A Tale of Two Hawaiis

Consider: A Hawaiian vacation at one of the world’s great resorts, rich in opulent art (Boteros everywhere you look), verdant flowering topography, amazing swimming pools, a beautiful beach, incredible restaurants, and terrifically comfortable lodgings with commanding views and an amazing array of services.

Or would you prefer a Hawaiian vacation where you encamp on a secluded beach with sweeping views of nothingness and little to do but watch the sun set and wonder how many shooting stars you’ll glimpse that night? A place where you are unlikely to pass two cars on the road in a half-hour, where the natives aren’t particularly sure they like you, where there’s nothing to buy, and even less to do, and the food is probably better at home.

I spent a week this August in both Hawaiis and can vouch that you can have both, just not at once. The first Hawaii is Maui, which remains the easiest Hawaiian island to love. It has more upsides and fewer downsides than its siblings. But love comes at a price: traffic, high prices, and lots of people.

The other Hawaii is Maui’s neighbor—and logical combo for the adventurous tourist—Molokai, arguably a more acquired taste, unless you covet true isolation, informality, and authenticity. On those counts, it rules. Molokai is technically part of Maui County, but the few miles of Pacific that separate it from Maui are symbolically gaping.

Of the islands tourists can visit, Molokai is the most unchanged since statehood and the advent of the jet airplane in 1959. (Its tiny sibling Kahoolawe is uninhabited and Ni’ihau is closed to non-native Hawaiians.) Molokai’s one large resort is shuttered. Its market town, Kaunakakkai, rough and utilitarian.

You can go on a waterfall hike only on Friday and must have a $75 guide. Molokai’s sea cliffs are the world’s highest, but the sea cliff cruise goes only on Saturdays, if you can pull $900 together or five friends to share the cost. Seeing the national park requires an hours-long mule trek or a hike on switchbacks through mule dung. The plumeria plantation, which grows the beautiful flowers that say “Hawaii” in leis and the like, took its sign down because the owner really did not want to show or sell things to visitors, except during his $25 tour at 10 a.m.

I drove every road on Molokai, and all were dotted with signs protesting a plan to construct luxury homes on a tiny corner of land within the privately owned Molokai Ranch, which covers the western 40 percent of the island. SAVE LA’AU, they warned, referring to La’au Point, at Molokai’s southwest end.

Molokai is happy to have you, happy to see your dollars, willing to share its pride in its iconoclasm with you, but it is happiest to bid you farewell and come back soon. Express some interest in buying a $2 million home, well . . . .