to get food, what time certain sights close, etc. Seeing as you don’t have Internet access or service most of the drive to Hana and back, we never would’ve been able to access that level of info and detail without Shaka. Using Shaka let us prioritize the sights we wanted to see, skip the ones that were less important to us or would be more time consuming, and find the often shrouded entrances and parking areas necessary to actually see and enjoy the various waterfalls, natural pools, caves and arboretums. PLUS, we learned so much about Hawaii, its history and traditions, which was especially appreciated on the drive back from Hana, when we were done with our stops but needed the audio company. We were honestly sad to end our time with Shaka and our narrator for the Road to Hana. Will recommend to absolutely everyone going to Hawaii!!!

Developer Response ,

So happy to hear you had an amazing time on your Shaka Guide tour. Hope to see you all again on more Shaka Guide adventures. 🤙😍🤙

MUST GET & start EARLY!

I’m in Hawaii right now & bought the Big Island bundle. BEST DECISION. I didn’t want to pay a tour company & be tied to a group. We absolutely LOVE this! The invaluable info, the cultural history & tales are amazing! We’ve done Volcano Nat. Park & today did North Jungle loop! SO MANY GREAT STOPS! Tomorrow Backcountry one. SO MUCH TO SEE ON THESE TOURS! Love how he puts things in contexts, heads ups, tidbits of imp info, and the music etc. We just kept saying during our whole tour how much we loved this. Great job Shaka!
Update! We did Volcano again for the Tubes. We played the tour again and loved it! ALSO DEFINITELY download the trip you are taking for the day and read the before you go portion. Helped immensely. We loved how in many places cell service was obsolete on the island😭. We realized how we would’ve been LOST if we’d used Google maps etc. Shaka was our only way to return back to main roads. As corny as this sounds this gentleman was our friend and we grew to love him 😂. He talked us through literally 10 hours each day of sightseeing. So START EARLY so you can squeeze most of the points of interest in!

Meh

I really like the idea of this kind of guide, but in the end I have mixed feelings about Shaka. We listened to all of the Volcano NP tour and part of the south coast tour. Here’s what I liked and what I didn’t.

The good: music selections and stories about the gods and legends were both highlights. Because the guide is keyed to gps, you do see things you might otherwise have missed. The turn by turn directions work great for some tricky intersections

The less good: for my taste, these guides are short on information. The Volcanoes guide was better in this regard than the south coast guide, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that these guides were pitched at too general an audience to really tell you very much. Vanishingly little history, not much Hawaiian cultural information beyond the mythology I mentioned above, and light on science and natural history. I get the sense that in an effort to make the guides accessible to all audiences, they’ve reduced the content to just the slimmest basics. Maybe if you’re traveling with small kids this is a bonus, but I found most of the entries too light on information to be very interesting. I bought the whole big island package, but after listening to one and a half tours I think I’ve had my fill. I like the (printed) Hawaii: The Big Island Revealed *much* better. But of course you can’t read that while you’re driving!

Developer Response ,

Aloha! Thank you for your kind feedback. We are reviewing this and several other suggestions for future updates.