Most of the people who have been to Hawaii never went to Hawaii. They went to Honolulu, on Oahu, just the doorstep of a whole set of fabulous islands. And most of the people who haven’t even started to go to Hawaii think of it as surfboards, leis, macadamia nuts and pineapple punch, a kind of tropical suburb of Los Angeles. But Hawaii is much, much more than all these things.
Spewed up by a volcanic cataclysm from the Pacific bottom a million years ago, Hawaii is still one of the world’s greatest, though safest, volcanic non-stop shows. There are strange birds and animals, a variety of different islands, scenic wonders and moods to choose – from the brash excitement of Honolulu or Oahu to quiet beauty of an old whaling town on Maui.
There’s a fascinating history to get involved with, from the arrival of the Polynesian outriggers when Charlemagne was still writing the map of France, to the visit of Captain Cook who called these the Sandwich Islands; the story of the missionaries from New England, and the one of the King and Queen who died of measles on a visit to London in 1824, the ingenuity of Mr Dole in establishing the pineapple on a big scale, the sadness of Pearl Harbor and, finally, the happy assumption of Statehood in 1959. It’s quite a history book. And quite a collection of peoples – Polynesian, European and Americans.
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