Hawaii travel guide: which island to choose, when to go and how to plan it

Most international flights land in Honolulu. Oahu concentrates the history, with the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor and the Iolani Palace, the only royal palace on US soil, and the city life of Waikiki, at the foot of the Diamond Head crater. The North Shore, an hour to the north, hosts the world's biggest waves from November to February and a string of food trucks. Two to three days are enough before moving to another island.

Maui revolves around Haleakala, a 3,000-metre dormant volcano whose summit sunrise must be booked ahead. The Road to Hana, 600 bends along the east coast, strings together waterfalls, black-sand beaches and bamboo forests. The sunken Molokini crater offers the island's clearest water for snorkelling. Maui is the whale-watching capital in winter. Lahaina, hit by a fire in 2023, is being rebuilt.

The largest and youngest island holds Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, where Kilauea erupts regularly: a steaming crater, a lava tube, a road running down to the ocean. Mauna Kea, 4,200 metres, is climbed by 4x4 to the observatories, under one of the clearest skies on the planet. It also has green and black sand beaches, Kona coffee and the Puuhonua o Honaunau sanctuary. Allow at least four days.

The oldest island is the greenest and wildest. The roadless Na Pali coast is seen by boat, kayak or on foot on the Kalalau trail, whose first kilometres need a permit. Waimea Canyon, nicknamed the Grand Canyon of the Pacific, is toured from overlook to overlook and trail to trail. To the north, Hanalei Bay and its beaches. The Waialeale summit, in the centre, is one of the wettest places on Earth.

Molokai, with no traffic lights, keeps the world's highest sea cliffs and the Kalaupapa peninsula, a former leprosy colony, visited by permit. Lanai, a former pineapple plantation turned private estate with two luxury hotels, mixes Hulopoe beach, the Garden of the Gods rocks and dirt tracks. Both islands are reached by ferry or plane from Maui for those seeking quiet.

The islands are not linked by road: each change means a flight of about 40 minutes, to count in the budget and the plan, with at least three to four nights per island to make the move worthwhile. Hawaii is a kingdom annexed in 1898, and a sovereignty movement remains active. The ideas of aloha and kuleana, responsibility to a place, shape interactions: stay on trails, take nothing, respect sacred sites (heiau). Many travellers arrive via California.