Finding Hawai'i: In Search of Paradise on the Big Island

There's a fine line between adventure and cultural immersion, and there's a multi-billion dollar industry sold on this idea. Today's Hawaiian tourists spend their days lounging against the backdrop of shimmering oceans and impossibly blue skies. They unwind at night in their Polynesian-themed hotels, eating dinners covered in pineapples and macadamia nuts. Afterwards, they attend a luau on a back patio illuminated only by citronella tiki torches; the expansive darkness engulfing everything else around them. This is what we think of as Hawai'i, but it's illusory; it is manufactured. Finding Hawai'i chronicles the author's seventeen-day journey through Hawaii's eponymous island and intricately details the history behind its well-known and slightly-more-obscure places. It introduces a beautiful island with a rich and historical culture to those who have never visited and reveals a hidden, darker side of the state for those who have. Finding Hawai'i draws on a variety of sources and juxtaposes early Hawaiian culture and its storied traditions and values with modern-day Hawaiian culture under the pretext of a compelling travel narrative. Throughout the book, you walk with the author through a first-person account of luscious landscapes, hidden towns, and off-beat destinations. We explore how contemporary Hawaiian society has distinctly evolved into one of acculturation and assimilation, but is plagued by homeless, destitution, and addiction. Finding Hawai'i examines the unique ability for Hawai'i, as a state, to showcase a fa?ade of tradition for visiting tourists while concealing, or ignoring, its societal ills in favor of increased tourism and revenue. It is written to allow us to make that connection while creating and maintaining relationships with the number of people we meet throughout our trip.If one thinks of Hawai'i as a zoo, the experience of the every-day visitor begins and ends behind a glass enclosure, or a railing. Finding Hawai'i takes the reader past the barricades and into the den with the lions.