The Best of Honolulu

The Halona Blow Hole is a natural geyser formed by volcanic activity thousands of years ago, when lava from the Koko Crater eruptions flowed into the ocean and hardened into underwater tubes. Today, when waves from the Pacific hit the…

Hanauma Bay sits within a volcanic tuff ring formed about thirty-two thousand years ago when a series of steam-driven explosions erupted through the sea floor. Unlike the gentle lava flows that built much of the island, these violent…

Diamond Head State Monument is defined by its massive, circular tuff cone, a geological feature created by a single, explosive volcanic eruption approximately three hundred thousand years ago. Known to Native Hawaiians as Lēʻahi, meaning…

Manoa Falls is a one hundred fifty-foot cascade in the Koolau Mountains of Oahu, where a volcanic stream spills over a sheer rock face into a mist-shrouded pool. The waterfall sits at the end of a one point six-mile trail that winds…

The Nuʻuanu Pali State Wayside is marked by its position atop a sheer, precipitous cliff face where powerful trade winds constantly funnel through the Koʻolau mountain pass. This steep pass has served as a primary transit route between the…

The National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific occupies the interior of Punchbowl Crater, an extinct volcanic tuff cone that rises from the landscape of Honolulu. Known in the Hawaiian language as Puowaina, or Hill of Sacrifice, the crater…

Iolani Palace is a two-story structure of plastered brick, concrete, and iron, distinguished by its American Florentine architectural style. Completed in eighteen eighty-two by King David Kalākaua, it stands as the only official royal…

The Pearl Harbor National Memorial is distinguished by a long, white, bridge-like structure that spans the submerged hull of the battleship USS Arizona. This twenty-one-acre site on the island of Oahu serves to commemorate the surprise…