The moment the helicopter begins its wobbly ascent over Kauai’s Makaleha Mountains, just as wind starts to pound through the cockpit, plastering my clothes to my body, I remember something: I’m not a real fan of flying.
That, and the fact that the doors are missing for added excitement, didn’t seem to be problems when I was still on the ground. My fear soon gives way, though, as Kauai’s mist-shrouded mountains, patchwork taro fields and endless waterfalls play out below me.

Just what I need after the adrenaline-charged chopper ride is some time in a laid-back surfer town. I fear they are taking the laid-back vibe a bit too far when I check into my oceanfront room at the Hanalei and see no telephones or TV. I briefly long for the white knuckles of the chopper, but the crashing waves of the Pacific bring me down to earth and I’m soon thankful for the lack of interference. Nature, man. I dig it.

Kauai revels in its role as the wild outpost of the Hawaiian Islands. The next day, I take to the open roads to see more of it. Although the island doesn’t feel small, you can drive around the better part of Kauai in just a few hours. Wild, bright-coloured chickens are everywhere, all over the roads, their tasty-looking presence occasionally distracting me from the spectacular vistas that present themselves with disconcerting regularity on the highway.
One place you cannot drive is the Napali Coast. Napali, meaning “many cliffs,” is all that and more, and remote enough to be only accessible by air, boat or foot. Since “foot” sounded like more work than the other two, we took a catamaran. In the span of a morning we encounter giant green sea turtles (there’s a $10,000 fine if you so much as touch one—though I suspect the turtle’s lawyer might takes 40 percent), spinner dolphins and some less-adorable ocean denizens. During a snorkelling break, because of my irrational fear of ocean predators and a finely honed survival instinct, I am careful to stick close to a gentleman shaped like a giant rump roast. Whether we are hiking, kayaking or boating, Kauai’s guides are universally well versed in Polynesian lore. I learn that every rock outcropping is actually an ill-fated Kauaian frozen for all eternity for what seems, honestly, like relatively minor transgressions.

Going back to civilization means hitting the island’s major resort area, Poipu. At the Grand Hyatt, there are TVs and phones aplenty, but my interest level in such amenities has waned. Instead I head out to the resort’s Shipwreck Beach, where the waves are big enough to bodysurf (or actually surf). Some kid nearly surfed over my head, and then was good enough to point at me and my lack of a surfboard and call to his friend, “Hey dude, I almost surfed over this guy’s head!” Dejected, I head back to shore, where I find solace in the parrots with which we’re sharing the resort.

That night, over a really fresh chicken dinner, my Ohian server waxes on about his adopted home. Every second Kauaian seemed to be from someplace else—the porter from Colorado, the executive from California, the botanist from New Jersey—all with one common thread: they were lured for a vacation by the siren call of this place. And they never left.

I can think of worse fates; at least they weren’t turned to stone.