H₂O is what connects us—it’s the alpha liquid that supports natural wonderlands and lets us live, play, and explore. You’d think we’d be taking better care of this critical resource, and yet waste and pollution are rampant and more than 1.1 billion people lack access to clean water. The good news? Our special report introduces you to the water heroes who are reversing the worst woes and showing us how to keep the planet afloat.

Troubled Waters I

The globe's six biggest water crises—and what's being done to conquer them

Water Shortage

1. Access Denied
STATUS: For a huge percentage of earth's population, turning on a faucet would be as miraculous as turning water into wine. That's because 1.1 billion people don't have access to clean water, and two-fifths of the world's inhabitants—2.6 billion people—lack access to sanitation facilities, resulting in regular exposure to human waste, particularly in local water sources. The deadly result: As many as five million people a year—most of them children—die from waterborne maladies like cholera, typhoid, dysentery, hepatitis, and diarrhea, which by itself is estimated to kill one child every 15 seconds.

According to some studies, 80 percent of the developing world's health problems are related to contaminated water. “It's not a supply or technology issue—there's clean water all over the world,” says Ted Kuepper, executive director of Global Water, a California-based nonprofit. “It's a matter of getting it to people.”

SOLUTION: Simple gravity-fed spring-catchment systems, $10,000 to $20,000 each, can transport clean water to villages within a few miles of natural springs; these work well in places like Central America. In drier climes, wells are often the only source of clean water, though rainwater-collection systems can also be used. Simply providing villages with communal taps and latrines can reduce disease by more than 75 percent.

And they're hot causes, too. Hip-hop mogul Jay-Z recently filmed an MTV documentary on water issues, and while shooting a movie in the Sahara last year, actor Matt Damon created the H₂O Africa Foundation, to bring water access to the filming locations in Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Libya, and Egypt. But the United Nations has the most ambitious mission: One of its Millennium Development Goals is to cut in half by 2015 the number of people without access to clean water and basic sanitation, a goal the World Health Organization says could cost $11.3 billion per year.

2. Oceans in Peril
STATUS: Big blue is in deep trouble. Fish populations are tanking due to overfishing (a recent study in Science estimates that by 2048 there will be no commercially harvestable seafood left), and pollution has created about 200 deoxygenated areas in places like the Gulf of Mexico, where there's a New Jersey-size dead zone in summer. Meanwhile, bottom trawling, in which nets are dragged along the seafloor, is destroying fragile ecosystems like coral gardens, and longlines are snagging animals like turtles and albatrosses, decimating their populations. Overdevelopment is imperiling coastlines, and CO₂ emissions, which concentrate carbon in the water and wreak havoc with pH balances, are causing ocean acidification, which could destroy a vast spectrum of sea life—from diatoms to oysters to coral reefs.

SOLUTION: For ecologist Carl Safina, founder of the Blue Ocean Institute and a MacArthur fellow, the global priority right now is restoring marine wildlife, making fish populations as healthy as possible. In this regard, the U.S. has a good track record: From the 1996 Sustainable Fisheries Act to the creation of no-fishing-allowed reserves—such as last June's establishment of the 137,792-square-mile North-western Hawaiian Islands Marine National Monument—the nation is giving fish a fighting chance. “The U.S. has a whole suite of recovering species—striped bass, king mackerel, summer flounder, and swordfish,” says Safina. Worldwide, there are some similar moves to create reserves, such as the 71,000-square-mile Phoenix Islands Protected Area, near Kiribati. But the vast majority of coastal waters still have few or no protections.

The silver lining? “Oftentimes it takes a sense of crisis to get countries and individuals mobilized,” says Josh Reichert, director of the environmental division of the Pew Charitable Trusts, whose focus includes ocean health. “And we are now faced with a crisis.”

3. Mass Pollution
STATUS: Toxic sludge. Raw sewage. Animal excrement. Deadly farm chemicals. All of these ingredients find their way into the world's water supply. In developing nations, as much as 90 percent of sewage and 70 percent of industrial waste pour into local waters without any treatment whatsoever. Even in the U.S., sewage pollution is problematic. “Most treatment plants are old and inefficient, and their technology is from 1916,” says Nancy Stoner, a senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council. If fixes aren't made, she warns, “by 2025 we can expect to have as much sewage pollution as we had in 1968, before the Clean Water Act.”

But agriculture is the crisis at our doorstep. Irrigation runoff and massive amounts of animal waste from factory farms—the nation's top water-pollution sources—have fouled more than 173,000 miles of waterways.According to Worldwatch Institute, once contaminants reach groundwater, they are “essentially permanent,” since onaverage they remain there for 1,400 years.

SOLUTION: “Primary and secondary treatment of waste is the most inexpensive thing we can do,” says Paul Faeth, former managing director of the World Resources Institute, an environmental think tank with a focus on water. That means building water-treatment plants and cleaning up industrial waste around the world, an effort led by groups like the Global Water Partnership, an international network of water agencies that connects developing nations to technical expertise. In the U.S., Maryland and other states around the Chesapeake Bay have reached a comprehensive agreement to clean up the bay and have already restored more than 3,000 miles of natural streamside buffer zones to filter toxins and fertilizers that would otherwise seep into the Chesapeake. Bad practices on factory farms—which hold animal waste in lagoons or spray liquefied manure on crops—have been successfully fought on the state and county levels, and a 2003 lawsuit brought by the Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club, and Waterkeeper Alliance against the Environmental Protection Agency has forced the federal office to put some teeth into its factory-farm rules. The EPA is now hashing out new permit requirements that will likely go into effectthis summer.

Troubled Waters II

The globe's six biggest water crises—and what's being done to conquer them

Water Shortage

SOURCE: USGS

4. Climate Change
STATUS: You've heard all about the earth's water cycle: It rains, rivers flow to the sea, water evaporates and forms cloud vapor, and then it rains again. It always sounded so predictable. Well, hold on to those galoshes, because that stable system is likely to go bonkers, according to climate forecasters. If, as expected, the earth's temperature rises between about three and seven degrees Fahrenheit in this century, the result will be more evaporation and more water vapor, which itself acts as a potent greenhouse gas, accelerating global warming. Essentially, the whole hydrologic cycle may act like it's on speed, sparking fiercer and more frequent storms and flooding, melting snowpack and glaciers, and threatening the water supply of one-sixth of the world's population. Sea levels could rise up to two feet by 2100, drowning cities, wetlands, estuaries, mangroves, and other ecosystems, not to mention a few of your favorite tropical atolls. In turn, the destroyed wetlands would no longer absorb greenhouse gases, feeding an ever more vicious cycle.

SOLUTION: Reduce global emissions of greenhouse gases as soon as possible. “The longer we wait, the graver the risks and the cost of averting them,” says Eileen Claussen, president of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. Groups like Pew are building worldwide coalitions to support treaties and policies like emissions cap-and-trade programs, which set a limit on the amount of CO2 allowed to enter the atmosphere. Such market-based approaches, perhaps combined with a tax on emissions, would provide cash incentives for industries and individuals to adapt more quickly to a low-carbon reality. In January, a coalition of environmental groups and industrial giants like DuPont and Alcoa proposed reducing emissions by 10 to 30 percent over 15 years. And energy guru Amory Lovins insists that clean alternatives, like hybrid cars and low-carbon fuels, are already available or in the pipeline. “Existing efficiency technologies, systematically applied, can save half of our oil and gas, and three-fourths of our electricity,” he says. “This by itself would solve nearly half the climate problem.”

5. Excess Dams
STATUS: The Tinkertoy lovers among us may admire their engineering, but dams are the most perilous threat to river systems worldwide. Consider the numbers: 47,655 large dams exist today in 140 countries; they're present on 60 percent of the world's major rivers; and the weight of their water is so immense, it's believed to have altered the speed of the earth's rotation. Dams also supply one-fifth of the world's electricity and help irrigate about one-sixth of the world's food, but the benefits come at a huge cost.

As many as 80 million people have been displaced by dams worldwide, including nearly two million Chinese living above the new Three Gorges Dam, on the Yangtze. Dams prevent fish migration, causing local extinctions; they alter river flows and water temperatures, killing plants and aquatic species; and they destroy habitats and recreational areas. (Paddlers, take note: Not even 2 percent of U.S. rivers today are free-flowing.) Big dams are also a wasteful way to store water—huge reservoirs suffer so much evaporation that they can lose up to 10 percent of their volume each year.

SOLUTION: World leaders and enlightened governments are putting proposed dams—and even existing ones—to the test: Are they worth it? While small hydro projects can be a green boon, since they provide clean, renewable power, most large dams are not. “In many cases, it's clear that the negative impacts of dams outweigh the benefits,” says Patrick McCully, director of the International Rivers Network and member of the UN's Dams and Development Project. That new vision is especially noticeable in the U.S., where experts say the era of big-dam building is over. More than 212 dams have been torn down in recent years, with glowing results: When the Edwards Dam came down on Maine's Kennebec River in 1999, schools of migratory alewives returned by the hundreds of thousands. Where knockdowns are not an option, dams can often be better managed—for example, dam operators can release more water during dry seasons, to help fish and downstream wildlife. The Nature Conservancy has partnered with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to tweak water releases through 27 dams in nine river basins so far, with more agreements on the way.

6. Lost Habitats
STATUS: As humans pave paradise, expand cities and farms, and suck up more water—and pollute what's left—we leave individual species and entire ecosystems at risk. Topping the endangered list: freshwater ponds, lakes, streams, rivers, and marshes. Already, about half the world's mangrove ecosystems (critical for spawning fish, sheltering birds, and recycling nutrients) and half of its freshwater wetlands—home today to an estimated 40 percent of the earth's species—have been lost to development. Some 75 percent of the globe's fish stocks have been nearly or totally depleted, and more than 20 percent of freshwater fish species have become extinct, endangered, or threatened in recent decades.

Statistics aside, nearly every terrestrial species is in some way dependent on freshwater ecosystems for their survival—humans included. Wetlands and bogs filter and cleanse water, regulate water flows, absorb storm surges, and protect us from hurricanes. These natural services, provided free of charge, can offer more of an economic boon to communities than developing the wetlands would. “We need to recognize that freshwater ecosystems have economic value, and we need to set some boundaries,” says Sandra Postel, director of the Global Water Policy Project.

SOLUTION: Rivers and wet-lands can be forgiving: Many will bounce back if you simply keep enough water flowing in them. And U.S. courts are increasingly ruling that “in-stream flows”—water that in the past was often sucked out of rivers for irrigation or urban use—must be protected for the health of fish and other fauna. Conservation groups and citizens' coalitions are also working to take back aquatic zones. Ducks Unlimited is helping preserve wet-lands on two million acres, stretching from Canada and Montana to Minnesota and lowa, by plugging old drainage ditches and letting ponds and marshes refill. In Brazil's Pantanal, the earth's largest wet-land, activists are successfully fighting a massiveshipping waterway. And worldwide, members of the Waterkeeper Alliance, a grassroots group with more than 150 chapters, use patrol boats to monitor polluters, then take the worst of them to court.

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Jean-Michel Cousteau

Jean-Michel Cousteau

Carrie Vonderhaar/Ocean Futures Society

Podcast: Listen to an interview with Jean-Michel Cousteau

The new patriarch of the first family of the sea, Jean-Michel, 68-year-old son of the legendary Jacques Cousteau, is founder and president of the Ocean Futures Society, a nonprofit dedicated to ocean conservation and education. And he’s making waves. Last year, an episode of his PBS series Jean-Michel Cousteau: Ocean ºÚÁϳԹÏÍøs influenced President Bush to create the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Marine National Monument, the largest protected marine area on earth. Next, he’s off to the Amazon to document the region’s global importance.

“Since my father pushed me overboard with a tank on my back at the age of seven, I’ve been completely engulfed in the aquatic environment. The quality of our lives is directly linked to the quality of water: no water, no life. We’ve been very lucky because nature has been doing a fabulous job of cleaning itself. But there’s a point when nature says, ‘Too much is too much.’ We reached that point quite some time ago. Now we need a major wake-up call—information, solutions need to be shared with the public. Then we communicate with decision makers, both in the political system and in industry. The message remains the same: Protect the ocean and you protect yourself.”

Greg MacGillivray

Greg MacGillivray

Shaun MacGillivray/MacGillivray Freeman Films

Podcast: Listen to an interview with Greg MacGillivray

Greg MacGillivray, 61-year-old cofounder of Laguna Beach, California–based MacGillivray Freeman Films and director of the 1998 Imax hit Everest, is as passionate about water conservation as he is about filmmaking. Next up is Grand Canyon ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø 3D, a film made in partnership with Teva and the Waterkeeper Alliance, set to debut in March 2008. It’s a rollicking Colorado River raft trip and stunning plea for action that stars water activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr., kayaker Nikki Kelly, and anthropologist Wade Davis.

“I love the ocean; growing up around Laguna Beach, I spent my summers surfing, diving, and snorkeling. But over the past few decades, I’ve noticed a remarkable change in California’s aquatic environment. So I’ve been using the power of the Imax medium, with its gigantic screens and supervivid pictures, to get people to fall in love with the ocean. Now the world is moving toward a water crisis. What’s happening on the Colorado River is happening all over the world. The water is overused, overdammed, and it’s polluted in some places. My goal is that after seeing Grand Canyon, every person in the audience will go home knowing they have to conserve water—even something as simple as installing a low-flow toilet or showerhead, or turning off the faucet while they’re brushing their teeth. We go through life so wastefully now; if we can just alter our behavior a tiny bit, it would make a tremendous difference.

Aqua Man

Environmentalist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is always on the H₂O front lines

It’s no surprise that RFK Jr. cares passionately about water—he’s been sailing,fishing, and paddling since childhood. But what he’s accomplished with that passion is astonishing. Simply put, the iconic Kennedy—master falconer, avid kayaker, and son of the late senator Robert F. Kennedy—is one of the leading environmental advocates of our time. He’s the chief prosecuting attorney for Riverkeeper, a nonprofit group devoted to protecting New York’s Hudson River watershed, and president of Waterkeeper Alliance, an international network of water defenders. He’s also the senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council and co-author—with acclaimed New York water warrior John Cronin—of The Riverkeepers. Along the way, Kennedy, 53,has helped command one of America’s brightest eco-successes: the cleanup of the Hudson, whose now swimmable waters were once largely a liquid garbage bin. But his most recent book, Crimes Against Nature—a takedown of the Bush administration’s environmental record—perhaps best highlights his core belief: that our obligation to nature is a moral one, the shunning of which harms not only the future but the very fabric of society. Senior editor AMY LINN spoke with him about his crusade.

OUTSIDE: What made water issues such a calling?

KENNEDY: I spent most of my early life wandering the creeks around my home in Virginia and spending summers on the Cape, fishing almost every day. On vacations my father would take us to the whitewater rivers. We ran the Salmon, the Snake, and the Colorado, the Yampa, the Green, and the upper Hudson. And I always understood that water wasn’t just an environmental issue; it was a civil-rights issue—a human-rights issue. The best way of measuring the success of a democracy is how it distributes the goods of the land—the commons.

Did you see threats long ago?

I couldn’t swim in the Hudson or the Charles or the Potomac when I was growing up. I was shocked, when I ran the upper Hudson, when the guides told us it was poisonous to drink. And I always recognized that as an act of theft—that pollution was a theft. It was the act of a big shot with political clout stealing from the rest of us—stealing publicly owned resources from the public.

What’s at stake?

The relationship with nature is so critical to our culture. We’re not protecting nature for the sake of fishes and birds. We’re protecting nature for our culture, for our prosperity, for our quality of life.

And if we want to meet our obligation as a generation, as a nation, as a civilization—which is to create communities for our children that provide them with the same opportunities for dignity and enrichment and good health as the communities that our parents gave us—then we’ve got to start by protecting our environmental infrastructure. We’ve got to protect the air we breathe, the water we drink, the wildlife, the public lands, the waterways that enrich us, that connect us to our past, that provide context to our communities—and that are the source, ultimately, of our values and virtues and character as a people.

How does a Waterkeeper help?

Every Waterkeeper has a patrol boat on the water. We also take the public out, and take journalists out. We do this to constantly remind the public that this is their property. The polluters want to make the public think the waterways belong to them—that they’re just a waste conveyance.

Is there a way to bring the message close to home?

If General Electric pulled a truck up to your lawn and dumped PCBs into your yard, you would fight them until they removed the last molecule. So why don’t we react the same way when they dump PCBs into our river?

What’s the most important thing people can do?

They have to be willing to fight—that’s all. You have to be willing to fight.

For more on water, visit or .

Peter Gleick

Peter Gleick

MacArthur fellow Peter Gleick, 50, is a leading water expert and president of the Pacific Institute, in Oakland, California, and edits The World’s Water: The Biennial Report on Freshwater Resources.

“The fact that this is the 21st century and we’ve failed to meet basic human needs for water is the most appalling problem facing us. It’s our most egregious failure. We’re not living in a world where our demand for resources has to go up inexorably. Clean water is finite, but it’s renewable if we’re careful. The problem is that we don’t use it properly and don’t plan our systems properly. If we did, there would be enough to meet everyone’s needs. We give it inadequate attention, inadequate funding, and—all too often—incompetent governance. It’s a problem of will and commitment. I originally came to the subject through an interest in energy issues, but I’m drawn to water now because it’s so critical to everything we care about: the environment, prosperity, family life. If any other environmental problem is more connected to all aspects of our lives, it would be hard to imagine what that is.”

Dean Kamen

His mind-boggling purifier could save millions of lives

Dean Kamen

Dean Kamen, 55, is probably best known for inventing the two-wheeled Segway people mover. But his latest creation promises to move mountains. The device, dubbed the Slingshot, can transform the filthiest water into pure, drinkable H2O. The 300-pound, electric-powered, dishwasher-size prototype purifies both freshwater and saltwater, basically by vaporizing, compressing, and condensing the liquid. At Deka Research & Development, his Manchester, New Hampshire–based company, Kamen’s standing challenge is this: Bring him the vilest goo and he’ll run it through the Slingshot, knock it back, and ask for more.

ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø: How much faith do you have in this machine?

KAMEN: Last summer we took one into Tiananmen Square, in China, and fed it local river water. It was not only brown and disgusting; it was gelatinous. It had stuff bobbing around in it that would almost defy description. And out came the cleanest, purest water you’ve ever had. We were standing around handing it out to people in paper cups.

How did you get interested in water in the first place?

We at Deka were designing home-based dialysis systems—which require water clean enough to inject—so we were very interested in how to purify local water. Even in the developed world, tap water can have arsenic, cryptosporidium, lead, and other contaminants, so we spent millions trying to figure out everything that could possibly go wrong with water and how to fix it. Eventually I said, hey, we could help a few hundred thousand people—or we could expand this technology to serve a billion people around the world.

Did everybody immediately say, “Great idea!”?

Everybody said “You’re nuts!” But I thought, If we can manufacture a machine that has no need for chemicals or activated charcoal or membranes—and if we can create something small and rugged enough to carry into remote areas and have it run for years with no maintenance—we’d solve the problem.

You recently tested a prototype in Honduras, where people were getting sick from drinking dirty river water. How did it go?

From day one we were making a thousand liters a day. People loved it. Now we’re ready to go with more prototypes in other villages next year. In a few years we hope to have them widely available. In very high volume, they’d be under a few thousand bucks apiece.

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Grab your shades, wax your board, and check out our tropical—paradise smackdown, in which we scour the Aloha State’s sweetest shorelines, lushest mountains, coolest adventures, choicest chow, and hippest nightlife—then we let you decide which island is the big kahuna of beach-bound delight.


By Amy Linn


By Kent Black


By Ethan Watters


By Joe Kane


By Alex Heard


By Daniel Duane

Getting There: Major carriers offer nonstop flights from Los Angeles and San Francisco to Honolulu, Oahu, Kahului, Maui, and Lihue, Kauai—home to Hawaii’s largest airports—for sometimes as low as $370 round-trip. Hawaiian (800-367-5320, ) and Aloha (800-367-5250, ) airlines serve many smaller cities along the West Coast—including Portland, Seattle, Oakland, Orange County, and San Diego—and fly nonstop routes to the Honolulu, Kahului, and Big Island’s Kona airport, starting at about $400. Once you’re there, Island Air (800-323-3345, ) offers shuttle service between the six major islands, from $86 one way.

Resources: Visit for a photographic catalog of many of the islands’ best beaches; check out , the Web site of Hawaii’s tourism board. For the best maps, pick up a copy of Atlas of Hawaii (University of Hawaii Press, $50).

Wild Thing

Give in to temptation and go feral

SHORTLY AFTER LANDING IN KAUAI—the island air like a balm, the route north flanked by soft beaches, the impossibly green mountains poking through the mist—I can’t help but notice all the chickens crossing the road. Cattle egrets, red-footed boobies, and a lot of surfer dudes, I expected. But chickens?

“They’re everywhere, man,” says the smoothie maker at Banana Joe’s Fruit Stand, near Kilauea, as he hands over a to-die-for blend of locally grown papayas, bananas, and pineapples. “Chickens, goats, cows, pigs—they all went wild here.”

What he didn’t add was this: “Everything does.” It’s Kauai’s mojo, it’s the cosmic undertow, it’s the bizarre unseen force here that somehow invades your synapses and returns you to a state of primordial bliss. Centuries ago, Polynesians introduced moa (chickens) to the Garden Island, as Kauai is called, and now the cluckers are everywhere, bold and cocky in the sheer delight of shedding their domesticity.

For me, the shedding takes about a day. By the time I wake up to aloha music in the sweet oceanfront condo at the Hanalei Colony Resort, in Haena—just up the road from Hanalei, the north shore’s epicenter of surfing, biking, kayaking, coffeehouses, and barefoot locals—I’ve already lost it.

How else to explain the sudden urge to get in a helicopter, when in normal life I can barely sit on a swing without Dramamine?

“Loook at zee waterfalls!” croons Maurice, the Brazilian-born chopper pilot for Heli USA, after liftoff from the tiny Princeville airport, a few miles east of Hanalei. “Zo many, you can’t count!” We buzz deep into the untouched interior—about 90 percent of Kauai is inaccessible by road—where clouds snag on volcanic cliffs and rivers spout spontaneously above the rainforest.

We ride the spine of Mount Waialeale, one of the soggiest places on the planet, which divides the island’s arid west from its moist, lush north. We hover over the Alakai Swamp, a rainforest that’s home to wild boar and some of the world’s rarest plants. We swoop into 12-mile-long, 3,567-foot-deep Waimea Canyon (the “Grand Canyon of the Pacific”), and then head north to the sublime Na Pali Coast. Jungly 3,000-foot spires rise like buttresses on an earthly cathedral, and the 11-mile Kalalau Trail—famed for its Pacific views—hugs the cliffs above the pounding surf. Nothing could be mo’ betta—until it is. A rainbow circles us: not just an arch but an entire, brilliant ring of color. Is this even possible?

On Kauai, the answer is yes—and then some. It’s the oldest of Hawaii’s main islands (dating back about six million years), so crashing waves have had time to create more than 50 miles of beaches—more sand per mile of coastline than on any island in the state. And with less than half as many visitors as Maui and none of the massive condo clots, traffic jams, and high-rises, a low-crowd shoreline is a fact of life.

I drive to Secret Beach, a lovely half-mile-long haven of white sand near the Kilauea Lighthouse, and Anini Beach, where the exposed reef draws summer snorkelers. I check out Hanalei Bay, a rapturous crescent of coastline framed by the cliffs of Mount Makana. I swim at Tunnels Beach and Kee Beach, and each new strand tempts me to explore another. There’s no question that this is as good as Hawaii gets.

Even when it rains.

On a stormy north-shore day, I take the coast road to the sunny south, music blaring from the radio like the soundtrack to the greatest movie I’ve ever seen—which happens to be my life at the moment. In bustling, resort-filled Poipu, I snorkel with sea turtles at Hoai Beach, then it’s onward to the 1920s-era Waimea Plantation Cottages, a banyan-treed beachfront oasis in the tiny outpost of Waimea. It’s not easy to leave after a lomi lomi massage at the resort’s spa, a mai tai at its brewpub (to the tunes of Ambrose, the seventy-something ukulele player), and an ono taco at the Shrimp Station, in town, but there’s more exploring to be done.

A long, jolting drive down a rutted road brings me to Polihale Beach, 15 spectacular miles of sand on the far western edge of the Na Pali cliffs, with only ten other people in sight. When I park near the dunes, I hear what sounds like a goat bleating beyond the vast surrounding sugarcane fields, which can’t be right—there’s no farm in sight. And then I remember: It’s wild.

Access & Resources
Hole Up: Hanalei Colony Resort’s spacious condo living, on the North Shore, is the closest lodging to the Na Pali Coast. It’s totally unplugged (no TV or phone) and right on the beach. Two-bedroom condos from $210; 808-826-6235, » Whaler’s Cove, in Poipu, offers oceanfront luxury with its glass, marble, and private-terrace condos. Hot tubs and full kitchens (complete with blenders) round out the swank. Doubles from $349; 800-225-2683, » The gorgeously restored 1920s-era Waimea Plantation Cottages sit amid banyan trees and coco palms on a black-sand beach on Kauai’s remote western side. Hawaiian-style massages ($80 and up; 808-338-2240, ) at the on-site spa are amazing. Doubles from $195; 800-992-4632,

Dine: For a quick and delicious breakfast, try the Hanalei Wake-Up Cafe, the north-coast locals’ hole-in-the-wall favorite. It closes at 11 a.m. so employees can go surfing. 808-826-5551 » Sit under the thatched veranda at Hanalei Bay Resort’s Bali Hai restaurant, overlooking the water and Mount Makana. 808-826-6522, » When you’re ready to splurge, the torchlit, tiki-chic Plantation Gardens, in the Kiahuna Plantation Resort, in Poipu, is famous for dishes made with locally grown produce. 808-742-2216,

Get Out: Hike the steep and strenuous, sometimes muddy, and always gorgeous Kalalau Trail, on the Na Pali Coast. Camping permits are available from the Division of State Parks. 808-274-3444, » Rent a kayak or take a guided tour of Hanalei Bay with Kayak Kauai, in Hanalei. From $28; 800-437-3507, » Head out on horseback across 400-acre Silver Falls Ranch, in Kilauea, to a waterfall pool where you can take a dip and eat a picnic lunch. $100; 808-828-6718, » On the south shore, swim and lounge at Mahaulepu Beach, three miles east of the Hyatt Regency in Poipu. The draw? Two miles of unspoiled dunes and golden sand.

Shop: Check out Aunty Lilikoi’s award-winning passion-fruit sauces in Waimea. 866-545-4564,

Hot Spot

With volcanic rivers of free-flowing lava, this island’s on fire

Big Island

Kilauea Volcano, on the Big Island’s southeast coast, active since 1983

MY FIRST THOUGHT UPON SEEING the torch-bearing shapes of Ka huakai o ka po (“Night Marchers”)—ghosts of past Hawaiian warriors—was that they were hallucinations caused by staring too long at the 2,000-degree flow of fiery red lava from the Puu Oo vent, on Kilauea. I’d driven to the end of Chain of Craters Road and hiked a couple hours over sneaker-shredding aa, or lava rock, to witness the spectacle. A couple dozen hikers and I stood half a mile away from where the ominously glowing molten river hit the ocean in an explosion of steam and rock. It was like watching the beating heart of the Big Island: land so new it’s still in the process of creation. Indeed, Kilauea has been erupting continuously since 1983.

Earlier that day, I’d sat on the cliffs overlooking the rocky shore at South Point, the southernmost spot in the United States and thought to be the place where the first Polynesians landed on the Hawaiian chain, about 1,600 years ago. I tried to imagine how those first settlers, after a 2,300-mile voyage from the Marquesas, saw the island: its green- and black-sand beaches, fuming volcanoes, dense, highland forests, snow-covered mountaintops, and lush, windward valleys.

Since the Big Island is the original Hawaiian homeland, it’s where many of the gods, goddesses, and demigods live and are revered even today. It seems there’s not an acre of land that doesn’t have a story and a hefty dose of mana, or spiritual power. I went horseback-riding in the Waipio Valley, on the northeast coast, where Uli, goddess of sorcery, and Nenewe, the evil shark-man, reside. I trekked to the top of 13,796-foot Mauna Kea, past Lake Waiau, where ancient Hawaiians brought the umbilical cords of their children to give them the strength of the mountains. I spent two days hiking a few of the 150-plus miles of trails in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, including a great six-and-a-half-mile hike to the steaming Halemaumau crater, home to Pele, goddess of fire and volcanoes.

Hawaiian myth holds that when the Big Island was being created, Pele and her lover, Kamapuaa (the pig god), quarreled, and in the split they divided the island. The pig god took the rainier windward side, while Pele got hot and dry Kona, on the west coast. But the fact that Mauna Loa and Kilauea are still active is evidence that Pele hasn’t gotten over the breakup. Fortunately, she can be bribed. Gifts of leis or bottles of booze are offered at Halemaumau, and locals around Puna will tell you in all earnestness that if you see an old lady hitchhiking near a volcano, give her a lift: She could be Pele in disguise.

While there are plenty of mana-free things to do on the Big Island—snorkeling and scuba diving in Kealakekua Bay, on the Kona coast; swimming with manta rays; sportfishing for marlin, swordfish, and tuna; whale watching off Kona; mountain-biking the upcountry ranch land outside of Waimea—I always find myself drawn to those places that connect the old Hawaii with the new.

Which brings me back to my dilemma on the aa path near the Kilauea flow. To show proper obeisance when encountering Night Marchers, it is customary to remove all clothes and lie facedown until they pass. Before I could oblige, however, they emerged from the mist: five Japanese teenagers in matching rock-tour T-shirts, armed with flashlights. Seeing my shocked expression, they giggled nervously and moved on. A few minutes later, I stumbled on the sharp rock and gashed my leg. As I limped in the dark, back to where I’d left my car, I began to wonder if those Japanese kids weren’t Night Marchers in disguise who’d cursed me for not showing the proper respect.

On the Big Island, you never know.

Access & Resources
Hole Up: Waianuhea, near the northeastern town of Honokaa, is a stunning five-room, off-the-grid B&B, 15 minutes inland from the Hamakua Coast. It’s the perfect base for exploring the Waipio Valley and the up-country ranch town of Waimea. Doubles from $190; 888-775-2577, » In Kona, on the island’s sunny west coast, is the Sheraton Keauhou Bay Resort & Spa, with 500-plus rooms on 22 oceanfront acres, plus meandering pools, grottoes, and water slides. Doubles from $169; 808-930-4900, » Just outside Hawaii Volcanoes National Park in the southeast, Volcano Rainforest Retreat has four cedar and redwood cottages and three hot tubs—perfect after a day spent wandering the lava flows and craters. In addition to boning up on volcanology, you can get an in-cottage shiatsu massage. Doubles from $125; 800-550-8696,

Dine: Tex Drive In, on Highway 19 in Honokaa, specializes in addictive fried pastries called malasadas—try the pineapple-and-papaya filling. 808-775-0598, » If Hawaiian doughnuts don’t cut it, the French-Asian Daniel Thiebaut Restaurant, in Waimea, is one of the top-rated eateries in the United States. Don’t miss the Asian crab–crusted mahi-mahi with sweet-chili butter sauce. 808-887-2200, » Kaaloa’s Super J’s take-out, on Highway 11 in Honaunau, serves true-blue Hawaiian dishes like kalua pig and lomi salmon. 808-328-9566

Get Out: Swim offshore with gentle manta rays and guide James Wing, the original manta man. Wing is known for his encyclopedic knowledge of manta behavior and for providing close encounters. From $75; 808-987-8660, » Captain Ron, of Kailua-Kona–based Coral Reef Divers, will run you up the coast to dive sites like Pyramid Pinnacle and Golden Arches. Two-tank dive, $95; 808-987-1584, » You’ll need at least two days to explore the Kilauea Caldera and the 150-plus miles of hiking trails in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park; call the eruption hotline for details on Kilauea’s lava flow. 808-985-6000, » Hawaii Forest & Trail leads driving excursions and guided hikes to the ever-changing lava flow. $145; 800-464-1993, » Ahalanui Beach Park—on the Puna coast, south of Hilo—features a 90-degree spring-fed geothermic pool. 808-961-8311 » At the bottom of a steep, switchbacking road on the northeast coast, lush Waipio Valley is perfect for hiking, riding horses, and exploring the black-sand beach. Ride the rim with Waipio Ridge Stables before venturing to a waterfall in the rainforest. $145; 877-757-1414,

Shop: Mid-Pacific Store, in Hilo, sells vintage aloha shirts, kimonos, and muumuus. 808-935-3822 » Coffee connoisseurs know that Kona coffee is a smooth, subtle, light-to-medium bean originally from Guatemala. Get your fix on a plantation tour at Kona Blue Sky Coffee, in Holualoa—it’s one of the few places that offer 100 percent Kona beans. 877-322-1700,

Luxe Outpost

Mellow never had it so good

Lanai

Going nowhere fast: fat-tire riding, Lanai

I WAS IN THE GARDEN OF THE GODS at twilight when the feeling first came over me. From Lanai’s only town, I had driven half an hour north on a single-lane dirt road to this otherworldly plateau of red dust, pinnacles, and encrusted lava. I turned off the engine of the jeep but left the radio blaring rock from a Big Island station. Walking away from the car—at just the point where the trade winds began to drown out the electric guitar—I felt suddenly and deliriously alone.

Like many city dwellers, I fantasize about being stranded on a Pacific island. I read Robinson Crusoe as a kid and saw Cast Away the day it opened, but I’d never experienced the exquisite ache of loneliness that a shipwreck survivor might feel until that moment, standing at the northern edge of Lanai and looking out at the darkening ocean. Of course, this was an illusion. When I turned around, my jeep was there, with the Stone Temple Pilots singing an anthem to modern-day alienation. But all was not lost: I was still on Lanai.

Shaped like a teardrop, 18 miles long, and only 13 miles across at its widest point, Lanai has retained a sense of splendid seclusion. No theme-park resorts here. In fact, since the island was once used for growing pineapples and cattle ranching—and 98 percent of it is owned by a single real estate holding—development has been kept to a minimum. Lanai City, with a population of just 3,000, is tightly contained in less than four square miles and still looks like the 1920s pineapple-plantation village it used to be. About half of the island’s coast is sheer cliff against ocean, and most of the land is arid—red dirt and low grass. There are less than three dozen miles of paved road, not a single mile of which runs along the coastline; nearly all shore access is by jeep trail, hiking, or rappelling. From almost any place on the island, I had to walk only 15 minutes and I could be deep in my thousands-of-miles-from-civilization reverie.

The illusion of utter isolation is a delicacy, but like ordering blowfish at a sushi bar, it’s one you want carefully served with the poison excised. Which is to say that the thrill of feeling stranded can sometimes lead to restlessness if you don’t have an ultra-luxe hotel to head back to at the end of the day.

Fortunately, Lanai has two such retreats. The low, Mediterranean-style buildings of the Manele Bay Hotel are terraced into a hillside next to the island’s nicest strand, Hulopoe Beach. The most decadent suites—outfitted with four-poster beds—come with butler service, so I wasn’t surprised to learn that, back in the early nineties, Bill Gates had rented the entire place for his wedding. Ten miles away, close to town, the Lodge at Koele, with its old-world hunting-estate decor, is an oddity in Hawaii. Because it’s situated at 1,700 feet in the island’s center, breezes are often cool enough to warrant use of the lobby’s wood-burning fireplace. Both resorts have golf courses that are so well manicured and cleverly designed, with ocean backdrops and island greens, that they look like the virtual landscapes in a golf video game.

What I like best about Lanai is that it manages a perfect balance between what there is to do and what there isn’t. Sure, you can hook up with scuba and fishing charters, sample world-class snorkeling off Shipwreck Beach (so named because a World War II Liberty Ship rusts on the reef), sea-kayak with pods of spinner dolphins in Kaunolu Bay, mountain-bike down the Munro Trail, and ride horses above Maunalei Gulch. But karaoke nightclubs and beachfront bacchanalias? If you use party as a verb, this is not your island.

In the end, your choices come down to a happily manageable handful: Should I play croquet or visit the sporting-clay facility to blow some plates out of the sky? Should I take a jeep down that dirt road or rent a mountain bike and go exploring? Should I get the alii banana-and-coconut scrub or the ki pola hoolu ti leaf wrap?

Still want more? Take your day planner and head for Maui.

Access & Resources
Hole Up: The 249-room, Mediterranean-style Manele Bay Hotel is the only resort on the water. Its spacious rooms open onto garden courtyards or overlook Hulopoe Beach, the island’s best. Doubles from $400; 800-450-3704, » If you’re into fetishizing the lifestyle of English lords and ladies, the 102-room Lodge at Koele, just north of Lanai City, is perfection. The largest wooden structure in the islands, it’s modeled after old English hunting lodges, with a full croquet course and pros to teach you the game. Doubles from $400; 800-450-3704, » The oldest and most low-key of the island’s accommodations is the 11-room Hotel Lanai, on the edge of Lanai City. Built by pineapple king James Dole in 1923 to house his execs, the plantation-style rooms have a warm charm. Doubles from $105; 877-665-2624,

Dine: The Blue Ginger Café; is a casual local favorite just across the street from Dole Park, in the center of Lanai City. Eat there two days in a row and you’re likely to see the same friendly faces. 808-565-6363 » Henry Clay’s Rotisserie, in the Hotel Lanai, serves hearty New Orleans fare at moderate prices. The small bar here is one of the few places where locals and visitors mingle. 877-665-2624

Get Out: Trilogy Ocean Sports Lanai is the catchall guiding service on the island. It leads catamaran-supported scuba dives to the walls and reefs below Lanai’s rocky shores, rents jeeps to explore the island’s mostly dirt roads, and arranges guided four-wheel-drive expeditions if you don’t want to go it alone. Prices vary; 888-628-4800, » Thanks to the cliffs that cover nearly half of Lanai’s 47-mile coastline, access to many beaches requires a hike or four-wheel drive. There is one notable exception: Hulopoe Beach, at the south end of Route 440, is not only car-accessible; it’s continually rated as one of the most beautiful beaches in the world. On the west end of the beach, the Manele Bay Hotel keeps a stash of snorkel equipment in a kiosk for its guests. » Blast a couple of clay pigeons at the Lodge at Koele’s sport-shooting facility. $150 for 100 rounds; 808-559-4600,

Shop: The Heart of Lanai art gallery sells island paintings by local artists and custom-made ukuleles. 888-565-7815

Real Aloha

Your ticket to the land of big cliffs and big hearts

MOLOKAI IS THE WILDEST and most mysterious of the Hawaiian Islands—sparsely settled, sporadically visited, fiercely independent, and protected by the world’s highest sea cliffs. There are no stoplights here; in fact, with Big Pineapple long gone and Big Condo not quite arrived, there are hardly any lights at all. Viewed at night from nearby Maui, Molokai looms like a wary hulk guarding a secret. And it is—Molokai is the Hawaii that used to be.

Molokai’s only real town, Kaunakakai, is three blocks long. The shops’ floorboards creak with age, but the place has a funky charm—it’s where the Joads would have washed up if they’d put in to the Pacific and had better luck. My first night “downtown,” locals were gathered in front of the library, talking in pidgin and English and cheering wildly when guitarist Zack Helm and his daughter, Raiatea, lit up the night with traditional Hawaiian songs. I was the odd white face in a sea of Filipino, Japanese, and Polynesian blood, but people greeted me with smiles and nods.

Molokai is called the Friendly Isle, but that’s overly simplistic. Perhaps it’s more accurate to call it the most Hawaiian of the major islands—almost half its 7,000 inhabitants are natives, and the island is known for the virtue of ohana, or family. “If you want to make a lot of money, go to Oahu,” a Molokai resident named Joe Kalipi told me. “Here, you judge a man by his aloha spirit. You judge him by his heart.”

Wander into a homey little roadside cookhouse, lured by visions of guava-sauce ribs and a cold beer, only to discover that it doesn’t have an alcohol license? Not to worry. The waiter will likely offer you the last frosty Bud from his personal stash. And because there are far fewer people to crowd the beaches of Molokai, you won’t find any of the competitive surf vibes of the other islands. The day I boogie-boarded off Kepuhi Beach, a popular swimming and surfing spot on the west side, three young locals paddled over to warn me away from hidden rocks and suggested I’d get better rides if I moved up on my board.

All this packed into an island 38 miles long and ten wide. Though it’s the second smallest of the major Hawaiian islands, Molokai’s sheer wildness and diversity is unparalleled. The rainforest atop its steep northern shore receives nearly 160 inches of precipitation annually. Laau Point, a few miles west, gets fewer than ten inches. Try making that transition on a mountain bike: Start atop a 2,000-foot cliff that drops straight into the Pacific and finish by hurtling to the sea along red-desert singletrack so thrilling it explains why Molokai is called Mini-Moab.

For an offshore perspective, sea-kayak the south coast, which is protected by the state’s longest barrier reef, stretching almost the entire length of the island’s southern side. Stuff a picnic lunch and snorkeling gear into your pack and find a perfect white-sand beach, like three-mile Papohaku (the state’s longest), to call your own.

After all, you’ve come to Molokai to be alone. Up in the high country there are at least a dozen forested hiking trails you’ll almost surely have to yourself. (Beware, however, that some cross private property and can’t be accessed without a local guide.) All are dramatic, but my favorite is the cliff-face descent via 26 posted switchbacks into the leper colony at Kalaupapa, on the island’s north shore, a setting so spectacular—with a story of such tragedy and courage—that it inspired the likes of Robert Louis Stevenson and Jack London.

Spectacular, isolated, ignored, unique: This is Molokai. The island’s residents prefer it that way. They might mumble something about too many visitors, but the next thing you know, they’re inviting you home for dinner, giving you their last beer, or helping you catch a wave. Now that’s a friendly isle.

Access & Resources
Hole Up: Relaxed but lively, the Polynesian-style Hotel Molokai has 47 thatch-roofed rooms and an ocean-view restaurant and bar that attracts visitors and locals alike. Doubles from $90; 800-535-0085, » The Lodge at Molokai Ranch—the island’s only resort—is a gorgeous plantation-style estate with 22 rooms on 65,000 acres on the western third of the island. Doubles from $280; 888-627-8082,

Dine: Molokai isn’t known for haute cuisine, but you can eat cheaply and well; ribs and fresh fish are the island specialties. Good bets are Kualapuu Cookhouse (808-567-9655) and the Molokai Pizza Café; (808-553-3288), in Kaunakakai. » Stanley’s Coffee Shop, on Puali Street, in Kaunakakai, has Internet access and espresso. 808-553-9966 » The Neighborhood Store and Counter, on the Kamehameha Highway, will sell you a Japanese-style box lunch for a day trip to the remote eastern beaches. 808-558-8498

Get Out: Hook up with Damien Tours for the 3.1-mile trek down the treacherously steep Pali Trail to the Kalaupapa leper colony, a national historic site that’s still home to 35 people. At the bottom, board the bus driven by Richard Marks—a wry resident and a fierce advocate for the victims of the widely misunderstood disease. $40; 808-567-6171 » Mountain-bike with Activities Maunaloa on the world-class singletrack at the Lodge at Molokai Ranch. Head guide and native son Kawika Puaa leads half-day rides through the wildly varied terrain, from muddy rainforest to hardpack desert. $45; 808-552-0184 » For fishing, scuba diving, and one of the few available tours of the spectacular north shore (accessible only by boat), Walter Naki, of Molokai Action ºÚÁϳԹÏÍøs, is your man. $100; 808-558-8184

Shop: The Plantation Gallery, on Maunaloa’s main drag, has the best beads and trinkets on Molokai—and maybe in the whole state. Check out its sister shop, the Big Wind Kite Factory, next door. 808-552-2364, ,

Blue Diamond

North Shore surf plus Honolulu nightlife—proof that you can have it all

I GET IRRITATED WHEN PEOPLE disrespect Oahu—letting you know, smugly, that when they travel to Hawaii, all they do in Honolulu is catch a flight to one of the “other islands.” The rap is that Oahu is too urban, too touristy, too whatever. The great abomination is supposedly Waikiki, the 1.5-mile-long resort-and-beach strip just east of downtown Honolulu whose loud garishness represents everything modern island travelers think they ought to avoid.

These gripes miss a larger truth: Oahu’s many parts, both kitschy and genuine, come together to form a wonderful whole. There’s more than enough nature, outdoor sports, beaches, mountains, and solitude to please anyone, and Oahu’s urban life is a strength, not a weakness. Honolulu and Waikiki are a blast, home to classic luxury hotels (my wife, Susan, and I stayed at the fabulous Royal Hawaiian, called “the pink palace of the Pacific” for its Pepto-Bismol–colored stucco coat), rich history, beautiful public spaces, cool bars, and friendly people. Waikiki’s beachfront nightlife connects you to a magical past, when honeymooners wiggled toes in its sands and Hawaii Calls—a globally syndicated radio program broadcast from the Banyan Courtyard, at the Moana Hotel—sent out a musical aloha every Saturday night.

Today, Honolulu and Waikiki hum with Pacific Rim energy, and you can have plenty of fun just sunning, bodysurfing, strolling, shopping, and watching the limo-powered migrations of Japanese wedding parties. I especially liked the Ala Moana Center—a mall with an entire store devoted to ukuleles—and the huge, thrice-weekly flea market at Aloha Stadium. I bought used flippers; Susan picked up a few bushels of inexpensive jewelry and the first in her now alarmingly large collection of carved tikis. These weren’t mass-produced junk, either, but grimacing, two-foot-tall mini-masterpieces chipped out of monkey pod wood by local craftsmen.

Honolulu residents characterize a trip to the North Shore—where we spent several days at the spiff Turtle Bay Resort, an oceanfront golf-and-luxury spread near the island’s northernmost point—as going to the country. But you can get there in 45 minutes from downtown, so it’s more like going from San Francisco to Stinson Beach. We soon realized we could build busy days around my doing outdoor stuff in the morning, Susan going on urban adventures in the afternoon, and us doing something romantic together at night.

On a typical morning, I would surf (Turtle Bay’s resident pro, Hans Hedemann, taught me the basics), snorkel, or sea-kayak (in Kailua, you can paddle to a pair of offshore islands). Then I’d pick Susan up at lunchtime and we’d floor it to the nearest coconut stand. We’d either explore the North Shore—home to legendary beaches and surf spots like Waimea Bay and Pipeline, as well as Haleiwa, the main town for local hipsters—or we’d head back to the city, usually via the more scenic route on the island’s eastern shore. After a drink with a new pal like Lloyd Kandell—cofounder of Don Tiki, an Oahu-based band that specializes in the “exotica” sounds made popular in the fifties—we’d zoom north and stake out a hot tub at the resort. Our favorite offered a tiki-torch-framed view of Turtle Bay with a surf-powered blowhole going off in the foreground. The full moon came at no extra charge.

The last thing I did in Oahu wasn’t my usual scene: I signed up for a day of sportfishing out of Honolulu’s Kewalo Basin on a boat that, in its time, had landed a 939-pound blue marlin. This wasn’t one of those times, and by 9 a.m. I intuited that the adventure would be defined by eight hours of smelling diesel exhaust and watching hooks drag through the water without result.

Luckily, this was Oahu, so one of the other clients was my kind of boat mate: a spirited, chain-smoking divorcé;e from Los Angeles who made it clear with her friendly chatter that she was determined to have fun. Before long she noticed me sitting in the fighting chair looking glum.

“Were you wanting a beer or anything?” she offered.

I checked the time: 9:30. Yes.

“Kinda. But I didn’t bring any, so—”

“Hey, man,” she rasped, “I brought two six-packs and a bottle of Mr. Boston rum. And I’m not planning on taking any of it back.”

I saw her differently then. She was a sweet goddess, offering the rarest of island nectars. What could I say but mahalo?

Access & Resources
Hole Up: The 387-room Marriott Ihilani Resort and Spa, at Ko Olina, in Kapolei, dominates a cliff-backed spit of sand on Oahu’s west coast. In a full day here, you can snorkel the private lagoon, play 18 holes of golf, and still have time for a spa treatment. Doubles from $370; 808-679-0079, » With five miles of prime North Shore beach, 443 rooms, and two 18-hole golf courses, Turtle Bay Resort offers luxury on a grand scale. Snorkel the bay or take surf lessons with Hans Hedemann, then hit 21 Degrees North for martinis. Doubles from $400; 808-447-6508, » If you yearn for the quiet comforts of life on a Hawaiian beach, try one of the B&Bs available across the island—including the hotel-free eastern side—through Affordable Paradise. Studios from $55; 808-261-1693,

Dine: Chai’s Island Bistro, in downtown Honolulu, has upscale seafood, perfectly mixed cocktails, and a crack waitstaff in an unpretentious environment. 808-585-0011, » North Shore locals swear by Giovanni’s shrimp truck, with its $11 garlic-laden scampis. It’s always parked on the Kamehameha Highway in Kahuku. 808-293-1839 » For the Waikiki experience, try the Mai Tai Bar, at the Royal Hawaiian. Tiki torches, Hawaiian music, and hula dancers complete the vibe. 808-923-7311,

Get Out: Even novice sea kayakers will enjoy the reef-protected islands near Kailua Beach Park. Guide Steve Haumschild, of Kailua Sailboards & Kayaks, will lead you to some good snorkeling and teach you how to boat-surf waves along the way. From $39; 808-262-2555 » Wild Side Specialty Tours provides uncrowded (no more than 16 guests) dolphin- and whale-watching and swimming tours from a 42-foot catamaran off the west coast. From $95; 808-306-7273, » Wake up early and hike a mile and three-quarters to the top of 760-foot Diamond Head volcanic crater for the best view of sunrise over Honolulu and Waikiki. » At Mokuleia’s Dillingham Airfield, Honolulu Soaring offers 15-minute to hourlong rides in an aerobatic glider. You can’t beat the cockpit view, riding updrafts above the North Shore surf. $129–$228; 808-677-3404, » Or try a tandem jump with Skydive Hawaii. $225; 808-637-9700,

Shop: Seek out the talented (and hilariously grumpy) Tongan tiki carver Kini at the International Marketplace on Kalakaua Ave, Waikiki’s main drag. 808-971-2080,

A-List Island

Surfing superstars, media magnates, Hollywood glitterati—and you

Maui

Maui’s bright side

Maui

Just press play: La Perouse Bay, Makena; opposite, Hotel Hana-Maui’s sea-ranch suites

SO HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO FEEL when the valet at the Hotel Hana-Maui (which must be the most understatedly elegant, eco-positive hotel on earth, in a genuine rural paradise) smiles and says, “You know, the surf’s so uncrowded around here that I’m usually trying to find people to go with me”? Especially when the guy’s eyes light up as he describes jet-ski trips to breaks so remote that you don’t see a single building, road, or human all day? Or when he freely gives me directions to a nearby beach break and those directions take me past the sleepy old Hasegawa General Store and out toward a barbecue stand with a hand-drawn sign reading LOCAL KIND GRIND?

And sure, I know that Carol Burnett, Jim Nabors, and George Harrison used to live out here in Hana, the easternmost point of the island, and that Kris Kristofferson still does. And I know that the town’s aflutter over Oprah’s recent purchase of more than a hundred acres of undeveloped Hana coast. But somehow the celebrity density only heightens my astonishment that on Maui, of all places, with its Gold Coast resorts and almost hourly jumbo jets, I can drift down a one-lane country road, past white egrets loitering in overgrown pastures among grazing Holsteins, and into a dazed state of tropical rapture.

I awoke yesterday morning in the baroque splendor of the Fairmont Kea Lani—65 miles away on the south shore, among Fantasy Island villas and talk of the Maui film festival and how it had drawn Adrien Brody and Greg Kinnear and Angela Bassett. Then I was whisked by helicopter along the slopes of 10,023-foot Haleakala to watch a 2,000-foot waterfall gush only yards beyond the windshield. I hiked 15 miles and 5,000 feet up into the famed Kaupo Gap, from prickly pear desert through sodden forest and alpine tundra beyond, then into the volcanic moonscape of the giant upper crater, an unearthly world of red ash and cinder cones, bizarre silversword plants, and solidified rivers of black magma.

Cresting a high ridge, I looked down the long, sweeping slopes to funky Paia town, where I’d dawn-patrolled clean-point surf the day before and watched gorgeous, half-naked fitness fanatics drink wheatgrass juice outside Mana Foods, chatting about their late-morning wave sail at windsurfing’s sweetest spot on earth, Hookipa. And those alpha dogs I saw at Anthony’s Coffee Shop? That was Laird Hamilton himself, with his pal Dave Kalama, who together had pioneered tow-in big-wave surfing on the 50-footers right down the road at Jaws—and who were among the first to launch kiteboarding as a sport, at the nearby strand known today as Kite Beach.

And now, not 24 hours later, I’m killing the engine at a red-sand beach with only three surfers in the warm water—two tanned adolescent boys and a teenage girl in a red bikini. Island kids, done with school for the day and frolicking in the world as they know it. There are finer pleasures to come—the full-body spirulina-and-kava spa treatment I’ve scheduled at the hotel and the nine-course tasting menu with wine pairings—but it’s right now, wading out for a sunset surf, that I realize why Maui is the only Hawaiian island named for a demigod. And not just any god, either: Maui was the greatest trickster in Polynesian culture, a sort of South Pacific Paul Bunyan/Odysseus hybrid who fished the Hawaiian islands up from the ocean floor, lifted the sky so people could walk upright, and lengthened the day by climbing to the top of Haleakala and lassoing the sun god.

There’s a genuine delight in this island and in the fact that—among all the high-dollar tourism and great yoga studios and world-famous surfing and movie-star real estate—there exists the paradoxical sense that you’ve finally found the place you’ve always dreamed about, the one beyond the end of the road, where you can leave it all behind and just stay.

Access & Resources
Hole Up: Set amid a 23,000-acre working pineapple plantation on Maui’s northwest shore is the 548-room Ritz-Carlton Kapalua, on white-sand D.T. Fleming Beach, near Honolua Bay, one of the world’s best right-hand surf breaks. Doubles from $365; 800-241-3333, » The Fairmont Kea Lani, on the sunny south side of the island, offers big-resort glam (suites are at least 840 square feet), exceptionally calm water, and a secluded beach. Doubles from $465; 800-257-7544, » Hotel Hana-Maui—47 cottages and 22 bungalow rooms overlooking the ocean—is the only hotel on the remote east coast. Doubles from $395; 800-321-4262,

Dine: The Paia Fish Market restaurant, in the heart of Paia, has your postworkout grilled mahi-mahi, fresh from the sea—just like you. 808-579-8030 » On the western edge of Lahaina and right on the water, Mala offers fresh and organic tapas—like mahi-mahi chermoula and crunchy calamari with aioli. 808-667-9394

Get Out: Latatudes and Attitudes does an all-day heli-hike, starting with whirlybird sightseeing over Haleakala and ending with a 15-mile catered hike from Kaupo Gap through the volcano’s crater (from $2,500). They also offer a four-hour guided waterfall hike in the West Maui Mountains ($75). 877-661-7720, » Visit Hana’s secluded Koki Beach for surfing and relaxing. » Sample Maui’s unrivaled watersports by ogling windsurfers at Hookipa, just beyond Kahalui’s airport, and tow-in surfers riding the monster waves at Jaws, 15 minutes east of Paia (turn left after the cemetery). Or learn to surf with the Nancy Emerson School of Surfing at the beginner-friendly Breakwall in Lahaina. $75 for two hours; 808-244-7873, » The road to Hana—600 curves and 54 one-lane bridges on about 30 miles of cliff- and jungle-edged road—is so unpopulated, you’ll find it hard to believe it’s on glitzy, golfer-inundated Maui. Gas up and take the long way back, along Haleakala’s leeward slope.

Shop: Drop by Hana’s Hasegawa General Store, for a Coke in a glass bottle—and trip out on a bygone world. 808-248-8231

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