Honolulu

The sand was not born here but shipped and trucked in. When surf pulls it out, the beach is topped up every few years. A reef offshore lays the swell down before it lands, so beginners learn here. Groynes and walls hold it, so currents differ by section.

A single eruption threw up this ring of hardened ash, and the path starts inside it. Partway along come an unlit tunnel and a tight spiral stair where you press to the wall to let people pass. Anyone from outside the state needs booking for an entry time.

The sunken ship was left where she lies and a white structure set across her. Oil still works its way out of the hull and spreads rainbow film on the water. You cross by navy boat and no other, and bags are not allowed aboard, so luggage waits on shore.

One wall of a crater gave way and the sea came in, leaving water so shallow that fish show from above. A daily cap applies, entry needs booking online only, and the bay shuts two days a week. Before going down you watch a film about not standing on coral.

Only one royal palace still stands on American soil. Electric light went in during 1887, ahead of the White House. In 1895 Queen Liliuokalani was held in a second-floor room here, and the quilt she pieced together in that confinement is on show.

It was founded in 1889 to hold what the last princess of the royal line left behind. The three-storey hall is ringed with galleries built of koa wood, and inside the glass hangs a chief's cloak worked from tens of thousands of bird feathers.

Wind funnels through the notch hard enough to push you backwards, so keep a hand on your hat. This is also the ledge where Kamehameha's army drove the defenders of Oahu in 1795.

Railway sleepers laid by the military were left in place and now make over a thousand steps. Halfway up a stretch of them bridges empty air, and a missed foot goes straight through. Nothing shades the steps, so most people start before sunrise.

An American heiress built tilework and carved panels collected across the Islamic world into her own house. Entry needs booking on a coach from the art museum downtown, not by car. Drop the living-room glass wall and the sea and Diamond Head open up whole.

Swell pushes into a lava tube and fires a column of water out of a hole in the rock, but tide and surf must line up, so on a calm day nothing rises. The cove below takes its waves straight onto the sand, and signs there order you out of the water.

Roughly 20 minutes of climbing on the ridge east of Kailua brings you to concrete pillboxes from World War II. From their roofs the twin Mokulua islets sit offshore. The bare-earth path turns greasy when wet, and many time the climb for sunrise.

A bay on Oahu's North Shore. In winter, house-sized waves roll in and big-wave surf contests are sometimes held. In summer the same water turns lake-calm and people queue to jump off the rock. Parking is tight, and spaces are gone early in the morning.

A ranch on Oahu's windward coast; Jurassic Park was filmed in its inner Kaaawa Valley. It is private land and entry takes a booked tour, riding a bus or off-road vehicle between film locations.

A copy of the Phoenix Hall at Byodo-in in Uji, Japan, built in 1968 inside the cemetery grounds of the Valley of the Temples. Visitors may strike the big bell themselves, and the pond is thick with koi. With the mountains right behind, rain comes often.

A paved uphill path runs to the island's eastern point, ending above a red-roofed lighthouse. The path has no shade at any point, so skip midday. In winter humpback whales are commonly seen spouting offshore.

A cultural park at Laie in the northeast, laid out as six island villages such as Samoa, Tonga, Fiji and Aotearoa. Students from the next-door university staff it. Usually shut Sundays and Wednesdays. Come in late afternoon to stay for the evening fire show.

About an hour's walk there and back through rainforest at the head of Manoa Valley reaches a tall waterfall. Rain falls often in the valley and the trail stays muddy, so wear shoes you can get wet. Several film jungle scenes were shot in this forest.

A visitor plantation on pineapple land on the Wahiawa plateau, halfway between Honolulu and the North Shore. A big maze is planted in tropical shrubs, and a small train loops the fields. It sits on the road to the North Shore, so many stop on the way.