We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Marcie Cheung a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Marcie, thanks for joining us today. Let’s jump right into how you came up with the idea?

After successfully running my family travel blog Marcie in Mommyland for a few years, I decided to niche down and start Hawaii Travel with Kids. It’s a blog that is geared toward parents planning a Hawaii family vacation. I got the idea after I told a blogger friend that I’d traveled to Hawaii about 40 times and she stopped in her tracks and told me I NEEDED to create a site dedicated to Hawaii since I’m a Hawaii travel expert. I hadn’t thought about it before but it made a lot of sense and I launched Hawaii Travel with Kids in 2019. I knew it would be successful because I already stumbled through travel blogging a few years prior and this time I could set up a site with the knowledge of exactly what to do. It was so much cleaner and clearer! I also understood how to create my content silos, how to do keyword research, what types of posts resonated with my audience, and how to organize my time to get work done quickly and accurately. After a few years of running Hawaii Travel with Kids, I had a LOT of followers reach out to tell me they loved my posts but they weren’t traveling with kids and wanted to know information that wasn’t kid-focused. That’s when I launched Hawaii Travel Spot, a blog that is geared toward honeymooners, solo, and couple travelers. And in 2025, I launched my podcast Hawaii Travel Made Easy. It’s a show to help first-time Hawaii travelers learn exactly how to plan the Hawaii vacation of their dreams.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I first got into the blogging industry in 2016. It all started when I took my oldest son to Thailand when he was 6 months old, we flew from Seattle to Thailand for a family trip. At that point, his longest journey had been a 20-minute car ride. When we got back, I was inundated with questions from other new moms who wanted to know exactly how we traveled with an infant, especially internationally. They wanted to know what I packed, how the flight went, how I handled jet lag, etc. So, I started writing lengthy emails that I could copy and paste to send to people with my tips and tricks and lessons learned. I did this for 2 years as we traveled to Hawaii, Europe, and around the United States. Then I had an idea. Why not start a blog where I could put all the information in one spot and then I could just send links to people? Surely that would be easier than copying and pasting emails. So, I launched Marcie in Mommyland, a travel and lifestyle blog aimed to help parents travel with kids. That was 9 years ago. After I launched, I did everything I could to figure out how to monetize it. I joined Facebook groups, affiliate programs, sponsor networks, and finally an ad network. Jump to today, I now run 3 travel blogs, have published 11 travel guide books, and just launched a podcast.

I know that parents are short on time, so I created free email courses that walk people through how to plan a trip to Hawaii step-by-step. I have a general one as well as island-specific ones. I even have one about traveling to Hawaii on a budget.

In 2021, I launched my first series of Hawaii travel guides. These are paid products that condense almost all the information of my blog and provide 7-day itineraries for each island. One series is geared toward families and the other is geared toward people traveling with teens or without children. I also have planning workbooks for adults and activity books for kids. These items are available on my blog as well as Amazon and Etsy.

The thing that sets me apart from other Hawaii bloggers is that I live in Seattle and travel TO Hawaii (instead of living there). This allows me to authentically talk about the travel to/from Hawaii, dealing with rental cars, hotels/resorts/condos, and creating itineraries that are realistic for someone visiting the islands for 7-14 days. It’s a different perspective than someone who lives there and just does a few activities each week in addition to their everyday life. As a fellow traveler to Hawaii, I write about the new foods I want to try, activities that sound intriguing, and I can rate whether or not an activity is worth my money or my time (both are valuable on a vacation).

I know that Hawaii vacations are expensive and this trip might be the only time a family travels to Hawaii. So, it’s my mission to make their trip as stressfree and memorable as possible. I want to highlight activities that are worth splurging for, as well as cheap/free things to do. I also like to review hotels/resorts that I’ve personally stayed at and let my audience know which ones provide good value.

I’m really proud of the work I do. I get excited when people email or DM me that my blog took their trip to the next level! It’s a great feeling!

Have you ever had to pivot?

About a year after I launched Hawaii Travel with Kids, the pandemic hit. Like many other travel content creators, I had to take a step back and figure out how I wanted to pivot my business. I decided to hit the pause button on creating content focused on traveling TO Hawaii and spent time creating content that would bring Hawaii to people staying at home. This included Hawaiian recipes, crafts, activities, movies to watch, music to listen to, etc. But, I had a feeling that when the pandemic was over, people would want to “treat themselves” to a Hawaii vacation. So, I worked on content that was more general about traveling to Hawaii and outdoor activities. I avoided mentioning restaurants, hotels, or activities that I wasn’t sure would survive. Finally, I focused to my guides of where to stay, what to do, and how to be a responsible traveler to Hawaii.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

I’m on a mission to save families time, money, and stress when they are planning their dream Hawaii vacation. Travel keeps getting more and more expensive so people need to be careful each step of the planning process. Through my blog, guidebooks, and podcast, I streamline the process and provide personal expert tips to guide travelers in making the right choice for their trip.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://hawaiitravelwithkids.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hawaiitravelwithkids
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hawaiitravelwithkids
• Other: https://hawaiitravelmadeeasy.buzzsprout.com