The Edge- A picture of the cliffs in to the crystal clear water below at the most southern point of the united states in South Point, Hawaii. Photo by Travis Crane

 I went  away for a short while on the other side of the world in what seems to be America’s own isolated little brother; yes, I just vacationed in Hawaii.

On the way to this “paradise,” I was not sure what to expect. We were told we were staying in a cottage. I thought, okay, it’s not that bad; I planned on going to the beach all day anyway. Well, the

nearest beach was a 10 minute drive away- a beach with miniature volcanic rocks instead of sand. Fun to walk on? Not so much. Then there’s the water.

  Not  saying that the water didn’t impress; it certainly did. The water on Big Island (Hawaii) was crystal clear, and it blows Ocean City away.  Now, the rocks- oh, the rocks- made it impossible to even get into the water, so I didn’t even try.

  The natives, on the other hand, loved it. I suppose living on a giant volcanic rock for their entire lives trains their feet to get tough. Without any hard calluses on my own feet, my mind wandered where I could find a map to find the nice beaches. Of course, I found them, but they maybe were not what one would expect.

  Of course there were nice beaches there, it’s Hawaii! But to my chagrin more of them were less likeable than not. On Big Island, the nice beaches were attached to the resorts (which we were not staying in), so we had to search a little harder. We ended up finding a couple of beaches with a little nicer sand and amazing water, it was just a lot of driving. Like 25 hours of driving within a week to go to beaches.

  The Hawaii everyone sees in beautiful advertisements is nothing like where I was. Therefore, in order to get to the nice beaches, we had to drive an hour and a half to the City of Kona. Here comes the geography lesson.

 The Big Island, most well-known as Hawaii, is the most south and is the largest island among the patch of tropical mounds of lava-land in the Pacific. It is also the youngest. There are three major cities on Big Island; Kona, Hilo, and Waimea.

  Hilo was an hour’s drive from where we were staying, Kona was an hour and a half, and Waimea was about three hours. These cities all have their own feel to them. I did not make it all the way to

Waimea on the northern tip of the island,mainly because I did not want to make the drive. Hilo on the east side of the island was a more native city.

 Hilo wasn’t the nicest, nor was it the worst. It was an average city. There were some taller business buildings, though not many, a ton of little shops (I even bought a ukulele), and some nice restaurants here. There were no nice beaches, but the water was still nice; however, I did not swim there.

  Kona was one of the most amazing places I have been in my life. It is the more tourist- friendly city, sitting on the west coast of the island. The beaches were sandy, the water was crystal clear, everything was beautiful, yet it was all so different, and not necessarily in a good way.

  There were countless amounts of seemingly ‘displaced’ people all over the place. Some of them were just travelers living off the land, and some just seemed homeless. It was difficult to tell the difference. This was mainly because many of the seemingly “homeless” people were just drifters from the mainland that came to Hawaii to live off the land. These were the people sleeping in tents and trees on the beaches. Obviously those aren’t the conventional homes I was used to, and for all I know, that’s the norm there. I didn’t worry too much about it.

  There were also a lot of fruit markets and such, which was a fun experience because I got to see all the native produce and what not, but it was also hard to tell if the people selling the fruit were just doing it as a side job or if it was their living.

  To some, Hawaii is a paradise getaway, and in a sense, it definitely is, depending on where one goes. However, one’s perspective of any paradise can be completely changed in reality.

 My advice: Unless one is planning to stay in Kona, do not go to Big Island or Hawaii as it is natively called. I would recommend maybe visiting Maui, Honolulu, etc.,which are the more tourist friendly areas and are the real paradises on the Hawaiian islands.