Please be advised that the business has closed. Unfortunately, as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak and Governor Ige's proclamations we will not be providing further services.
Here is a short list of the best Zipline Tours in Kauai as determined by client reviews.
Zipline Tours Sorted by Specific Tour
Kauai Zipline
This Kauai Zipline category page is one of the most popular pages on our website. Each Kauai zipline is fun, exciting, found in a beautiful and exotic location and is an overall great Kauai experience. These Kauai zipline tours are very popular and often sell out well in advance. Obviously you should try to make your bookings early, but beforehand...... Find out everything you need to know about Kauai ziplines such as the weight and age restrictions, how good of shape you should be in, how long it takes, how many zipline courses are available, how soon you should be making reservations, what are the different types of courses, how long the ziplines are and how fast you will be traveling.
What you should know about your 'Kauai Zipline' adventure before making a booking:
What are the weight restrictions?
Each course has different restrictions regarding weight but the average falls between a minimum of 70 lbs and a maximum of 280 lbs. Please keep in mind that the minimum can be somewhat higher and the maximum can be somewhat lower with individual companies.
What are the age restrictions?
Once again each course will vary somewhat but the parameters are generally between the ages of 7 to 10 years old on the down side with usually no age restrictions in terms of older guests if they are physically in good shape.
How good of shape do you need to be in to participate?
The simple answer is: a moderate level of physical fitness. You should be able to walk a short distance between ziplines on the course and you should be able to navigate a couple flights of stairs to get to the takeoff platforms on some of the courses. Also you should have no back, ankle, foot or knee problems that would impede your ability to land safely on a platform on the bottom end of a particular zip run.
How long does a tour take?
Your time on the course will generally take between 3 and 3.5 hours with some rare exceptions.
How many different ziplines will be on the course?
Generally each course will have an average of 7 or 8 lines and some will include suspension bridges and additional walkways as well.
How soon should you make your reservations prior to your tour?
You should make your reservation at the time you've made the decision to go. These tours are often booked well in advance so book early to avoid disappointment.
Kauai Zipline Tours are among the best in the world.
It's no surprise that Kauai was among the first locations in the Hawaiian Islands to build zip line courses almost overnight and create a virtual zip line industry in Hawaii. Kauai is a natural because of its tropical topography, its dramatic canyons, long valleys, scenic ridges, beautiful tall forests, and beautiful views to be seen in every direction. To be a good zip line course you simply need to have a number of these ingredients and Kauai has everything necessary to rival the best zip line courses to be found around the world.
What are the types of 'Kauai Zipline' courses available?
Canopy courses are ones that fly through the tree-tops in the forests.
Zipline courses that fly swiftly over valleys and gorges and provide heart-pumping crossings that will ratchet your adrenalin output for hours to follow.
Ropes Courses which are a close cousin to zipline courses where you traverse difficult rope bridges, rope ladders and perform such feats as the "leap of faith" where you leap from a height of perhaps eighty feet only to be caught by the harness and pulley system before touching the ground.
Double line courses where you can speed off with a friend to see who can get to the end of the course first.
What are the heights of the various Kauai Zipline Tours?
The heights above the ground of the various lines vary greatly between different courses and also between lines on the same course. The height above many of the valley floors and streams running through them will range between 250' at the highest to a mere 25' on some of the beginner 'training zips'. With regard to the ziplines located in the tree-tops, the platforms average about 80' up in the air.
How fast are the ziplines?
The average speed will depend on the length and steepness of the line, the individual weight of the participant and also upon the cross-winds that may be happening at the time of your crossing. Most of the longer lines will have you averaging speeds of between 25 to 35 miles per hour.
Another factor which determines zip line speed has to do with how you hold your body during your zip. If you become aerodynamic and streamlined pointing your feet forward and leaning yourself slightly backwards during your flight you will go faster. If you present yourself with wide body surfaces facing forward you will slow up.
How long are the individual Kauai Zip lines?
The ziplines vary greatly in length depending upon the valley to be traversed and the particular course you are on but the longest among them are about 1800' in length.
Norwegian Cruise Line - Pride of America Cruise Ship:
Kauai zipline tours will not pick you up at the cruise ship pier. Your best bet is to either arrange for a taxi to take you to and from the departure location or to have Tom Barefoot's Tours arrange for a Rent-A-Car shuttle to pick you up at the cruise ship pier. The best timing for most of these tours is going to be on the Thursday or Friday of your cruise schedule.
Checkout Tom's Tips and Insights about Kauai Zip-line Tours
Kauai has followed a general pattern over the course of years regarding activities of an adventurous nature. Kauai was the very first island to offer helicopter tours of any kind. With other activities such as ATV rides and Zip-line adventures, Kauai was not the first island to offer these but Kauai was the island that jumped on both of these industries and really made them popular in the state. Ziplining on Kauai was the most notable example. The first island to offer one was a small course in upcountry Maui but almost immediately afterward a bunch of new courses blossomed on Kauai. This was really the genesis of the zip-line frenzy that took Hawaii by storm.
The vast majority of zip-line courses offered on Kauai are of super quality and offer visitors the very best in zip-line adventures. Any one of these courses could be held up with regards to quality to any other location in the world. Most of these course are ones that traverse, in many cases hundreds of feet over valleys, canyons, gorges and streams. A much lesser percentage of these zip-line courses take to the 'tree-tops' and zip through the high forests. One of the companies that exclusively specializes in zip-lines that zoom through the forest is a company called 'Just Live' and is located perhaps 20 minutes away from Lihue near the Koloa area... read more.
The Princeville Ranch is certainly one of the most beautiful of any in the whole state of Hawaii. With its backdrop of the romantic Hanalei Mountains and it rolling hills to the sea, the Princeville Ranch is the home of a spectacular zip line course, river kayaking, hiking and some of the most amazing horseback riding country to be found anywhere. More Info / Buy Now
Koloa Zip-line is an Eco Friendly Tour that is located on Grove Farm lands. Their 8 line Zipcourse will travel through and above a variety of ecosystmes. Guests will fly through the jungle, soar above the forest, and glide across the water. Koloa Zip-line has now officially opened their 1/2 mile long Waita line. More Info / Buy Now
Outfitters Kauai is an adventure company on Kauai that offers a combination of ocean and river kayaking experiences, hiking tours, bike tours and zip-line adventures. Methodically developing one adventure at a time over the course of years, this popular company has produced some of the most notable Kauai adventures available on the island. More Info / Buy Now
Known as one of the longest zip-line courses on the island, Back Country Zip-line Adventures, lives up to its reputation. This three-and-one-half hour zip-line excursion is also partially traversed on a 4-wheel drive vehicle that negotiates its way up to the zip course through rugged roads at the base of Mount Wai'ale'ale. At tours end you'll be treated to a dip in a waterfall fed pond. More Info / Buy Now
Skyline Eco-Adventures offers a Road to Hana tour, zip-line tours (originator of zip-line courses in the United States) and one of the exclusive providers of tours to the Haleakala Summit. More Info / Buy Now
So if Maui was the first place in Hawaii that ever had zip-lines, it was the island of Kauai where they really became popular.
Almost immediately after we had the first zip-lines in 2002 on the island of Kauai, sometime shortly after that the first ones started to pop up on Kauai and they sort of spread like wildfire. To this day we have fantastic courses that are on Kauai that are world class some of the most beautiful that you'll find anywhere in the United States.
Kauai was this ideal location for zip-lines. Kauai is called the Garden Island. It's called that because there's so much foliage and vegetation. It is the oldest of the Hawaiian Islands. It was the one that's had the longest period of time to break down into soil and create huge ridges and valleys that were just ideal for this new concept of zip-lines. So some of the most beautiful areas were set aside for these special zip-lines and they are just as gorgeous today as they were originally, plus we've had even more zip-lines happen there.
o let's look at the state here or the island of Kauai. On Kauai we have zip-lines that range from up on the north shore in Princeville all the way down in Wailua, Lihue area and then in Koloa and working around. No matter where you are on the island you've got zip-lines that are close but in reality the island of Kauai is so small that you can choose whichever one you want and it's really not that far away.
The majority of these zip-lines are of the traditional variety in the sense that they will traverse a valley or a gorge or a canyon, go from one place to another, a high place to another high place and have the gravity flow pull you from one ridge down to another. There are so many varieties of this on the island, all differing. Each course if completely different than the next course but the one thing that they all have in common is incredible foliage and incredible views that you'll be able to see.
They're different in the sense of how long a number of these are. Some of them are going to be short. Some of them are going to be longer. We have them like 1,800 feet so you've got really long ones. You get to speeds that can get pretty fast probably over 40 miles an hour, something like that. They all start with a short course or a short zip so that you can get used to the idea of what's going to be happening in future zips. They progress usually and then on most of the zip-line courses you've got really a nice big couple large zip-lines that you go through. Very, very exciting.
So the first variety we have are these zips that go over gorges and valleys and that sort of thing and this is primarily the ones that we have on the island, but we also have canopy zips, ones that are in the treetops where we have a large forest with platforms that are built into trees and you go from one platform through the forest to another platform still in the treetops. Once you actually get into the forest and onto a platform, you just stay up in the top of the forest in this treetop area all the way through to the end of your zip-line course.
You'll have a number of usually rope bridges and fun things like that on most of the courses so it's going to be a little bit more than just a zip. Some have unusual characteristics, things that go with them. You can actually zip into a little pond or pool on one of them. So they've all got unusual things about them and you can look through our page on zip-lines on Kauai and see the differences.
The one thing that's the same about them is that they're all incredibly fun for sure.
The zip-line courses have changed and modified over the course of time. Some of the seats that you have can be different. The old kind you're actually just hanging onto a carabiner and you're turning yourself in this direction or that direction. You have a little bit of control in that way and you're sitting almost like in an old-fashioned swing like when you were a kid maybe, but strapped in. You're not going to fall out.
Then we have others more recent ones that have a little more flushed out chair almost that you're in so in many ways it's a little bit more comfortable but you don't have the control of the carabiners to move you in one direction or another, so it's six of one, half a dozen of the other.
We even have some now that will actually carry two people on the same zip in tandem. That's fairly new.
In addition to just the zip-lines that are traditional in these ways, both the treetop and the ones that we have that go over valleys, you can do a ropes course which is a hybrid of a zip-line where you go up in ropes. Part of it may be a zip-line, part of it you're just going up on ropes doing all sorts of different things, climbing very high, standing on top of a telephone pole, doing a leap of faith where you just fall over and straight down. You're hooked into lines on all of these so you get over your fear of heights if you have them.
These are used a lot with large groups, a lot of corporations and that sort of stuff. They'll bring their whole team in and try to develop some camaraderie and cooperation between the individuals by using these courses but these can be done individually too by just individual family members and so on taking the ropes course.
So there's a number of different things that you can do in addition to just the zip-lines on Kauai but they are all fantastic. They are so fun. It's one of the great things that you can do on Kauai. Oftentimes we're really busy on these. It's best to book them in advance if you know that you're going to be doing them.
Anyway, zip-lines on Kauai. Fantastic.
If you have any questions about Tours or Activities in Hawaii, just give us a call or check out tombarefoot.com. We're here to help.
Zip lining in Hawaii is such a new activity category that the industry itself can't yet quite even decide how to write its name! You will see it labeled zip lining in Hawaii, ziplining in Hawaii, zip-lining in Hawaii or just simply as Hawaii zip tours.
