Hawaii

Hawaii is unlike anywhere else in the United States, a chain of volcanic islands rising from the middle of the Pacific, more than two thousand miles from the mainland. Born of fire and shaped by wind and sea, the archipelago holds a startling range of landscapes within a small compass: rainforests and deserts, black-sand beaches and snow-dusted summits, cliffs that plunge into surf and valleys carpeted in green. Woven through it all is the living culture of Native Hawaiians, whose traditions of aloha, hula, and deep connection to the land give the islands their soul.

Each island offers a world of its own. Maui balances resort ease with wild grandeur, home to the volcanic crater of Haleakala, where visitors climb above the clouds to watch the sunrise. On the Big Island, the earth is still forming, and Hawaii Volcanoes protects the active flows and steaming calderas of Kilauea, a landscape where you can watch the islands quite literally being made. The sheer scale of the Big Island encompasses everything from lava fields to green pastures to snow-capped Mauna Kea.

To the north and west lie islands of a gentler temper. Kauai, the oldest and greenest, is a place of dramatic sea cliffs, plunging waterfalls, and the vast red gorge of Waimea Canyon, a garden island where nature runs riot. And on Oahu, the capital city of Honolulu brings urban energy and history to the shores of Waikiki, its beaches and monuments drawing travelers from around the globe while the surf breaks steadily just offshore.

What binds the islands together is a sense that the natural and the sacred are one. The volcanoes are ancestors, the ocean a provider, the land something to be cared for rather than merely admired. To travel Hawaii well is to move at the pace of the islands, to swim and hike and listen, and to leave with a deeper respect for a place that feels, even now, freshly made.