Waikiki Deserves a Second Look

Waikiki is where the American beach vacation was more or less invented, and sophisticated travelers have been performing their disdain for it almost as long, which the regulars find amusing, because the regulars know the secret. Behind the crowds and the concrete stands one of the great urban beaches on earth, warm year round, ridable by beginners on waves that break gently for half a mile, framed by Diamond Head, and anchored by grand hotels that were receiving guests when the island was still a territory. Everything below assumes four or five nights.

The two grand dames are the point, the white colonial one from 1901 that started everything, with its banyan courtyard on the sand, and the pink Spanish-Moorish palace from 1927 beside it. Booking one of them, in the historic wings, turns Waikiki from a beach trip into an institution visit. For the resort alternative, the lagoons at Ko Olina on the island's dry leeward side hold the Four Seasons and its neighbors, a calm and polished world half an hour from town that suits families and long stays.

The waves at Waikiki are the gentlest classroom in surfing, and taking a lesson from the beachboys, the guild that has taught visitors on these breaks for a century, is the correct first morning. After it, the routine sets itself, ocean before breakfast, shade at midday, and the late swim as the sun drops behind the boats. The reef walk toward Diamond Head at low tide and the outrigger canoe rides off the beach carry the variations.

Honolulu is a real Pacific capital wearing a resort's clothes, and leaving the beach for it pays. The memorial at Pearl Harbor asks for a reserved morning and full attention. Chinatown holds the city's oldest streets and its most alive eating, the palace downtown is the only royal one on American soil, and the climb up Diamond Head itself, early, before the heat, delivers the postcard from above.

The city eats across the whole Pacific, and the visitor should follow, poke from the fish counters, saimin at the lunch counters that have served three generations, plate lunch eaten on a beach wall, and one dressed-up dinner at the hotels' flagship rooms with the tiki torches lit. The shave ice institutions require no reservation and permit no substitutions to their rituals.

Winter is the season for the mainland refugee, warm water and whales offshore while home freezes, and it books accordingly. Reserve the Pearl Harbor tickets and the serious dinners ahead, learn the one-hour time cost of the airport rental car queue, and give the beach its mornings, when the light is gold and the crowds are still at breakfast.

On the last evening, swim out past the surf line at sunset and turn around, treading water, to look back at the beach, the torches, and Diamond Head going purple. That exact view has been closing the deal since 1901, and it has not lost a negotiation yet.