Some people go for the beaches. Me, I preferred the mountains, and the lush jungles, the grassy plains, the waterfalls, the flowers and the plants.
The temperature is always around 80 degrees (F). Little rainsqualls happen randomly throughout the day, but it doesn't matter as the sun comes out again and dries you quickly. Gentle breezes waft the scents of hundreds of flowers. There are few insects; windows and doors don't have any screens, and air conditioning units are rare. Everywhere you look, in the city and outside, there are plants growing like crazy; palms, banyans, and more ordinary trees, hundreds of varieties.
The architecture is largely uninspired, but the beauty of the land and the vegetation makes Honolulu one of the most beautiful american cities I've been to. Concrete predominates as a building material. Lighter wooden frame buildings are confined to the mountain slopes and less developed areas. Spanish colonial style is surprisingly common. Brick is quite rare, as there are no good local clay deposits.
I stayed at the university, so my stay was not typical of a tourist. The University of Honolulu was the most beautiful of College campuses I've been to.
Unfortunately, all is not well in Hawaii. When the Kingdom was annexed by the USA, the families of the US missionaries and plantation owners siezed the land. As a result, most Hawaiians don't own their own land. Hawaii has one of the most acute housing crisises of any US state. Poverty is also a problem, as things are very expensive there, and rent is very high. The homeless rate is very high (in that way they are most fortunate to have such a nice climate) If you walk past a normal sized house, you will see several mailboxes, indicating that many families are living there.
When my uncle died, they took his ashes out onto the ocean in canoes, and spread them along with flowers out at sea. This is traditional.
I do not believe that there are any native mammals. Bird populations have been devastated by rats, pigs, dogs and cats. Traditional foods include the taro, the breadfruit, along with pigs, introduced by the polynesian settlers.
My first impression flying in were the green mountain slopes, and the ever so blue waters of Pearl Harbor, with the gray bulk of the US warships floating it, looking far too big for the delicately shaped bay. I could clearly see the USS Missouri at its berth, with the white Arizona memorial nearby. Coming in by air is very dramatic for a history lover.