HONOLULU

Hawaii’s capital city is as much Pacific idyll as it is cosmopolitan cool, offering indie shops, fusion food and sunset hulas under banyan trees. Dive in for a microcosm of the islands’ warm aloha spirit.

- Pol O Conghaile

“When a Hawaiian says ‘aloha’, you must respond with energy,” says the guitarist leading a hula group on Kuhio Beach. It’s a word imbued with love, compassion and respect — a catch-all for laid-back island life. It also captures the spirit of Honolulu: a city of shave ice and tropical print shirts, of shady lanais (verandahs), fragrant leis (garlands) and buff beach boys surfing as sunshine smacks off cool, blue water. The skies are bright year-round and the ocean infuses everything, from fresh poke bowls to stories of early voyagers arriving by canoe.

Aloha doesn’t preclude a sense of momentum, however — as evidenced by Honolulu’s lively fusion food scene and the murals of its de facto arts district, Kaka‘ako. The area once defined by warehouses and vacant lots is now home to SALT at Our Kaka‘ako, a trendy mixed-use market and retail space, and is the heart of the annual POW! WOW! Hawaii festival. “POW! means the punch of art,” explains Jeff Gress, a local artist and the festival’s operations director. “WOW! is the reaction.”

Honolulu is huge by Hawaiian standards, but a mere speck compared to other US cities. Its coastal setting on the island of Oahu, dramatised by a cinematic ring of mountains, feels at once like a remote outpost and a bustling Pacific crossroads. It’s a city of traffic snarls and growing pains, but also a place where surfboards lean against office walls and everyone wears slippahs (flip-flops).