For many Hawai'i families, the promise of summer usually includes lazy vacations, picnics at the beach with the kids and a break from the stress and schedules of everyday life.

This summer promises something different: gasoline prices at more than $4 a gallon, soaring airline travel costs and expensive groceries.

Basically, it's going to cost you more to have fun.

The U.S. Department of Labor said last month that increases in the cost of energy and airline tickets were big factors in the nation's March inflation figures. No relief is expected when the April numbers are released next week.

Energy prices had jumped 1.9 percent and airline fares, reflecting higher fuel costs, rose 3 percent.

In Hawai'i, inflation figures won't be out until August, but the most recent figures — from 2006 to 2007 — climbed 4.8 percent, which included a 6.1 percent increase in groceries and a 4.2 percent rise in gas.

Even for families that don't know a percent from a plumeria, coping strategies are a clear-cut necessity.

To save money, some are changing their driving habits and scaling back — or even eliminating — their summer travel plans, and making other adjustments in lifestyle to compensate for rising costs.

PRICE OF MOBILITY

"The one thing that is really happening is that people are starting to think about combining trips," said Bill Green, a former owner of, and now consultant to, Kahala Shell. "For most of us, it has been an American way of life to run to the store for this and run to the store for that. More and more, people are saying: How can I combine my trips? How can I use one car this week instead of two?"

Lee Miller and her family of three are doing what they can to tighten the budget belt, but lengthy car trips are a fact of life. The Millers live in Waipahu, and work, schools and youth sports activities are in Honolulu. Plus, both she and her husband, Andy, need their cars for work, Miller said.

"Gas is just something that is a part of my life," said Miller, a project manager for Finance Realty Ltd. "I can't do anything about it."

Miller's solution in recent weeks has been to combine trips.

Some days, she and her husband and their 11-year-old daughter, Kapua, will commute together. Other days, Andy will leave his truck overnight at his workplace and the family will ride home in one car.

They also sold a gas-guzzling pickup truck they called "The Big Pig" and bought a smaller one.

But the cost of airfare put the brakes on travel, she said.

"I don't know if it will be better next year, but we are kind of trying to delay travel," she said. "We are waiting for things with the airlines to settle down and see what the true prices are going to be. There is more than enough stuff to do locally. Instead of the Mainland, maybe we're going to the Neighbor Islands."

STAYING GROUNDED

Maria Kostylo felt the travel pinch as well.

With the oldest of her two teenage sons headed to a Mainland college in the fall, the Hawai'i Kai mother was worried well before travel costs jumped several hundred dollars after Aloha Airlines and ATA ended service and fuel costs skyrocketed.

A trip to the East Coast, which would have lasted several weeks this summer, instead became a nine-day vacation to Colorado during the March break in school.

"We were trying to plan a summer vacation trip, but we decided to do something simple over spring break because we would have more financial challenges with our son choosing an out-of-state college and (deciding) whether we will let him come home," said Kostylo, chief nursing officer at Hawai'i Medical Center.

Now, Kostylo said, no family decision is made without thinking about the big picture — from combined shopping trips to vacations.

"It is not just our life here," she said. "Now we have more airfares to look at, and out-of-state tuition. We don't know how it will all play out. We know it won't be easy. We know it will be difficult."

Traveling is going to require greater planning because fares are not going to go down anytime soon, said Mary Lou Lewis, co-owner and founder, HNL Travel Associates.

"If you want to go somewhere, book now," she said.

But the rates aren't turning people away just yet, Lewis said, even though there appear to be lots of open seats for June and July flights.

"There are clients that are going to go no matter what," she said. "When you have families and having to pay school tuitions, I think they think twice about it before they go. But some say I have planned this vacation, and I am going no matter what."

DOWN TO BASICS

Betsy Fisher, a University of Hawai'i dance professor, said her family isn't going to cancel its annual summer trip — a monthlong visit to Washington, D.C., Boston and northern Maine — but the vacation will consume all the frequent-flier miles and airline rebates she's been saving.

And she expects the summer to be expensive on the Mainland, especially when she has to fill the gas tank of her rental car. At home, Fisher drives a hybrid that gets 57 miles per gallon.

"This summer will probably be harder just because all the expenses are going up for everything," she said. "We will just try to avoid going out to dinner and Starbucks. We have to cut that out. The little things add up."

There isn't much leeway to cut costs when it comes to groceries or even her family's daily existence, which Fisher said is not extravagant.

Meals are home-cooked rice, vegetables and chicken — basic stuff from a menu that hasn't changed in years.

"The priority is health, family and education," she said. "That's what the money goes for. There is sort of not a whole lot else. I think the only thing you can do is make sure you have your priorities in order and stick to them."

Hawai'i Kai mom Kostylo's strategy on saving includes a concerted effort to look for bargains at the supermarket.

"I only buy things on sale," she said. "Unless I need something specific, I rarely buy things full price. Whatever meat is on sale, that is what we are eating. Whatever cereal is on sale, that is what we're eating."

It's a challenge, though. Her sons, ages 14 and 17, drink so much milk that Kostylo is buying it twice a week. When the price went from two for $7 to two for $10, she gulped hard.

"We go through an awful lot of milk," she said.