Hawaii

I met people who had long dreamed of getting to Hawaii and ended up getting disappointed. I know people who still believe it is a paradise on Earth. During our six-months long Pacific trip, across many remote Pacific islands, we met seasoned travellers who were smiling condescendingly at Hawaii, openly calling them “McDonald’s land” and “nothing special at all”.

So how was it for us? Firstly, I think that we were fortunate to hear all these opinions before coming, because we landed in Hawaii open-minded, ready to see them as they are, rather than through the distorted vision of a land of dreams.

It was the first week of December 2018. After months of zigzagging through Futuna, Vanuatu, Fiji, Tuvalu, Kiribati, French Polynesia and Tonga, Oahu in Hawaii was our last island before returning on continental land: Hawaii was the exit gate from our Pacific tour. I was going to write “before returning to normal modern countries”, but Hawaii already gave us the feeling of being back: even though surrounded by exotic nature, the towns felt very regular and contemporary.

Oahu is a gorgeous island. It is like in the postcards: the mountains are breathtaking, and the beaches are white-sanded, surrounded by a lush green forest.

However, the well-known, super advertised legend of Hawaii gives wrong expectations to many people. Let’s look for instance at the iconic city of Honolulu, the state capital, host of Pearl Harbor and of the world-famous Waikiki Beach.

Honolulu is a modern city with skyscrapers, big jeeps, roads of 3 lanes one way; the most prominent smell is not of frangipane flowers, but of hamburgers. If you made yourself an idea of local people wearing Polynesian garlands, of corpulent local men playing tiny ukulele guitars, and bronze-skinned ladies with flowers in their hair swaying hips during a hula dance, well, you are in the wrong place, or, at least, in the wrong historical period. Instead, you’ll find an ordinary largish international airport, provided of Starbucks and of all the other knick-knacks of globalization; you’ll find night clubs, that are more likely to play electric music than ukulele; you won’t find so many fruit trees, but in return you’ll get plenty of XL supermarkets, stuffed with all kind of international goods.

And here comes a sad consequence for us South Pacific lovers: on Oahu, you can experience as much real Polynesian lifestyle as you could experience ancient American Indian traditions in New York. Polynesian culture has been wiped off.

It feels strange, at least to me, to make a parallelism between American Indians, an utterly extinct civilization, and Polynesians, who, in spite of the changes brought by modernity, are still alive and proud in many places throughout the Pacific. Of course, we were there just for a handful of days, and we visited only Oahu island, so I cannot speak of all Hawaii islands (I heard Big Island has still some sparkle of Polynesian culture). But that’s the direction in which things are going, unfortunately: Hawaii, culturally as well as politically, are part of North America, and nothing more needs to be asked.

You can find Polynesian decorations everywhere, but they are made in China; you can visit parks that look like amusement parks, where Polynesian culture is in display like dinosaur dioramas in a natural history museum, and Polynesian dances are performed by tanned ladies, probably retired from a show in Las Vegas: anything tagged as “Polynesian” looks and smells fake, a sad type of fake. After all it is true: like in the South Park episode, the “real” Hawaiian natives are the ones who drink daiquiris and play golf.

However, in spite of my (and especially Adriano’s) gloom about Polynesians, I definitely don’t want to discourage anyone from visiting Hawaii. Oahu IS one of the most beautiful islands in the Pacific. On top of that, it is better connected, cheaper, in many ways simpler and more comfortable to travel or live. It was not my best touristic experience in the Pacific, but still, if I could live anywhere in the Pacific, I would choose Honolulu for the best mix of convenience and surrounding natural beauty.

What we liked the most on Oahu island

Nature

Breathtaking views of Jurassic Park looking mountains are a common sight all around Oahu, and white beaches are easy to find. It is a very rare combination. Often, islands are either flat and offer beautiful white beaches, or volcanic, in which case you get black sand beaches or sharp rock walls falling into deep water that is not friendly for bathing. Oahu has a nice mixture of both.

Kailua beach

Out of a few beaches we saw, Kailua beach on the island’s east shore was the nicest. We did not see the sea turtles (this beach is known for sea turtles), but the beach and all area around is very lovely. Far less crowded than Waikiki.

We were surprised to see very long rows of private villas tightly surrounding the shore and preventing the public from accessing the seaside. It happened a few times on Oahu that, in order to reach the beach, we had to ask local people to let us cross their gardens.

Japanese cuisine

So many restaurants, and so good! In Honolulu, you can have very tasty holidays for sure. I have no idea why, but I found only a photo of take-away coffees in my photo album. Probably, Japanese food was too good to waste time for pictures. Cheers!

Wide spaces!

It was my first time in the USA. Isn’t it great to start exploring the USA from Hawaii? I think so.

After 30+ years in Europe, this was my first and most favourable impression of the USA: wide spaces everywhere, so much space that walking around feels lighter, and it feels easier to breathe. I was surprised to see so many wide and empty streets, wide pavements and only huge cars inside the city. Americans in Rome probably think that all those mini cars are toys for children? It must be so relieving to have so much space around.

Honolulu

In the range of modern cities, it is the place where I would like to live. Not too big, not too small; the weather is perfect, no big traffic, big cars with space for children, all their toys and a labrador in the back. Many people live in private houses (around the city) with a private piece of beach or at least a swimming pool. Is it called an American dream? I am dreaming with you about this one!

Shopping

A silly thing to mention, but this was my (Inga’s) part of the Hawaii experience. After many months on remote Pacific islands, landing in an American shopping mall for a few hours was a child-like experience in Disneyland. Even though locals say, that everything in Hawaii is much more expensive than in the continental USA, I found it cheaper in comparison to Europe, with good choice and excelent service.

Ten days before landing in Hawaii, we got married in Kiribati, and I was already thinking about our little celebration with families and friends back in Europe. It took me a few hours to get an original well-known designer’s but heavily discounted dress at Bloomingdale’s. I wish we had such shops & discounts in Europe. We also purchased our wedding rings in Honolulu. I have the sweetest memories from our chilled visit in Hawaiian shorts at a luxurious 2-floor The Wedding Rings Shop. An original name, isn’t it? But this is why I remember it so well. We chose the simplest rings, but I am so glad to carry a little something from Hawaii every day now. Things purchased during travels have a higher value for me, because they carry very special memories into daily life.

Biggest fails

In general, many weird or bad experiences in Hawaii (and later in San Diego) came from those that I would call “stereotypical” misunderstandings of a typical European in the USA. One might think that European and American cultures are very close, but this is not the case. Even if I heard before about all those differences, it did not prevent us from feeling embarrassed, uncomfortable and completely out of our world sometimes.

For example, that thing that you never know whom, when and how much to tip was driving us nuts. At the end of our World Tour, we were short in budget, and sometimes felt rather avoiding restaurants and taxi services only because it was not clear, what taxes and tips will be added on a final bill or we have to add ourselves.

But the biggest and most ridiculous fail was not renting a car and trusting in public transport. We conclude that almost nobody uses Public Transport in Hawaii (neither in San Diego as we experienced later). If you want to move around, rent a car. Don’t think twice, don’t think it once, just rent a car. Whoever is telling you differently, whatever public transport schedules you find online, forget it. There is no other way. In the USA, it seems that everybody is driving cars. We managed to see the bigger half of Oahu but not all island (in general, it is very easy to do in two days even in one day) only because we got stuck for hours at bus stops waiting for the public buses… wait… Who????

The cute thing about Hawaiian public transport was that they are super friendly and accommodate anything you need: bicycles, huge luggages, dogs. I don’t remember a single bus trip without some big breed dogs on the bus. Maybe it was happening only to us and by accident but this is how it stuck in my mind: it can take an hour to wait for a bus, but once it comes, there will be at least one Labrador, Golden Retriever or German Shepherd to cuddle inside.

Another very amusing but very weird sensation was to hear Jingle Bells all around. It was beginning of December but around 3oC, not the peak of tourism, a bit more chilled, but still a very summery environment. I was born in Lithuania, a country with snow and freezing temperatures around winter holidays. Christmas jingles, Santas and Christmas trees around Honolulu felt surreal to me.

Waikiki beach

Just because many people heard the name and all my family was asking how it was, I will mention that I completely didn’t understand its fame. It is an overcrowded sandy beach embedded between the most expensive hotels in Honolulu. It is not bad nor good, I just did not find it any different from hundreds of other urban beaches I have seen around the world. I love beaches with less people and far from civilisation, especially far from skyscrapers. Probably, it is just not my cup of tea to sit in a bikini while surrounded by glass and metal constructions. Adriano found a bit of a charming vibe about it.

To sum up

I would move to Honolulu straight away if such an opportunity presented itself. But, if you happen to live on the other side of the planet, I would not recommend crossing the whole world just to visit it. It is just not that special. I think it makes more sense to add Hawaii on top of a longer trip. Maybe after visiting a few places in the Pacific? For instance, Honolulu is the starting point of the only flight landing in the Line Islands, Kiribati, and of the only flight that crosses the Marshall Islands and the Federated States of Micronesia. Or you add Hawaii on top of a longer USA tour. Flights between Hawaii and other States are cheap and convenient if you are already travelling to the USA. But to fly from Europe to Hawaii only, I personally think that it is not worth it.

There is a lot of overpromising marketing about Hawaii, and there are much less promoted but far more exciting places for tourism in the Pacific. For us, if we compare two countries in the Pacific mostly influenced by modern civilisations and the closest to Westerners’ comfort zone, we both with Adriano find French Polynesia far more interesting. It offers more original culture experience, more variety of natural beauty, archaeology, not just tasty food but interesting, authentic Polynesian dishes to try, and, of course, peaceful holidays with minor quantities of tourists around. Hawaii probably will not change much if visited today, in five or ten years. However, many French Polynesian islands are still very Polynesian which is likely to change, and they will get more French, more internationalised in the future, so better to visit it earlier.

After this trip, some of my friends told me that I should visit other Hawaiian islands as well, because some of them are more natural than Ohau, and on Big Island it’s still possible to find some Polynesians. Maybe one day we will return to explore other islands. One of the great advantages of Hawaii is connections: wherever more remotely you want to go in the Pacific, one of the very few ways how to get there is through Hawaii. And we are far from done with the Pacific travels, so who knows what the future will bring.

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Photo album