Oahu, Hawaii

Daniel K. Inouye International Airport is 10km from Waikiki. Check into your Waikiki hotel and walk directly to the beach — Waikiki Beach is one of the world's most famous beaches and, despite its urban setting, genuinely beautiful: the arc of white sand facing a calm lagoon with Diamond Head Crater rising 760 feet at the eastern end is as distinctive as any beach view in the world. Diamond Head Crater trail (1.4 miles round trip, 560-foot elevation gain) provides the finest panoramic view of Oahu: the entire Waikiki and Honolulu coast, the Windward Mountains, and the Pacific extending south. The trail is best at sunrise (crowded) or late afternoon (the best light, slightly less crowded). First dinner at Alan Wong's or Senia for the finest contemporary Hawaiian cuisine in Honolulu.

Pearl Harbor National Memorial, 15km west of Waikiki, is one of the most moving national memorials in the United States. The USS Arizona Memorial, built over the wreck of the battleship sunk on December 7, 1941 (the attack that brought the US into World War II), is accessible by navy boat from the visitor center and preserves the oil that still seeps from the wreck as a rainbow slick on the water. The Battleship Missouri Memorial — the Missouri was the site of Japan's formal surrender on September 2, 1945, ending WWII — provides the physical connection between the attack that began the war and the ceremony that ended it, both in the same harbor. Book tickets well in advance online. The Pacific Aviation Museum on Ford Island has extraordinary preserved WWII aircraft including a Zero. Return to Waikiki for the afternoon at the beach.

Drive the H-2 north to the North Shore —kat Hawaii's legendary surf coast, where the winter swells (November-March) produce the world's most perfect and most powerful waves, surfed by the world's best surfers at Banzai Pipeline, Sunset Beach, and Waimea Bay. In summer the North Shore is completely calm and excellent for snorkeling and swimming; in winter the surf is awe-inspiring (up to 30-foot faces at Pipeline, with the best surfers in the world performing for free from the beach). Haleiwa town is the hub of North Shore life: a former pineapple plantation town with excellent surf shops, art galleries, and the famous Matsumoto Shave Ice — Hawaiian shave ice (not snow cone —kat the ice is shaved to a fine powder, saturated with tropical fruit syrups) is the definitive North Shore food experience. Sunset from Sunset Beach.

Drive the Pali Highway over the Ko'olau Mountains to the Windward Coast —kat the wet, green eastern side of Oahu that catches the trade winds and constitutes the island at its most scenic. The Pali Lookout at the top of the highway provides a 1,000-foot cliff-edge view over the entire Windward Coast and Kaneohe Bay — one of Hawaii's most extraordinary panoramas. Kailua Beach is widely considered the finest beach on Oahu: a 2-mile crescent of light sand, turquoise water, and the Mokulua Islands visible offshore, with excellent kayaking and paddleboarding. The double kayak trip to the Mokulua Islands (2km offshore) allows exploring the sea arches and snorkeling in the protected coves between the islands. Kailua town itself has excellent independent restaurants and boutiques.

Iolani Palace in downtown Honolulu is the only royal palace in the United States — built in 1882 by King Kalakaua as a modern American Florentine palace with electricity and telephones before the White House had them. Queen Liliuokalani was overthrown and imprisoned in this palace in 1893 in the American-backed coup that ended the Kingdom of Hawaii — one of the most important and most shameful chapters of American colonial history. Guided tours convey the full story with great emotional intelligence. The Bishop Museum in Kalihi is the world's finest collection of Hawaiian and Pacific culture — the feathered cloaks, helmets, and war clubs of the Hawaiian chiefs, the extraordinary kapa cloth, and the natural history of the islands are all here. The planetarium's Hawaiian navigation program (how Polynesian wayfinders navigated by stars) is extraordinary.

Hanauma Bay, 15km east of Waikiki in a collapsed volcanic crater, is the finest snorkeling spot on Oahu —kat protected as a Nature Preserve, with coral gardens and an extraordinary abundance of tropical fish accessible from the beach in water of 10-meter visibility. Entry requires advance reservation (limited to preserve the reef, heavily impacted before the permit system). The educational video and pre-entry orientation are genuinely excellent and explain the reef ecosystem and appropriate snorkeling behavior. Return to Waikiki for an afternoon at the beach — rent a surfboard at the Waikiki beach boys for a lesson on the beginner break, or simply watch the parade of humanity and the Diamond Head silhouette in the afternoon light. Final dinner at Nobu Waikiki or Morimoto Asia for Japanese-Hawaii fusion.

Daniel K. Inouye International Airport is the busiest Pacific airport with direct flights to all major US cities, Japan, Australia, and many Pacific destinations. A final Waikiki morning: sunrise walk to the base of Diamond Head while most guests are asleep, breakfast at the Halekulani's House Without a Key (named after the Earl Derr Biggers Charlie Chan novel, set on the terrace with Diamond Head view and live Hawaiian music, it opens at 6:45am). Buy Kona coffee, Hawaiian sea salt (the Molokai red clay-infused variety is extraordinary), macadamia nut butter, and a Ti leaf lei for the journey. Oahu is the gateway to Hawaii and the island that best shows the full complexity of what Hawaii means — not just a paradise beach, but a living culture with a profound and sometimes painful history.