Hawaii

By Tom Passavant In the 1960s, when I was in high school, my father had a tiki bar in the basement of our suburban Ohio home. It had a thatched roof, bamboo sides, and bottles of rum with colorful labels. Little did I know that the parties he and my

  By Tom Passavant Here’s a radical proposal for spending some quality time in Honolulu: head indoors. After all, it does occasionally rain in the islands (mostly in winter), and when it does, there are some very worthwhile alternatives to sitting in your hotel room watching reruns of Blue Hawaii.

By Tom Passavant A few weeks ago, Epicurious, the enormously popular food Web site, predicted that Korean cuisine would be one of the top ten food trends for 2011. “Evidence is mounting that smoky, piquant Korean is America’s next big cuisine,” wrote Epicurious editor in chief Tanya Steel. Well, if

By Tom Passavant Glimpses of authentic Hawaiian culture have a way of popping up in the most unlikely places here in the islands, none more so than smack in the heart of Tourist Central, aka Waikiki. For example, just a stone’s throw from a vast Cheesecake Factory on bustling Kalakaua

by Tom Passavant There are innumerable ways to make your friends jealous when you are in Hawaii and they are not. Especially in winter. They range from the world –famous (the warm sea and flower-scented air, the surfing competitions up on the fabled north shore) to some lesser-known but still

Tom Passavant At first, it’s hard to imagine an odder hotel couple than Marriott and Ian Schrager. But that’s exactly who got hitched when the new Waikiki Edition hotel opened in September. It’s the first in a series of collaborations that will soon produce Editions in Istanbul, Mexico City, Bangkok,

  The Deal: Fairmont Orchid 20% Off Sale The Backstory: Set on some of the best real estate on the Kona Coast, the Orchid gets the Hawaiian beach resort experience right. It has a protected beach, a large meandering pool, and an idyllic palm tree setting that's ideal for serious

This view for $99 a night via craigslist? Photo by Karen Glenn. Interested in renting a one-bedroom cottage with a pool in West Palm Beach for $85 per night? Or maybe a two-bedroom apartment in the Pacific Heights neighborhood of San Francisco for $150 a night? Or perhaps a studio

 The pool at the Kahala Hotel & Resort, Honolulu, Hawaii. The Kahala Hotel & Resort, Honolulu. Hawaii     The Kahala is the very best of Hawaii personified. It opened in 1964 and was expertly refurbished in 2009 to the tune of $52 million. Yet there are still architectural reminders that

Waikiki Beach, with Diamond Head. Photo by Karen Glenn. By Tom Passavant When we walked down to Waikiki beach the morning after arriving at our rented condo in Honolulu, our first thought was "Where did everybody go?" Our second thought, of course, was "Woohoo–we've got Waikiki to ourselves." Early December